Florida hoteliers urged to use bp
As the first clumps of Tar from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill began washing up on Florida's beaches, the state's governor, Charlie Crist, this week encouraged affected hoteliers to claim compensation from BP...
Mr Crist's intervention came following a new round of cancelled hotel bookings. An economic recovery task force has been set up to look at ways of minimising the financial effects of the spill.
Tourism officials had hoped that an aggressive marketing campaign launched soon after the BP-funded Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in April would convince holidaymakers that Florida was untouched by the catastrophe and very much "open for business".
But some hotels in the state's Panhandle, nearest to the disaster area, say their earnings for June will be close to 60 per cent lower than normal, while others in Florida's $65 billion-a-year tourist industry say that, even if they survive the economic damage, it could be years before things return to normal.
"With a hurricane, you know it's coming, it blows in, you repair the damage and you know you'll be back in business," said Bob Zales, owner of the Zodiac Fleet of sightseeing and fishing charter boats, based in Panama City.
"Right now we're not 100 per cent certain we will be back in business. This is new territory for all of us."
More than 50 days into the crisis, leaders of the state's official tourism body, Visit Florida, say the overall environmental impact has so far been negligible, despite recent incidents of Tar washing up on beaches. To date there have been no beach closures, and last weekend clean-up teams quickly removed Tar balls that came ashore at Perdido Key and neighbouring Pensacola Beach. Along 663 miles of beaches, there is only a six-mile stretch with "no swimming" notices.
Yet bookings remain "sluggish" in the coastal towns of northwest Florida as the crucial summer season begins and almost all hotels have eased cancellation policies to try to retain business.
"There's a lot of anxiety," said Laura Lee, communications director of Visit Pensacola. "We had another wave of cancellations when the oil started coming ashore and we're not getting a lot of new reservations for the rest of the summer."
Pensacola Beach has one of more than 30 live webcams from around the state linked to the website visitflorida.com to show that beaches are open.
Shawn Kennington, visiting Pensacola on holiday from Pittsburg, Texas, said: "The water is not perfect, but we are able to enjoy our vacation and the kids can swim and build sand-castles and hunt crabs at night and sea shells on the beach. It is still far from a disaster."
A study by the University of Central Florida calculates that almost 200,000 jobs and $10.9 billion in tourism-related revenue could be lost if the slick delivers a direct hit along the full length of Florida's Gulf Coast.
Elsewhere, Grand Isle Beach, Louisiana, remains closed, and there are fears that the disaster might spread beyond US shores. Meteorologists from AccuWeather.com have given warning that pieces of the slick are breaking off and entering Florida's loop current, which could carry them in the coming weeks to popular beaches in the Bahamas, including Freeport and Nassau.
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk