Will this be a ‘normal’ spring break? Myrtle Beach businesses sure hope so
They lost most of last spring to coronavirus-related shutdowns. Now, Myrtle Beach businesses say they desperately need a good spring break season to help keep them alive.
The Grand Strand this weekend is preparing to welcome back spring break crowds for the first time in two years. The last two weekends of warm, sunny weather have brought mid-size crowds back to town, and businesses hope that they will only grow stronger as the spring continues on.
But how many will come back? Will they frequent the restaurants, shops and entertainment venues? Those are the questions on the minds of businesses and tourism leaders in Myrtle Beach, a region whose economy is driven by tourism more so than any other part of South Carolina
Mike Chestnut, a Myrtle Beach City Council member and owner of Bike Mike’s Soul Food, said spring break often serves as a bellwether for how the rest of the year will go. In 2020, the loss of that spring revenue served as a bad omen that would ring true until the fall.
“Spring break is always kind of set the tone,” Chestnut said. “If you have a good spring break, that means that the rest of the year is going to be looking good, too.”
Spring break 2020 was defined by dramatic videos showing crowds filling up the Myrtle Beach shore even as states around the country shut down. For a time, people flocked to the Grand Strand as coronavirus shutdown orders closed in around them until Gov. Henry McMaster closed off all public beach access points on March 30, 2020. The region was labeled in June as a “coronavirus hot spot.” That killed tourism revenue. Then a hurricane showed up in August. That also ran off visitors.
By the time the region began to reopen in the fall, the typical kickoff to tourism season in Myrtle Beach — spring break — was long gone.
Familiar places, different people
With few, if any, coronavirus restrictions left in South Carolina, places like the downtown Myrtle Beach Boardwalk and Broadway at the Beach might look much like they did in pre-pandemic times.
Horry County and the cities within its borders still have a patchwork of restrictions left. The City of Myrtle Beach, for example, still requires face masks inside restaurants for anyone who is not eating or drinking. The city also encourages social distancing. In hotels, the city limits the use of bellman and valet services in hotels to handicapped people. North Myrtle Beach, on the other hand, said its mask rule is now a recommendation, rather than a requirement.
In many cases, it’s up to each business to decide whether people are required to wear a mask. Ripley’s properties do, for example, and their website recommends that anyone who cannot wear a mask for medical reasons reschedule their visit for another time.
Spring break this year likely will be missing some of its normal visitors. Many of the region’s usual visitors from the northeast — Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey — are still under strict lockdown and travel restrictions.
Chestnut said he’s seen a smattering of people from farther north, but nothing like usual. The Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce is still primarily focusing its ad spending on “drive markets” — places within a seven-hour drive of the Grand Strand.
Many colleges and universities have also banned students from traveling during spring break or gotten rid of the break altogether. The University of South Carolina, for example, opted for five scattered “wellness days” as an alternative to the usual contiguous week-long respite from classes.
Chestnut said the potential lack of college spring breakers will “definitely” have an impact.
“But it’ll be hard to know exactly what, until it happens,” he said. “It’s going to be hard to tell until we start seeing people this week.”
Overall, the impact might be more muted. Myrtle Beach is primarily a destination that caters to families, tourism leaders say. Some places, like the vacation rental agency CondoWorld, won’t even rent to college students, seeking to avoid the rowdy environment and destruction that comes with college crowds in other beach towns.
“All these throngs of spring breakers, you’re not going to see that. ... They’ll definitely be here, but not to the level that I think most people think of,” said Stephen Greene, CEO of the Myrtle Beach Hospitality Association. “We’ve always kind of been a diversified community with such varying guests that will come in, and that’s what you’ll see on spring break period.”
At the same time, online schooling among both K-12 schools and higher education along with remote work allows people to work from anywhere. The Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce spent much of the last eight months focusing its ad dollars on that specific trend, encouraging people to bring their work or school — and their money — to the beach.
Last-minute travel likely will dominate the spring the same way it did much of last year, Greene said, with people deciding to leave town based on the weather for the coming weekend.
“The booking window is just absolutely nil,” Greene said. “People are still fearful of travel, but also they’re fearful of what happens to their deposits if this happens or that.”
As the spring goes on, Myrtle Beach can expect to see a new wave of visitors as school districts and states unleash their students for spring break.
Not only would a strong spring break help businesses live to see another day, it helps the rest of the economy as well, from accommodations taxes to tips for waiters.
“It trickles down to pretty much every corner of the Grand Strand economy,” Chamber CEO Karen Riordan said. “If those tourism businesses are doing well, then they’re going to order more things, right? They’re going to buy more supplies. It does end up feeding the whole economy, so it is very, very important that we try to have a stronger spring.”
And as always, Riordan reminds that it’s important to “travel responsibly” in the age of the coronavirus pandemic.
“We can’t let our guard down now,” she said.
‘The money’s all gone’
George Kley, who owns the downtown gay bar St. George, admitted to employees late last month that “the money’s all gone.” It’s a dire feeling, but he wasn’t sure how much longer the doors could stay open. Then Gov. Henry McMaster lifted the “last call” order banning alcohol sales after 11 p.m. on March 1.
That gave Kley hope. His business has already started to see more people coming in, staying later and spending more.
“People are excited to be out of the house, and we’re doing a lot better,” Kley said. “We saw numbers go up right on the night (McMaster) did it, even though we didn’t stay open past 11.”
Señor Frogs, a restaurant and bar at Broadway at the Beach, said the end of the order could restore up to 50% of its revenue, should tourists follow. Señor Frogs is one of those well-known staples of the Grand Strand, but it also needs revenue from visitors to survive — “Everything depends on them,” managing partner Jerry Lomeli said.
“We don’t know exactly how it’s going to be,” Lomeli said. “But at least we can be open and try to do a little bit more business.”
Kley said he still doesn’t even know what a “good” tourism season looks like. He opened St. George in 2014 and said each year has had something different to scare off visitors — hurricanes most years, the 2016 shooting in at an Orlando gay bar and now the coronavirus.
“There’s always something seems to happen to shut things down,” he said.
The real cure for Myrtle Beach: vaccinations
Business might have picked up after the “last call” order ended, but Chestnut said he fears another COVID-19 outbreak could set the region back like last summer.
“No question at all that would be a blow,” Chestnut said. “That’s why we’ve got to be cautious.”
State health department director Edward Simmer said Thursday that he’s “worried about spring break.” If people aren’t cautious, the state could see another COVID-19 spike, he said.
“I want us to be a tourist destination, I want all the tourist industry to do well, but I sure hope those folks wear masks and socially distance while they’re there,” he said.
Simmer also said DHEC is encouraging municipalities to keep their mask ordinances in place if they still have one.
Like many businesses in Myrtle Beach, Kley said his employees find it hard to enforce coronavirus health and safety measures among customers. Mask wearing is a particularly hard one thanks to spotty enforcement and implementation of mask orders from the city, county and state.
All three of his bartenders have gotten COVID-19, Kley said. Though they were mild cases, each one still hurt the business, as whoever wasn’t sick had to fill in the extra time.
He hopes that COVID — or something else — doesn’t find a way to strike again this spring.
Put simply, the U.S. vaccine roll out needs to happen quickly for his business to survive, Kley said. About 11% of South Carolinians have been fully immunized so far.
“I’m hoping that President Biden is going to keep his word and get 100 million people vaccinated in his first 100 days. I’m hoping that South Carolina does a really nice job in getting the shots out to everybody,” Kley said. “Those are the things I hope for that will help Myrtle Beach and me have a nice summer. That’s the only way it’s going to get better, because nobody’s listening. Nobody’s following the rules.”
Chestnut’s hope? That “people are ready to get out and enjoy the sunshine.”
This story was originally published March 11, 2021 at 10:36 AM.
