“Fla. beach hotels filling for Labor Day weekend”

Fla. beach hotels filling for Labor Day weekend

Posted: 04 Sep 2010 12:54 AM PDT

PENSACOLA BEACH, FLA. — Hotel rooms are nearly sold out here for the three-day Labor Day holiday weekend, bolstering expectations that this will be the busiest weekend since the BP oil spill in April.

A forecast of near picture-perfect weather, reports of cleaner beaches and a BP-funded voucher program for beach lodging are fueling the surge, said Maureen LaMar, executive director of the Pensacola Beach Chamber of Commerce.

"Four hotels are sold out, and the other three are 85 percent filled," LaMar said. "With walk-ins, I'd say we're going to sell out. It's awesome."

That's a major milestone in the summer of oil.

The voucher program, designed to stimulate tourism, provided 3,000 American Express gift cards worth $100 each to people who booked hotel rooms Aug. 24 to Sept. 30 in Escambia County. Individuals could get up to $300 worth of cards.

The program launched late in the day Aug. 24, and seven days later, all the cards were gone, LaMar said. A bulk of the cards went to tourists who booked rooms this weekend.

A Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission meeting, which the state moved from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to help the Panhandle economy, may have an effect, too.

"I have such a nice room sitting on the gulf," said Kathy Barco, a commissioner from Jacksonville. "I called my husband, and he's coming here. We decided to stay in the area for the weekend."

Fred Simmons, owner of Paradise Inn in Pensacola Beach, is hopeful some of the conference visitors find their way to his Paradise Bar & Grill.

"I sure do appreciate them coming, and we need more associations coming to help us in our time of need," he said. "I can guarantee you we'd have been back on top of things with a record season if the oil spill had not happened."

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