Plan Your Meetings

Florida offers free insurance and other incentives

Last year, Florida was hit hard by back-to-back hurricanes that damaged property around the state and sent meeting planners scrambling to find alternative venues, or having to cancel events altogether.

Having three hurricanes and one major tropical storm in three months is abnormal for Florida and the state's official tourism marketing agency, VISIT FLORIDA, is willing to bet it won't ever happen again. It has introduced the Cover Your Event (CYE) Insurance Policy. This free supplemental insurance is intended to cover costs related to rebooking a meeting that was displaced due to a named hurricane.

The offer is scheduled to be available by mid-February and is subject to change. For more information: go to flausa.com or contact cye@VISITFLORIDA.org.

Many cities, even ones unharmed by last year's storms, are offering incentives to counteract any qualms planners may have about booking meetings in the state during July, August and September.

"We have a 92-ft. dinner yacht, the Lady Sarasota, which holds 149 guests," says David DiSalvo, director of sales for the Hyatt Sarasota. "When groups come down in the summer months and buy the boat — normally it costs $1,500 for two hours — what we do is the hotel matches the $1,500 spent in food and beverage for the boat. It's nice if you want to do something special for the night … the boat leaves right from our marina and it's virtually for free."

Niki E. Grossman, president of the Greater Fort Lauderdale CVB, says that even though Fort Lauderdale didn't lose any business last season, there were concerns that planners might not consider booking anywhere in Florida this year. To combat this, she says, "We've offered meeting planners who bring 600 peak room nights business in August or September [2005 or 2006] free use of our 600,000-sq. ft. convention center and a waiver of disruption for attrition in the hotel package."

In the cities that were affected, almost all properties and services are back online and new developments are in the works. And the hurricanes provided some unexpected benefits. Marco Island's beaches gained shoreline. Hotels damaged in Pensacola, Fort Myers, Daytona and the Treasure Coast took advantage of downtime to upgrade facilities, make expansions and open bigger and better than ever.

Aside from these incentives, most Florida properties offer substantial savings on room rates during off-peak months. Mark Marker, vice president of sales for the Saddlebrook Resort in Tampa, says, "Certainly the summer season is our value season, from May 26 until September the 10th. We call it the low season, or the slow season. But it is a great value for the buyer because all the services are functioning like normal, but rates are very attractive."

The Panhandle's value season runs counter to the rest of the state. "Our value season is fall and winter," says Stacy Garrett, marketing and communications manager for the Pensacola Bay Area CVB. "The weather is awesome. There are lots of festivals. And you can get a Gulf-front room for less than $100."

Many hotels won't publicize the difference in room rates because they are hoping that the rooms will be filled, but most will have three rates: one for high season, one for low season, and one for the in-between shoulder seasons. Properties in Orlando and the Florida Keys may not vary much because those markets are year-round destinations. But it never hurts to ask. As Marker says, "If there's a hole to fill, there's always an attractive deal to be made."