Southern Florida Hotels in Short Supply

. October 14, 2008

By Tom Stieghorst

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

FLORIDA, November 23, 2005. If you can't stay at Grandma's house over Thanksgiving, better make a reservation at a hotel pronto. Those are the words of advice for travelers to South Florida this weekend.

With thousands of hotel units still offline after Hurricane Wilma, the supply of rooms is tighter than usual. Although some hotel owners said the crunch has eased this week, others are ready to hang out the No Vacancy sign. "We still have a few rooms left, but we will be sold out, " predicted Julian Felder, general manager of the 177-room Howard Johnson' s Deerfield Beach. Last year, the hotel was only 90 percent full for the upcoming weekend. At the Courtyard by Marriott in Boca Raton, it's the same story. All 152 rooms are booked for Nov. 24 and 25, a desk clerk said.

The imbalance is most acute in Broward County, where Wilma deleted 5,000 rooms from the base of about 33,000 rooms. While about 1,500 rooms have since been repaired, the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau surveyed over 100 hotels last week and found only 600 empty rooms. "If you're thinking about reserving a room, don't think about it for too long," said bureau president Nicki Grossman. And if you're coming down to South Florida without a reservation, that's taking a chance, Grossman said. "Ten years ago, we were accustomed to no-waiting, walk-ins encouraged. That's not the business anymore."

Nationally, nearly 37.3 million people will be on the road this weekend, according to the forecast of travel club AAA. Hotel operators say that Thanksgiving is less of an away-from-home holiday than, for example, the Christmas-to-New Years week. Many hotels in South Florida range from 40 to 70 percent full on a typical Thanksgiving Day weekend.

This year, most hotels are doing better. At the Beachcomber Resort, in Pompano Beach, "We're running about 80 percent occupancy," said sales director Frank Deslongchamps. "It's a little bit higher than the previous years because of the room shortage," he said. The AmeriSuites in Weston reported about 10 of its 128 rooms are free this week. "Just from today, we are starting down a little," general manager Ed Sanchez said on Monday. "The first 20 days [of November] we have been very busy."

Mike Wurster, general manager of the Sunrise Hilton, said he's seen a high number of business travelers this month, probably related to hurricane recovery. "With the holiday, they're getting a little bit of a breather." he said. Wurster said he expects occupancy of about 80 percent. "This is the first week since the storm we have a little bit of supply."

While Hurricane Wilma did less damage in most parts of Palm Beach County, occupancies there are up due to a national field hockey championship scheduled Nov. 24 to 27 at the Palm Beach Polo Club in Wellington. "We are very close to being sold out for the week," said PGA National Resort President David Feder, who estimated field hockey players, officials and parents have booked 70 percent of his 339 rooms. "Ordinarily most hotels wouldn't even come close to selling out," he said.

A few resorts said they are having a more typical Thanksgiving. The Sea Lord, in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, had only half of its 48 units were reserved earlier this week. A two-bedroom oceanfront unit could be rented for $201 on Turkey Day.

After Thanksgiving, lodging demand is typically soft until Christmas, but it might not be so this year. In Deerfield Beach, for example, the annual World Firefighter's Combat Challenge, a contest for fire-fighters, was rescheduled from its original dates at the start of November because of Wilma's disruption, said Felder, of the Deerfield Beach Howard Johnson. The event, which attracts about 800 participants including military teams from overseas bases, will now be held Nov. 28 to Dec. 4. "We'll be quite busy," Felder said.

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