Florida’s $82 Billion Tourism Industry Braces for Zika

By KAREN SCHWARTZ AUG. 3, 2016



A county mosquito control worker sprays a home in the Wynwood area of Miami, where there is now a square-mile travel advisory for pregnant women.CreditAlan Diaz/Associated Press

After enduring the years of ups and downs that came with being a part of Wynwood’s transformation from a struggling warehouse district into Miami’s hot new neighborhood, the restaurateur Ivette Naranjo thought the worst was behind her.

Her Cafeina Wynwood Lounge hosted large events for HBO, Absolut and Audi, where up to 600 hipsters could drink and dance to a DJ spinning vinyl in the garden. On weekends, an even mix of locals and tourists sipped cocktails with names like Hot Passion and critiqued the art in the adjacent gallery.

Then came Zika.
After Friday’s announcement that mosquitoes carrying the virus had been found in a square mile of Wynwood, this past Saturday was her worst night ever.

“Usually we have from 250 to 350 people a night in the summer, and we had about 40 people come in,” Ms. Naranjo said.

The news grew worse on Monday, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued the first Zika travel advisory in the United States, cautioning pregnant women to avoid Wynwood.
Though the warning comes in August, traditionally a slow season for tourism in Miami, it does coincide with the time that many travelers are looking to make their plans for winter vacations. It has left hoteliers and others in the travel industry nervous that the warning will dampen Florida’s $82 billion tourism industry.

Hotel chains declined to release figures for the week, but travel agents said they received many inquiries, but that only a few people changed plans.

Zika Virus

Monday’s initial rush of 30 canceled reservations withOvation Vacations in New York, decreased to eight on Tuesday and none on Wednesday, said its president, Jack Ezon.

Most were families or young couples, he said, echoing the experience of Kristen Korey Pike, the founder of KK Travels Worldwide in Atlanta, who said the handful of cancellations her agency received mostly came from pregnant women and young couples.

If travelers’ reactions to the virus in Florida mirrors their attitude to the much larger outbreak of Zika in the Caribbean, the immediate effect may be pronounced, followed by a slight rebound in interest among prospective visitors. Business travel, however, may decline.

When the Zika virus began spreading throughout the Caribbean in January, the C.D.C. warned pregnant women and those planning to become pregnant against traveling to affected areas, including destinations like Puerto Rico and Barbados, as well as Mexico, Brazil and Panama. The effect was almost immediate. Many airlines, cruise lines and hotels implemented refund policies for travelers who wanted to change their plans.

Throughout the year, the number of people searching for flights to Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Barbados and Jamaica would drop after each new report from the C.D.C., but would eventually bounce back. By early July, searches for those countries were at their highest level for the year, said Spencer MacDonald, a spokesman for the internet travel site liligo.com.

Still, looking is not the same as buying, and an 11 percent increase in hotel bookings in Puerto Rico in January was followed by declines of 3 percent in February, 5 percent in March, and 4 percent in April, the most recent month for figures, according to Ingrid I. Rivera-Rocafort, the executive director of the Puerto Rico Tourism Company.

Hotels in the Caribbean took a hit in the first four months of 2016 — partly because of the Zika virus, according to the consulting and analytics division at STR, a data company specializing in hotels. Occupancy decreased 3 percent to 72.9 percent compared with the same period in 2015.

Looking ahead, Ms. Rivera-Rocafort of the Puerto Rico agency said that 41,000 room nights were canceled over the next two years, for a loss of $28 million.

Not included in those figures is a conference for 600 people by the American Lighting Association, which in June called off its annual conference, scheduled for the El Conquistador in Puerto Rico in September.

“Bottom line: We didn’t want to put any one person at risk,” said Eric Jacobson, the president of the trade group. Its 2017 conference is in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Other warm-weather destinations are also likely to host fewer conferences in coming years.

The Bahamas had 23 medical conferences scheduled for 2016, and has only eight thus far for next year. Costa Rica had 29 this year and has 10 for next year, the Dominican Republic had five for this year and none for next, and Florida has 1,404 for this year, and only 455 scheduled so far for next, according to figures provided by Priya Korrapati, founder of eMedEvents, which lists more than 50,000 medical conferences worldwide on its website.

Even though events can be added, most are announced at least six months in advance.

“We do see a reduction in the number of conferences being announced in places affected by Zika for the year 2017,” Ms. Korrapati said from her office in Colorado.

Among leisure travelers, some trips are being postponed until couples are done having children.

Aiyana Spahr, 33, and her husband, Erik, canceled their planned getaway from the cold of Hollis, N.H., to St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands in February after learning she was pregnant with their second, and final, child.

“We thought about traveling to different places when we canceled our St. John trip, but I didn’t even want to risk going to Florida, so we just decided to put it off,” she said. “The baby is due at the end of the month, so we are hoping to basically do the trip to St. John some time in December or February.”

Jim Bendt, the chief executive of Pique Travel Design in Minneapolis, said he too was finding that families were reassured once they learned that the C.D.C. guidelines apply only to those who are pregnant or plan to start a family.

While he did have a cancellation this week from a couple scheduled to go on their honeymoon in Miami, others are continuing to plan trips to areas with Zika.

Jet Blue said it would issue refunds or rebook the flights of passengers traveling to any Zika-affected areas, including Miami.

But, some airlines are not issuing refunds for Miami flights, even to pregnant women. “The C.D.C. is not telling people not to travel to Miami — they are saying that pregnant women should avoid the Wynwood area of Miami so we don’t see the need to offer refunds,” said an American Airlines spokesman, Ross Feinstein.

Mr. Ezon said he believed that there would be “opportunities” for travelers unconcerned about the virus, but not until after the peak, Christmas-New Year period.

During the holiday, “They may relax minimum night stays, but I don’t think they are going to reduce price,” he said.

In the longer term, the travel industry in Florida will start to look at ways to attract baby boomers, and gay couples who don’t want children, Mr. Ezon said.

Ms. Naranjo, whose seven-year-old lounge won the 2016 Best Party Venue from the newspaper Miami New Times, is looking at ways to hold onto business.

She is moving guests from the garden to the indoor lounge, and hopes that things calm down when corporate events resume in October after the summer lull.

And she is quick to note that Wynwood is getting the bulk of the mosquito eradication attention.

“We should be the safest neighborhood in all of Miami in a week,” she said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/04/us...i-tourism.html