Florida towns send spring break crowd abroad

By the late '80s, much of the spring break throng had moved to Daytona Beach. MTV showed up, too. In 1993, 300,000 college partiers came. In 2004, Daytona Beach unveiled a new label for the event, “Spring Family Beach Break,” and a new motto: “It’s All About Respect.” But the city, which expects 40,000 students this spring, didn’t mimic Fort Lauderdale’s hard-line stance.

“We would never say no to a group of students,” said Lori Campbell Baker, director of communications for the Daytona Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau. “They’re the next generation of traveler.”

“I’m always mystified why some destinations want to villainize college students,” added Scott Edwards, general manager of the Daytona Beach Welcome Center, which books rooms for 26 hotels. “Twenty five years ago, buses would roll in with 40 kids and two kegs. Today, most of these kids have their own cars and credit cards. They’re materialistic. It’s a different breed of cat.”

Where MTV goes, so goes the party
Of course, where MTV goes, the party follows. This year, that is Panama City Beach on the Florida Panhandle where tourism officials are walking a careful line between welcoming the kids and appeasing residents who prefer peace.

Once a proud part of the “Redneck Riviera,” Panama City Beach has been transformed by a recent spate of development that replaced honky-tonks with high-rise condos. Now, only about 20 percent of the beach properties are spring-break friendly. At the same time, the city’s tourism officials slashed their spring-break marketing budget this year from $300,000 to $150,000.

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How was that $150,000 spent? To secure a deal with MTV to broadcast this month from Panama City Beach, said Andy Phillips, chairman of the Bay County Tourist Development Council. About 350,000 students are expected to descend and spend $100 million.

“It’s a lot of business,” Phillips said. “If you’re just going to shut the door on spring break, a lot of businesses would be very upset. A lot wouldn’t survive. There’s an ongoing battle between the pro-spring break people and anti-spring break people. ... But unless you’ve got a market segment that can immediately replace (college) spring break, it’s a big risk.”

Next year, however, that same city marketing budget will likely drop to zero, Phillips acknowledged.

While Panama City Beach opted to stay in the game, much of the spring-break industry continues to slip over the border. More than 100,000 American students now head to resorts in Mexico for their annual March revelry, according to the State Department.

“You can’t get into a lot of these places because of the college kids,” said Carrie Erdman, manager of Fort Lauderdale Travel.

Close to 80 percent of the spring breakers who booked their 2008 trips through Erdman’s agency are going abroad, and most are flocking to Mexico's Puerto Vallarta and Acapulco, she said.

But in the city that first spurned the students, tourism officials watch that revenue stream flow south and say they are happy not to be tapping it.

“As long as there is a college year, there will be spring break and there will be kids who want to spring break their brains out,” Grossman said. “Spring break was once a gentler animal. Now it’s just an animal.”

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