Gulf still enticing some

Beaches emptier, but state travelers find few ills

BY LINDSAY RUEBENS

LITTLE ROCK — The BP oil spill didn’t just invade the Gulf of Mexico and its wildlife - it’s also
poisoned business for Gulf Coast beaches that depend on revenue from tourists in the summer
months.

“We have had several phone calls from people who usually vacation there but are thinking of
doing something different,” said Laura Childress, owner of All About Travel Inc. in Little Rock.

Childress said Arkansans who typically travel to the Gulf have instead been turning their
attention to traveling outside the country.

“There are not a lot of beaches in the United States like the panhandle or Gulf area, so people
are looking at the Bahamas and Mexico,” she said.

But not all Arkansans have given up hope on Gulf Coast vacations, and some say the results
have been surprising.

“I can honestly tell you I don’t think the water’s been any clearer or the beach been any cleaner
than right now,” said Gary Harpole, operations director for the city of Jonesboro, while visiting
Destin, Fla., last week. “It’s absolutely gorgeous.”

Harpole, who has been visiting Destin with his family every summer since 1989, said a family
friend who lives there alleviated his concerns about possible oil problems by giving him updates
of the beach’s conditions.

“I haven’t seen a speck of oil anywhere in the water on the beach anywhere at all,” he said.

Harpole did notice fewer travelers in Destin.

“It’s nothing like a typical July,” he said. “At a restaurant on Monday evening, that typically in the
middle of July you’d wait an hour or an hour and a half to get seated, we were seated
immediately.”

Gerrie Sanders of Hot Springs Village recently returned from a family vacation to Orange Beach
and Gulf Shores, Ala., and said she and her family had a great time.

“There’s no reason for anybody to cancel, the beaches are gorgeous,” Sanders said.

“BP has hundreds of people on the beach walking up and down the beach not really doing much
of anything because there was nothing there.”

She said that the water was off-limits in Alabama but that the beach was still accessible. She
and her family drove over to the National Seashore in Florida, she said, and one day they had to
get out of the water because of oil.

“All of a sudden a lifeguard said, ‘It’s coming at us, so head out,’ and we did,” Sanders said. “It’ll
come in and it’ll be a nasty day and then the next day will be OK. It’s not nearly as bad as the
media is portraying it.”
Sanders said she felt compelled to go through with a family vacation on the Gulf even after the
oil spill because she feels that the local business owners depend on tourists. She said prices
have dropped significantly because so many people have canceled trips.

“The owner of our condo gave us back a couple of hundred dollars from the price and said they
just appreciated us coming in and sticking with them,” she said.

Beaches across the Gulf have set up a number of different strategies to attract business.

Gulf Shores and Orange Beach in Alabama have turned to the Internet to encourage tourism,
said Kim Chapman, public relations manager for Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Tourism.

“We forecasted that we’d be down about 50 percent for the summer,” Chapman said of
business generated from vacationers. “To counter that, we created a Web page called
thebeachfacts.com, and that’s mainly driven by the idea that there’s a lot of misinformation out
there.”

She said that the site provides daily beach updates via YouTube videos and that the beaches’
tourism offices have also been using online media, particularly social-networking sites, to reach
travelers.

Chapman said there was a Jimmy Buffett concert July 11 to promote tourism and that there are
plans to line up some big country music acts in the future. She added that they are also focusing
on other attractions for families, including water parks and a zoo.

On Monday, Panama City Beach hosted Michelle Obama, who visited to show her support of
the tourism industry in the Gulf.

Dan Rowe, president and chief executive officer of the Panama City Beach Convention and
Visitors Bureau, said Obama met with tourism leaders, gave a speech on the beach, walked
barefoot in the sand and got ice cream.

“In lending her voice to the needs of the tourism industry, we believe she’ll be able to propel us
forward, more so than any other spokesperson we could have had ... and I think we’ll have long-
term benefits from it,” Rowe said.

He said the oil spill has hardly affected vacationers this summer.

“Right now there is no oil at all on Panama City Beach, and it really has been that way for a
couple of weeks,” he said. “There was a week long period when we’d get sporadic tar balls on
the beach during the day, but the speed was amazing in which BP contractors were getting the
beach clean.”

He said many renting out vacation property received cancellations but responded by offering
vacation-guarantee programs, which give visitors their money back and credit for a future stay if
the oil spill interrupted their vacation.

There are about 25 digital billboards in the southeast promoting vacations at Panama City
Beach, Rowe said, as well as a promotion called “Summer of Fun,” which includes weekend
events such as a beach block party that was scheduled for Saturday and a family-friendly pirate
festival next weekend.

He said Panama City Beach has also started a “Random Acts of Appreciation” campaign to
thank people forvisiting by randomly handing out gift certificates from local businesses.
Similarly in Destin, there is a campaign where many employees in local businesses are being
trained to thank customers for visiting, said Elizabeth Spies, vice president of communication for
the Destin Area Chamber of Commerce.

“We’re all working together publicizing photos and videos, and we also put together 12 Things to
Do in Destin While on Vacation - not necessarily focusing on the beach - but showing all our
other amenities like the water park, golf courses, shopping, restaurants,” Spies said.

Arkansans have already been hearing about why they should visit the Gulf if they’ve been
tuning in to the local FM radio stations KSSN, KDJE or Tom FM.

“Our company decided to do something to help out, and it’s a collective effort from the company
and our stations around the country to run some public service announcements to try to help the
Gulf Coast and the people down there who are suffering,” said Chad Heritage, operations
manager for Clear Channel Communications Inc., which owns the local radio stations.

He said the recorded public service announcement is played on those stations about four to five
times a day.

“It’s just talking about the people down there who are still open for business,” he said, “because
as you know there are a lot of people down here from Arkansas who vacation down there.”
This article was published today at 3:15 a.m.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 07/18/2010