The comeback kids: the speed with which Miami-Dade responded to the crisis of Sept. 11 is one reason the county's tourism industry leads the nation in recovery - The 2002 Mid-Year Beacon Forecast: Tourism and Hospitality

South Florida CEO, June, 2002 by J.P. Faber

The numbers are hard to predict, however. While business travelers and corporate meeting planners tend to book well in advance, say hoteliers, domestic tourists are now booking only a week or two ahead of time.

One thing Miami's hospitality industry can rely on is a relatively intact infrastructure. As hotels struggled through the slump, industry leaders worried that layoffs could hurt recovery efforts. It's one thing to cut staff in the face of declining occupancy. It's another to rebuild that staff. Considering that some 365,000 workers in Miami-Dade are tied to the hospitality industry, the employment issue was a vital one for the county, regardless.

In response, the Greater Miami Hotel & The Beaches Hotel Association appealed to its membership to cut back hours, not jobs, says Blumberg. "We encouraged the hoteliers, who were heading into the winter season in 45 to 60 days, not to slash staff," says Blumberg. "We said, 'Folks, don't let them go, just reduce their hours. Instead of a 40-hour week make it a 20-hour week." Some hotels even set up food banks for employees, to make sure their families were fed. In the end, says Blum-berg, the worst-hit sector was middle management, with rank-and-file workers such as maids, waitresses, bartenders and bell caps kept on the payroll.

Asked to take out his crystal ball, Blum-berg doesn't predict a return to pre-Sept. 11 levels until next year. "You're going be one month short this year," says Blumberg. "The month of September will be a flat-out non-month. You're going to see very little travel. October and November look good from what's on the books. So, the recovery will be in the last quarter. Will it be back to pre-9/1l? We can't say. Will airlines be back to pre 9/11? We can't say that either. Anyone who can predict what's going to happen will be very cautious. Second quarter or third quarter 2003, that's what I'm hearing from the experts. But we've always confounded the experts."

To help, the GMCVB is launching what Talbert calls Phase Two of this year's marketing blitz, a full-press summer campaign paid for in part by the State of Florida, which anteed up $2.6 million in matching funds toward a $5.2 million war chest for Greater Miami. So far, the county has put in $500,000, with the remaining matching funds being patched together from a consortium of sources, including co-op advertisements from American Airlines and United Airlines, and even travel Web site Expedia.com.

"Miami-Dade County in particular has stepped up to the plate on this, but it's helped to have private-sector partners," says Talbert. "Let's face it. Real families got closer together [because of Sept. 11], so I think that corporate families got closer together, as well. We are a marketing coalition, so the point here is when challenged, everyone steps up to the plate."

As to the future, Talbert says he's optimistic about getting back to pre-Sept. 11 levels, but agrees it's still a ways off. "The destination had done so well last year that we broke all records, even when new inventory was being added. Usually when you get new inventory added you get some softness, but we were breaking all sorts of records before 9/11. So to get back at those levels and exceed those levels, it's going to take a little more time."