‘No vacancy’: Palm Beach County’s tourist season booms | www.mypalmbeachpost.com

Palm Beach County hotel occupancy was 90 percent in February. Just for kicks and giggles, I checked out the VisitFlorida website last night to see what "Lake Worth" lodging opportunities were listed there. This is the state of Florida's main tourism website. If you search for Lake Worth, this is what you get:

Clearly outside of Lake Worth

Clearly outside of Lake Worth

A campground, really?

Click here for what Trip Advisor says for South Palm Suites.

This says to me that the city's focus should be promoting South Federal Hwy. as a hotel location. And then we have other offerings that we have come to expect. This particular offering, South Palm Suites, when I tried to call their phone number, had a full voice mail box. Not very welcoming to the potential Lake Worth visitor. Their website seems to be inactive and the latest review on Trip Advisor is from March of 2013. We will go by today and see if it is open for business or not.

These are the two, quality bed and breakfast establishments that we have in our city.

Interesting tag line here.

I'm not sure what the Rinaldis are doing that makes their place "action packed" - do tell!

We'll also go by the Silver Lions and the Ixora today and do somewhat of a photo documentary. We can't forget our mothballed historic hotel, the Gulfstream, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Here is a picture of it in its heyday.

The point to be made here is that we should have people beating down the door of the Department of Community Sustainability for applications to develop a hotel in Lake Worth SINCE THERE JUST IS NOT A SELECTION OF QUALITY HOTEL ROOMS HERE IN THE CITY OF LAKE WORTH. Here we have Palm Beach County reporting record occupancy - 90% - Lake Worth is sitting right in the center of the coastal part of the County, with a BRAND NEW BEACH COMPLEX (that we are still waiting to pay ourselves back now that it is built). One would think that the laws of supply and demand would be working to fill the void. But they aren't. Something is broken. Remember that survey I posted a while back about the cheapest hotel room night stay in Delray Beach was $200 during February? Later today, I'll find out what the "rack rate" is at the Silver Lions and the Ixora.

Here is part of the article that appeared above the fold, right in the center of the printed edition of the Palm Beach Post today. Click title for link.

As the Northeast thaws and 90-degree days return, 90 percent hotel occupancies become a (sunny) winter memory, but the booming season that just wrapped up set records.
“Early February, we just knew it was just cranking,” said Jay Badillo, general manager of the Embassy Suites across from Palm Beach International Airport. His hotel was booked, and so were the overflow hotels where he usually referred drop-in visitors.
Hotel occupancy was 90 percent countywide in February and translated into a record $5.1 million in bed taxes, according to the Tourist Development Council.