‘You might as well shutter the town.’ Florida Keys brace for a future without tourists

Imagine the Florida Keys without tourists.

Carol Wightman, an owner of the Marquesa Hotel since it opened 32 years ago in Key West, simply can’t.

She was stunned by the county’s decision to shut down lodging to tourists.

“You might as well shutter the whole town,” Wightman said.

Monroe County’s order to shut down all Florida Keys hotels by 6 p.m. Sunday in response to the coronavirus pandemic left hotel owners and their employees uncertain about their futures — and some guests unsure how they’ll get home.

“There is no industry here,” said Scott Jordan, manager of the 18-room Seafarer Resort and Beach at mile marker 97 in Key Largo. “Tourism is the industry here. You’re either waiting tables, behind a bar, cleaning rooms or running a small resort.”

The Keys have 16,500 units of lodging, from hotels to short-term RV spots.

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In a place where tourism jobs make up more than half the economy, Monroe County’s order, which will be reviewed every 14 days, could cause more financial hardship than any natural disaster.

“I’ve had 300 people ask me, ‘How long?’” said Jodi Weinhofer, president of the Lodging Association of the Florida Keys and Key West. “I don’t think anybody knows. The government doesn’t know. Nobody’s doing this lightly, but we also have no idea on the duration.”

In the days leading up to the county’s decision, the Keys were packed with tourists for the one-two punch of college spring break and the busy winter season, the lifeblood of the Keys economy.

With bustling lodging and restaurant traffic, families on the beaches, charter crews cleaning fish at the dock and bumper-to-bumper traffic on U.S. 1, there was little evidence along the island chain that the rest of the world was dealing with a global public health crisis.

Even Friday, two days before all tourists had to leave the Keys, hotel occupancy at places like the Seafarer were higher than one would think.

“Right now, we’re doing great,” Jordan said. “We almost sold out last night.”

Florida Keys to close all hotels starting Sunday in response to coronavirus crisis

But, under the order, hotels and short-term vacation rental owners must not take any more reservations. And, some hotels in the area began feeling the fallout from the pandemic days before the county’s decision.

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At the Hampton Inn at mile marker 104 in Key Largo, the front desk clerk, who did not want to be named, said guests had already started canceling reservations about a week ago.

“Once they started mentioning coronavirus, everyone started canceling,” she said. “We expected this.”

As of Saturday morning, the Keys had one presumptive positive case of COVID-19, and 35 people had been tested. Nineteen of those results are still pending.

But the economic toll from coronavirus is just starting.

EMPLOYMENT TOLL

After Sunday, mass layoffs can be expected up and down the Keys, and ithroughout the state.

The American Hotel and Lodging Association issued a press release Friday predicting 305,146 people who work either directly or indirectly for hotels in Florida are projected to lose their jobs.

“The impact to our industry is already more severe than anything we’ve seen before, including September 11 and the great recession of 2008 combined,” Chip Rogers, AHLA president and CEO, said in a statement.

Marriott, the hotel giant that owns several properties in the Keys, including the luxury Playa Largo Resort in the Upper Keys, did not respond to questions about specific numbers of layoffs it anticipates.But Marriott issued a statement that it is “experiencing significant drops in demand at properties globally with an uncertain duration.”

That has forced the company to reduce hours or to begin what it says is “temporary leave for many of our associates at our properties.”

Jordan said the Seafarer only has seven people on staff, including himself and the owner, who also works shifts, and hopes to be able to avoid layoffs.

“We’re playing it by ear for now,” he said.

IN KEY WEST

In Key West, hotel owners and employees Friday were still absorbing the stunning news that their industry was being forced to close to tourists.

“Everybody is getting ready to leave,” said Phil Amsterdam, who owns the Curry Mansion Inn, a bed and breakfast his parents built 33 years ago around the 1807 landmark mansion.

Amsterdam said the inn is at about 20 percent occupancy. He’s able to keep his small staff on the payroll. Three of his four housekeepers have been there 20 years.

“We’re luckier than most,” Amsterdam said. “We’ve had a great season this year. It’s the employees at all the big places. I don’t know what they’re going to do.”

Like everyone else in the Keys lodging industry, Amsterdam doesn’t know when he can reopen.

It’s so much worse than a hurricane, he said, because of that uncertainty.

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“Nobody knows when this is going to end,” Amsterdam said. “You know a hurricane will come through and go. We don’t know whether we’ll be open in 60 days and who is going to be around.”

At one of the newest luxury resorts in the Keys, business had been strong before the state began closing down bars and restaurants.

“We had more people extending their stay than leaving early, believe it or not,” said Justin Nels, managing director of the Isla Bella Beach Resort on Knights Key in Marathon. “They want to stay as long as possible. We have reservations booked as far out as a year.”

The 26-acre resort can hold up to 900 guests and has one mile of private beach. There are 52 employees who live on site in employer housing.

“For March, we ran 93 percent,” Nels said. “Occupancy would have hit 95 if this did not occur. Even with this, we’ll finish the month in the high- to mid-70s. We were sold out last weekend.”

As for the employees at Isla Bella, the owners are waiving rent for the next two months if the employees wish to return to their jobs when the coronavirus closure ends.

“The hourly staff we can’t keep on the payroll,” Nels said. “We’re being forced by the county to shut down the resort. We are keeping on core managers.”

STRUGGLING WORKERS

Those who live paycheck-to-paycheck in the service and hospitality industries say their pocketbooks were already tight long before the coronavirus struck.

“It’s hard to live here as it is,” said Matt Boster, 41, a craftsman who specializes in historic restoration. “It’s a tourist economy right here.”

Boster’s wife, Melissa Wright Boster, 30, just got laid off from the Benihana restaurant off South Roosevelt Boulevard. His work is drying up as people pare down spending in the midst of a financial disaster.

“I pay a substantial amount of rent and it’s already hard enough as it is,” Boster said. “We may have to leave the Keys.”

Boster isn’t one of those people buying up all the toilet paper at Publix. He and his neighbors are worried about maintaining basic supplies as the disaster is ongoing.

“I can’t afford to be a prepper down here,” Boster said. “I have no stockpile. We’re stuck on an island 100 miles away from the mainland.”

The hotel shutdowns will likely have a trickle-down effect that could reach into every level of the Keys economy.

Watersports companies like Fury and Sebago have closed temporarily and restaurants have let employees go given the governor’s order Friday to end on-premises dining and do only takeout and delivery.

Gyms and fitness centers were also shut down by the governor’s order.

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Paul Caceres owns Keys Audio Party Rentals in Key Largo. He rents equipment like speakers, tents and tables to parties, especially weddings. This week alone, 17 people rescheduled their weddings.

“We’re all interconnected,” Caceres said.

Diana Smith, a freelance charter boat captain, said the pandemic reminds her of the psychological atmosphere that exists when a hurricane approaches the Keys. But, this is worse, she said.

“This is uncharted territory,” Smith said Thursday waiting for her sandwich at Mangrove Mike’s Cafe in Islamorada. “In a hurricane, people start coming down again. Nobody wants to get sick.”

She was sitting next to Larry Wren, another charter boat captain. He said colleagues at Whale Harbor Marina, where he keeps his First Choice Charters boat, have eceived cancellations into July.

“The mass hysteria is already here, and this is the tip of the iceberg,” Wren said.

THE TOURISTS

News also hit visitors hard.

A 60-year-old woman named Donna, who did not want to give her name because she faced harsh backlash online from people angry that she is traveling with her husband when many are practicing social distancing, arrived in the Keys Friday morning.

She and her husband, from Colorado, are retired and planned on a months-long road trip. Then they received a call last week, a month into their trip, that their son, a police officer, and his wife, a hospital radiology technician, were both exposed to COVID-19 in separate on-the-job instances.

Being over 60 and diabetic, two factors that make her more susceptible to the virus, she is not in a hurry to get back to Colorado, which continues to see its COVID-19 cases rise.

They had reservations in Key West, but had to cancel after the county announced its decision to shut down lodgings. Come Sunday, they have to leave the Keys. Now, they’re not sure what to do.

“We really don’t have a place, so we’re scrambling,” she said. “We really don’t want to go home because the exposures were like last week. We just don’t have a lot of options.”