CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Hotel operators along North Beach are definitely hoping to get the word out that they’re open for business as the beaches are deserted after a close call with Hurricane Beryl.
3NEWS found very few people on the beach and not many cars in the parking lots of any North Beach hotel. Inside the Doubletree by Hilton, you could have any window seat you wanted or any restaurant table. That, after the county ordered all tourists to leave town over Fourth of July holiday weekend -- one of the busiest weekends of the year in the tourism business -- because of the threat Beryl posed to the Coastal Bend.
"In the aftermath of a near miss the most important thing is to get the word back out to everybody reassuring everybody that we’re open for business, the beaches are great," Regional Manager for the Doubletree by Hilton David Priutt said. "In fact, this might be one of the best times and one of the few times in the summer you can have the beach almost entirely to yourself."
President and CEO of the Port Aransas Tourism Bureau Brett Stawar said Port A hotels, restaurants and shops also suffered heavy losses because of the evacuation of tourists.
"Millions and millions of dollars were impacted here in Port Aransas over the couple of days we had and now we’re just gaining our momentum back to get that growth to continue to stay here in Port A," Stawar said.
Port Aransas officials say bookings for this coming weekend are looking good.
Pruitt also believes tourism numbers are about to skyrocket.
”Probably what we call pent-up demand will occur where all the people who couldn’t travel before they still have to squeeze that vacation in before school gets back," he said.
Ensuring that having the whole beach to yourself is about to come to an end as waves of tourists should be back in town soon.
President of Operations for ZJZ Hospitality -- one of the largest hoteliers in the Coastal Bend -- gave 3NEWS the following statement:
"ZJZ Hospitality owns and operates several hotels in the coastal bend area including Corpus Christi, Port Aransas, Portland, and Ingleside.
The majority of our ZJZ properties lost significant occupancy and revenue between Saturday and Today, but we won’t know the full impact yet because it usually takes about a week for travel to resume after weather events such as Beryl.
Our Portland & Ingleside properties did see a slight decline; however, a couple of our other properties in Port Aransas saw 100% cancellation due to their locations near the beach. Our Corpus Christi hotels also saw a significant decline. Overall, our portfolio of hotels lost nearly 40% occupancy and 35% in revenue versus what we would normally bring in during this time of the year.
Until Beryl struck, we were anticipating an increase in July numbers, so we will have to see how quickly the month bounces back. In June, Tropical Storm Alberto caused a lot of rain over several days, which also resulted in decreased occupancy and revenues over what normally would have been high demand days. So, overall, we have seen a decline since the memorial weekend with not only our portfolio of hotels, but it's across the coastal bend.
I'm on the Corpus Christi Tourism Public Improvement District (TPID) Board and have been in communications with the VCC team. They have shifted a good portion of their digital marketing to target people that have booked in Galveston recently with the hopes of getting them to Corpus Christi.
We are grateful that Beryl did not hit our area, but our hearts go out to those were impacted."