Tourism officials have said that the bridge detour over Garcon Point Bridge in Santa Rosa County for the past few months has affected some tourists plans by making it more difficult to travel between Pensacola and the beach. However, the biggest impact has come from locals avoiding taking weekend trips to the beach.
Escambia County Commissioner Robert Bender, whose district covers the beach, said Memorial Day weekend traffic can be difficult to gauge because so many people carpool in groups or stay out at the beach for events such as the annual LGBT Memorial Weekend Pensacola celebration.
Still, he said, the traffic counts seem to be rising close to the pre-pandemic numbers of 2019.
The operator of the Pensacola to Pensacola Beach ferry service says despite delay after delay in fixing the boats post-Hurricane Sally, the service could return as soon as next week to help alleviate traffic congestion on the Garcon Point Bridge.
The ferry service, which in previous years has been largely used by tourists to venture between downtown and the beach, is touted as a possible stopgap option for frustrated commuters whose daily drive has increased sometimes to hours long with the ongoing closure of the Pensacola Bay Bridge.
But, the ferries have had their own problems with hurricane damage to the boats, damage to the docks, and a lack of interim funding by the Florida Department of Transportation to offer financial relief for the potential commuters who would use the service.
Because of the global pandemic and economic recession that took over most of 2020, Navarre Beach, like many tourist destinations, saw its tourism tax revenues plummet in March, April and May as beaches shut down and uncertainty about the coronavirus crippled vacation markets globally.
But curiously, by the end of the year Navarre Beach was bucking the trend seen throughout much of the rest of the Panhandle its tourism tax revenue was up almost 27% in October and 55% in November, a surge that helped soften the downturn seen at the beginning of the pandemic.
“We lost our money in March, April and May, but we still came in at $3.5 million for the whole year, which is only $400,000 less than the year prior,” Santa Rosa County tourism director Julie White said in an interview with the News Journal on Wednesday. “We would have made way over ($3.5 million) if we hadn’t been shut down in March, April and May, so we would have had a record-breaking year, over $4 million