Loading...
1614-1 Various Miami Beach SUN JUL 10 1983 ED: FINAL SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: 7B LENGTH: 1321 LONG ILLUST: photo: locked doors, Sea Isle Hotel; chart: Beach resort tax income in 1982-1983 ( 3-298) SOURCE: PAUL SHANNON Herald Staff Writer DATELINE: MEMO: NO FUN IN THE SUN: BEACH HOTELS SUFFERING In 1979, the double-glass doors of the Sea Isle Hotel swung open for hundreds of tourists each day. Northeasterners packed into the hotel ' s 250 rooms during the winter. Latin American and British tourists sunned by the swimming pool during the summer. Today, the doors of the Sea Isle, 3001 Collins Ave. , are padlocked. Its rooms are empty. Its pool is filled with green scum. The padlock on the Sea Isle' s front doors is a sign of the bad times along Collins Avenue and throughout much of Miami Beach. The winter tourist seasons are weak; the summer almost nonexistent. The Beach' s best known hotels, the Fontainebleau Hilton and the Doral, as well as the kosher hotels with a steadfast following, are exceptions. They are doing well. But most other beach hotels, which lack either the snob appeal of the Fontainebleau or the specialized clientele of the kosher hotels, clearly are suffering. "It ' s the worst that I ever have seen, " said Leonard (Doc) Baker, president of the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce. "Our hotel people are desperate. " The 1982-83 winter season was the worst yet in a three-year slump on the Beach, according to resort tax figures. Business dropped 10 per cent from last year, 25 per cent from the year before. The outlook for this summer also is bleak. Taxes levied on hotel rooms and restaurants show that business dropped 12 per cent in April compared to that month last year. It dropped 23 per cent in May and 17 per cent in June. Hotel officials trace the decline to two main factors: A drop in business from Britain and Latin America and a domestic tourism market that never recovered from bad publicity about the Liberty City riots and Mariel refugee influx. From the shuttered doors of the tiny Tudor Hotel in South Beach to the empty 600-room Carillon Hotel off 68th Street, Miami Beach' s oceanfront corridor of hotels openly displays its hurts. At the peak of winter this year, the oceanfront Sea Isle was never even half full, according to its owner, Vincenzo Mauriziano. He finally had to chain the doors when the summer began without a single tour group calling for reservations. "There ' s no business, " Mauriziano said. Said Robert Shelley, executive director of the 500-room Konover Ramada Renaissance: "Hotels are going into the summer with no financial cushion. " 'Like a cemetery' Their assessments echo down Collins Avenue. "It ' s terrible. It' s like a cemetery, " said Max Berger. His 160-room Welworth Hotel, 7326 Collins Ave. , is almost empty. Two months of advertisements, he said, netted him one reservation. The Sea Gull Hotel, an oceanfront hotel on 21st Street, shut for the summer for the first time in almost a decade. The 480- room Barcelona Hotel is shuttered temporarily. The Lucerne Hotel, which lost money this season, will reopen only if the hotel can land some tour groups, according to manager Jill Grogan. At the Delano Hotel, assistant manager Koroush Mehr said 35 of 225 rooms usually are rented. Occupancy hovers around 50 per cent at the 36-room Oceanside Terrace Hotel, the 350-room Dilido Hotel and the huge Sheraton Bal Harbour. That is not enough for a decent profit, said Gerald Gutenstein of the Sheraton. Charles Goulet of the Oceanside Terrace said bluntly: "We haven't made a profit. " But there are the exceptions -- the kosher hotels and the luxury hotels. Jews who keep kosher, eating only food prepared according to Jewish dietary laws, have a limited number of vacation spots. Miami Beach is one of the few areas boasting kosher hotels. "They come back year after year, " said Royal Palm Hotel manager Hal Schenk of his customers . Like the Beach' s nine other kosher hotels, the Royal Palm enjoyed almost 100 per cent occupancy this year from January through Passover, which ended April 5 . The Fontainebleau Hilton Hotel and the Doral Hotel also profited this winter. Spokesmen for both hotels, however, said their business historically had not paralleled business at other Beach hotels. The Doral caters to a wealthy clientele less affected by economic fluctuations, and the lavishly renovated Fontainebleau has found its niche with conventions, catering and special packages such as the current one offered to Dade and Broward residents. Once busy winters Winter once carried Beach hotels through the slack summers. From Thanksgiving to Easter, Northeasterners clamored for reservations. Their average stay was more than a month. Arthur Bant, who has managed Beach hotels for 37 years, remembered: "Three or four years ago, I 'd have 93 per cent occupancy for the season. . . . Then I 'd leave the hotel open all summer. " But Miami Beach' s winter season has shrunk from five solid months to a few spotty weeks. The resort tax figures clearly show that trend. Tourism reached a 20-year peak during the 1979-80 season. British and Latin American tourists, attracted by cheap charter flights and the weakness of the dollar, fueled the boom. But by 1981, British and Latin American tourists were deterred by the strength of the dollar against their currencies. At the same time, the influx of winter visitors kept dwindling. Hoteliers blamed the slump on bad publicity about the riots in Miami and waited anxiously for the tourists to flock back. They didn' t. Business dropped again this winter. During December, tourist spending declined 10 per cent. It stayed flat at last year' s low levels through February and March. Then, spending skidded even more. Many hoteliers doubt that the season will ever return to its onetime strength. Rosen, after laying off all but three of the Sea Gull ' s staff (once 70 strong) , said hotels have to adjust to new conditions: "The season basically is eight weeks now. " Bant, who closed the Barcelona Hotel, agreed. "It runs from the 10th of January to the fifth of March, " he said. Another sign of economic struggle is the trouble city officials have had collecting water bills from hotel owners. At the Eden Roc Hotel, according to recent city records, $11, 014 .51 in unpaid water bills have accumulated. The Senator Hotel owes $1, 235 . 35. The hotels have been on the city' s shut- off list, as are several South Beach hotels . Better advertising Sidney Levin of the tourism task force at the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce cautions against despair and is among those who think stronger, better advertising of the region would help. One idea is a "super tourism agency" for South Florida. The Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, prompted by hoteliers, had asked state legislators to create such an agency. But the idea stagnated because municipalities such as Surfside don' t want to lose part of their resort tax money to the agency. Levin still said a coalition of hotels and governmental agencies such as the Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority (VCA) can be formed. So did H.J. (Jack) Musiel, the VCA' s new executive director. "We all have the same objective . . . and the private sector can't do alone the over-all job of selling the destination, " Musiel said. But many hoteliers dismiss the efforts of the VCA as politicized and ineffective. Most look skeptically at the proposed unified publicity campaign. The hotels, they said, already are competing fiercely among themselves. "You can' t depend on the area to draw, " said the Konover' s Shelley. "You have to draw people to your hotel. " The larger hotels have to fight for convention business, and the smaller hotels have to fight for group business. During the stagnant summer of 1983, the mood clearly is grim and the goal simply is to stay afloat. Hoteliers hang on and hope relief comes in time for them. Said Milt Towbin, executive vice president of the Sans Souci Hotel : "It will be a summer of survival. " ADDED TERMS: tax tourist mb statistic decrease END OF DOCUMENT.