Tourist-Driven Miami Will Focus On Road-Trip Strategy

MIAMI BEACH, FL — Hundreds of shuttered businesses in Miami and Miami Beach will spring back to life by the end of the month but this tourist-driven economy may depend heavily on the willingness of Americans — and even Canadians — to get in their cars and drive.

The bright white sands that have hosted countless spring breakers and celebrity events over the years, will remain shut down and will likely stay that way at least until early June. But that's not the case for other businesses.

“We’re not going to rush into our reopening,” Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber cautioned Saturday in a statement. “Businesses need time to prepare their best practices so the public has confidence that their experience will be as enjoyable as it is safe. We all need to work as a community to get this right.”

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One key question that has yet to be answered is if the crowds feel comfortable enough to return to Miami Beach and the entire Miami area under the new normal, which involves social distancing guidelines, masks and reduced capacities at restaurants and retailers.

"We're a global town and the Miami brand is strong," Bill Talbert. president of the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau assured a number of business owners at a virtual tourism forum on Thursday. "We've been there before and we will be there again."

Indeed, Miami Beach has survived 9/11, multiple years of hurricanes, a massive oil spill, the Zika virus and the great recession of 2008.

"You could roll all those crises up into one and still not reach the historic metrics that we are seeing across the globe when it comes to travel, tourism and hospitality," observed Scott Berman, the U.S. Hospitality & Leisure Practice Leader with PricewaterhouseCoopers. "My word is cataclysmic."

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Speaking at the tourism forum, Berman said there are about 60,000 hotel rooms in the Miami area, including 10,000 that have been added over the past decade. All hotels in Miami-Dade County have been closed since March 21. The occupancy rate fell to 18 percent by April 1.

"Over 30 days we lost 90 percent of our business," Berman said. "If you can even imagine this, Europe has been in worse shape than the U.S. The health crisis has become an economic crisis and that's what we're facing."

With fewer people traveling by air, historic unemployment levels and the absence of hotel rooms, Miami area tourism officials understand they will have to appeal to the nostalgia and charm of the great American road trip to help fill the void.

Starting Wednesday, retail stores, personal grooming businesses, offices and museums can reopen in Miami Beach as long as social distancing requirements are followed, according to an announcement made by city officials on Saturday. Bars and nightclubs will remain closed for now.

The city's restaurants and sidewalk cafes can reopen on May 27 for sit-down dining at no more than 50 percent of their maximum capacity. A number of restaurants have kept their kitchens open throughout the coronavirus shutdown by focusing on takeout, deliveries and curbside ordering. That will continue. Click here for more information on the Miami Beach reopening.

Iconic Ocean Drive in South Beach will reopen too but motor vehicles will be prohibited from the street to give restaurants more room for outdoor seating and to help police control crowds, particularly as the Memorial Day holiday weekend approaches.

Rolando Aedo of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau said the annual Miami Spice program was developed by his organization in response to 9/11. Hundreds of Miami Beach and Miami restaurants offer fixed price meals at some of the area's most exclusive venues as part of the promotion.

"We're going to go out to our Florida drive markets, southeast U.S.," Aedo said. "Ultimately, we're going to get into some of those key domestic feeder markets in this phase one approach and then beyond that, at the right time, with international, which is so near and dear."

The bureau is organizing what officials describe as a community pledge to give confidence to visitors. That will be supported in an advertising and social media campaign based around the theme: "Miami Shines" in English, Spanish and Creole.

"We're going to bake that in and we're going to communicate that to all of our customers and meeting planners — which are very, very risk averse in particular — and are going to make sure that we are committed," he said. "Hopefully, we can convince even some folks further afield to come and do the ultimate road trip. The ultimate road trip is to Miami. Travel the world in your car in Miami."