Tweaks to Myrtle Beach Marathon reflect change in tourism

Despite several changes this year in its starting date, route tweaks and a new location for its expo, the Myrtle Beach Marathon seems to be on track with registration.

But with the thousands of visitors the marathon brings to the city each President’s Day weekend now set to come in March, tourism may look a little different this week. Just how different, is hard to predict.

“There are so many factors at play here. The first one being the marathon but then the second being the systemic level of demand for visitation during a long President’s Day weekend,” said Taylor Damonte, director of the Clay Brittain Jr. Center for Resort Tourism. “Whenever you have a Friday or a Monday holiday, you will see a spike in occupancy when compared with either the weekend before that or the weekend after that.”

About 78 percent of accommodations were rented during the marathon weekend last year, Damonte said, compared to an occupancy rate of 46 percent the weekend before the event.

Weather also plays a factor.

In 2014 – a few days after the area was hit by ice – occupancy was down to 59 percent during the marathon and holiday weekend.

The race was moved to March 3-5 this year to sidestep the weather pitfalls that have plagued the event, forcing delays and one last-minute cancellation in previous years.

A change in the date was also prompted by a growing list of events in mid-February that started to make the Grand Strand quite busy, according to Myrtle Beach Marathon president Shaun Walsh.

Some participants have said they like the change. Others aren’t in favor, citing the new date’s close proximity to the Boston Marathon in April.

But despite objections, Walsh says registration is “trending about the same numbers as last year.”

A total of 1,650 participants have signed up for this year’s marathon so far, just 40 runners shy of last year’s mark with a month left before registration ends.

Three thousand have signed up so far for the half-marathon, only 77 below last year; 800 have registered for the 5K, 58 shy of 2015’s mark; and, 375 have signed up for the team relay, only 25 short of last year, according to race organizers.

“Overall, we think it’s going to be a positive thing,” Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce president Brad Dean said of the date change.

But “the economic impact of that move will certainly be felt by local businesses,” he said. “In the first year, we anticipate a slight softening during Valentine’s Day weekend that will more than be made up for by a strong marathon in March.”

Over time, he said, the occupancy rates of Valentine’s Day weekend will climb and the marathon will become the fixture event in March that it has been in February, offering boons to local businesses in both months.

Damonte said he expects the upcoming three-day weekend will still reflect an increase in occupancy compared to the weekend before, but it was too far to tell how that rate would compare to the same marathon weekend last year.

But the move may be good, he said, if it gets more people in hotels in March and beckons more guests to stay in hotels longer over President’s Day weekend.

This year’s HTC Runner’s Expo will be held March 3-4 at the new Myrtle Beach Sports Center, located near the convention center where it was previously held.

Walsh says they are looking forward to having the expo at the new center. “It’s a beautiful facility and the folks over there have been great to work with,” he said.

But that change, too, comes with its challenges. The space they occupy in the sports center for the two-day expo will need to be cleared and cleaned before the following day’s gymnastics event.

We’re “really just looking to see how everything pans out with the change of date and the new expo facility,” said Walsh, who has led the marathon’s events since its inception 19 years ago.

Event organizers decided to move the race’s starting line further south on Grissom Parkway in an effort to avoid “having to block off 21st Avenue North,” he said.

And the runners’ trek through the Market Common this year will be tweaked to free some residents who have felt “landlocked” by the race in the past.

Instead of trailing through Johnson Avenue to Hackler Street to Howard Avenue and Nevers Street before turning back onto Farrow Parkway, the revised route will now lead marathoners onto Howard Avenue and Reed Avenue then onto Farrow Parkway.

Proceeds from the marathon benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Coastal South Carolina Chapter of the American Red Cross and Horry County Schools.

This story was originally published February 11, 2016 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Tweaks to Myrtle Beach Marathon reflect change in tourism."