Aside from the loss of business on Labor Day weekend, Jacksonville area hotels escaped Hurricane Dorian with “the best possible results after the storm,” said Katie Mitura, vice president of marketing and communications at Visit Jacksonville.
On Friday and Saturday of Labor Day weekend, the two days for which Visit Jacksonville had data, occupancy rates in Jacksonville were down 24% and 40% from last year, respectively, WJCT News partner the Jacksonville Daily Record reported.
Unlike the effects of Hurricane Irma in 2017, Mitura said she hadn’t heard of any hotels with storm damage.
The relocation of the Florida State and Boise State football game to Tallahassee caused some hotel reservation cancellations, Mitura said.
The Jacksonville Armada Labor Day Shootout, a regional youth soccer tournament with more than 200 teams participating, was canceled, primarily affecting hotels on the Southside, she said. That event will be rescheduled to Nov. 22-24.
Mitura said she suspects many people canceled their Labor Day vacations in Jacksonville.
“There’s definitely a significant impact economically,” Mitura said. Hotels “definitely lost out on a lot of rooms they expected to see last weekend.”
An expanded version of this story is at JaxDailyRecord.com.
