Lee County tourism officials presented an optimistic picture of the area's lure for vacationers Thursday, backing more money for a tram and ball fields, but were warned that water quality issues may muddy more than the coastline.
Members of the county Tourism Development Council voted Thursday to increase spending on new baseball fields at the Player Development Complex in Dunbar, and to pay 75 percent of the cost of adding a third tram trail for the service that helps visitors get around Fort Myers Beach and San Carlos Island.
The council also received rosy pictures of hotel occupancy rates, which increased by nearly 6 percent, reaching 87 percent of capacity during the tourism season that usually goes from October to May.
However, a new member of the council, Sanibel City Councilwoman Holly Smith, said water quality issues are threatening to diminish the region's attractiveness to tourists, especially in the off season.
She warned of the risk of disappointing visitors who could be inclined to invest in a winter home.
"When people come down to visit, there is a next step, they come down for a week, then they come for a month and the next thing, they're buying a place," Smith said. "They're on our tax rolls, so that's a huge consideration."
Smith, who with her husband operates hotels in Cape Coral and Fort Myers, said tales of red tide and murky water can drive people away.
"What we're finding is people calling, (asking) what's the water look like. At times you can have somebody cancel their reservation," Smith said in an interview after the meeting. "We're just coming on to our rainy season and we've already had massive releases, our concern is those releases — how big they're going to be over the next six weeks."
County Commissioner Cecil Pendergrass, who chairs the Tourism Development Council, was just back from Washington and a briefing for members of Congress on harmful algae blooms and continued discharge of water from Lake Okeechobee.
He noted comments that he has heard from tourists, including "emotional pleas" from disappointed visitors who couldn't walk the beach or who had vacations disrupted when children with asthma suffered the effects of the invading red tide.
"I was trying to get that point across to the delegation, this is important to us," Pendergrass said. "This is also our backyard, a lot of people live on this water, it's very important to support our efforts to stop this."
Tourism up in 2018
Overall, the 2018 tourist season brought 1.3 million people to the region, 790,000 staying in paid accommodations, the rest with family or friends, according to a study commissioned by the Lee County Visitor and Convention Bureau. That represents an increase of 3.3 percent compared to the 2017 season.
This year's visitors also spent more. The study by Davidson/Peterson Associates, a Portland, Maine-based consulting group, estimated tourism spending increased by more than 4 percent this year, as the winter arrivals spent about $1.2 billion. Also noted in the study was dissatisfaction with the county's traffic problems, 54 percent of visitors surveyed calling it the worst part of their visit.
The council voted to spend more money to drive increased sports tourism in Lee County. Members backed another $3.3 million to expand the county's sports tourism effort, by further development of the player development complex on Edison Avenue.
Additional funding brings the expenditures on expanding the baseball complex to $9 million. The money will be spent to build as many as eight new ballfields and related facilities on an 82-acre parcel leased from the city of Fort Myers. Lights will be installed on the five fields already in use at the complex.
"Nobody has the quality of the fields that we do here in Lee County," Parks and Recreation Director Jesse Lavender said.
Expanded baseball facilities is part of the county sports tourism effort to draw more visitors to hotels, restaurants and other attractions.
A 2017 study by Victus Advisors, a Utah consulting firm, urged the county to build more athletic fields and install lights to maximize their use.
Assistant County Manager Dave Harner said recently that placing fields in close proximity to each other, such as in the plan for the player development complex, helps increase the county's appeal to events conducted in a tournament format, in which teams rotate fields and opponents over multiple days.
Free rides a success
The county will also boost spending on the Fort Myers Beach tram after what tourism officials said was a successful inaugural season.
Offered as a free service, the tram handled 108,587 passengers during beach season, a figure offset by a decline of more than 20,000 paying passengers on the Farebox-funded beach trolley.
The number of people using all of LeeTran's seasonal routes, which also includes the beach park and ride service, increased by nearly 30 percent in the 2018 season.
The tourism council voted to spend more money for the long-term viability of the beach tram, by $130,000 to pay for a third train to be held as a backup. The tourism council pays 75 percent of the cost, reflecting the portion of the stops that are at beach access points.
Bed tax receipts up
A $19.9 million Visitor and Convention Bureau budget for the 2018-19 fiscal year was approved, an increase of less than 2 percent over the budget adopted for 2017-18.
Spending was increased during the year, with $500,000 in marketing expenses after Hurricane Irma the biggest added expense.
An additional $175,000 was spent to plug new non-stop airline service to Southwest Florida International Airport by Germany-based Eurowings in May. A 40 percent decline in Germans taking accommodations in the county last season was partially attributed to Air Berlin's suspension of direct service to Fort Myers.
Income from the county's 5 percent bed tax is estimated to reach $42.5 million this year, an increase of 7 percent over the 2016-17 receipts. The council used a slightly lower figure, $41 million, in its revenue projections for next year.
The county commissioners must give final approval to the council spending as part of the overall Lee County budget.