GULF SHORES, AL (RNN) - One year after the Gulf Coast oil disaster created an environmental and economic mess for area beaches, communities and tourist attractions, one very important question remains for many along the coast: Will the tourists return?
It's a question tourism officials hope they will be able to answer in the affirmative as they try to once again sell the beach as a pristine, oil-free vacation destination.
"What we're doing is going back to the people who know us and love us. We know they're the most likely to come back with the least amount of convincing," said Mike Foster with the Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau.
"We're saying, 'We understand you couldn't come last year. We don't hold it against you.'"
While much of last year's advertising was aimed at what families could do away from the sand- a "rainy day" kind of approach - this year, Gulf Shores tourism officials hope to draw people back to their bread and butter - the white beaches and warm Gulf waters.
The Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau has launched TV and radio ads in several markets throughout the southeast, hoping to lure back some of the estimated one million visitors who opted to cancel their Alabama Gulf Coast vacation or chose a different location after the April 20, 2010 oil spill.
"[We want to convey] the message that the sand's still white, and we're open for business," Foster said. "I think a realistic goal is to get 50-60 percent back [this year] and hopefully get the rest back the following year."
They know they're fighting a battle of perception. Word of mouth from people who do come back to the coast is as valuable as dollars spent on advertising.
"That's the only way you're going to believe - to see it yourself, or to have a very trusted friend who says 'The beach is white, the fish is great,'" Foster said.
Finding a big draw
One linchpin to bringing people to the Alabama coast is the Hangout Music Festival, held May 20-22. The festival, in its second year, puts concert goers right on the sand, literally feet from the water, for three days of music featuring headlining bands like Paul Simon, Widespread Panic, The Black Keys and the Foo Fighters.
It's quickly becoming an event on-par with much better-known festivals like Coachella and Bonaroo.
"We've sold tickets in all 50 states, including Alaska and Hawaii," said Shaul Zislin, founder of the Hangout Music Fest. "We're selling tickets in California. Our California sales are about 10 times more than they were last year. New York is a large draw for us right now."
"We feel very good about the exposure we're giving the area. If you polled these people, I'd say 50 percent of them didn't know Alabama has a resort area. We're hoping to help people fall in love with the area. There aren't a lot of places like this left in the country."
The wheels were already in motion to bring the festival to Gulf Shores before the oil spill, but last year's festival, held less than a month after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, showcased the tiny tourist town at a time many were wary to take a chance and spend their vacation dollar there.
"When everybody was fighting the media attention in terms of the effect of the oil spill, we created a lot of ambassadors of good will," Zislin said.
This year's lineup features bigger names and a bigger slate of artists. Zislin says he expects to sell out the allotted 35,000 tickets a day long before the actual festival.
"We made a decision that we want to play with the big boys. We want this to be a national event," he said. "Off the top of your head, there are about five to six music festivals that come to mind out of 100 that happen. We knew we had to come up with a lineup that's on that same level."
"When you look at the majors, like Bonaroo or Coachella or Jazz Fest, I think we're playing in the same arena. We want to be able to deliver the same kind of line up in a much more intimate environment."
The Twitter effect
While some beaches to the east didn't see the extent of oil that Gulf Shores did, virtually all Gulf Coast and Florida Panhandle beaches took a financial hit from tourists scared away by the spill.
This year, they hope to rise above perception.
"The impact to a visitor here is negligible. The biggest issue we face is not ecological, but economic," said Dan Rowe with the Panama City Beach Convention and Visitor's Bureau. "Our beaches are as beautiful today as they were a year ago [before the oil spill]."
As a top spring break destination, Panama City tourism officials were banking on the power of a generation of college students armed with smartphones and glued to outlets like Facebook and Twitter.
"Spring break has a special, a heightened significance this year because having a couple hundred thousand social media savvy students on our beach who will really enforce the fact that, when we say our beaches are clean, [their friends will] see it on Facebook," Rowe said in March interview. "They can be goodwill ambassadors for us."
In addition to free sources of advertising, spring breakers can also be a good indication of how the summer tourism season will play out.
"The momentum builds from the snowbirds to spring breakers to summer vacationers," said Laura Lee with the Pensacola (FL) Bay Area Convention & Visitors Bureau. "When the economy was bad, the spring breakers weren't staying as long and we found that translated to the summer vacationers. We should be getting the spring break numbers in a couple of weeks. It's usually a barometer for how the summer will be."
Lee says Pensacola's tourism numbers so far point to a successful spring break, leaving her optimistic about the upcoming summer tourist season.
'It's a great product'
Beach officials up and down the coast hope 2011 can be the year that 2010 wasn't.
The oil spill was just the latest, if not the most devastating punch in a series of blows the coastal tourism industry has taken in the past several years, most notably 2004's Hurricane Ivan and the subsequent rebuilding effort, followed by years of rising gas prices and a down economy.
All of these blows left the tourism industry lagging. With the oil cleaned up and the economy slowly recovering, Rowe says he's enthusiastic about the future.
"We don't know how long recovery will take, but we're doing our best to get people down to the beach and to tell our story. At the end of the day, we have a great beach, it's a great product. People love to spend time hanging out enjoying the sunshine and emerald green waters."
Copyright 2011 Raycom News Network. All rights reserved.
(Source: VisitPensacola.com)
(Source: Panama City Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau)
(Source: Panama City Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau)
