‘Intense demand’ for Myrtle Beach-area hotels creates ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ projection for 2021 | Myrtle Beach Business

MYRTLE BEACH — Tourists have been lined along U.S. 17 Bypass and U.S. 501 for about a solid two months now, yet the official kick off to summer just occurred Memorial Day weekend.

At least one hotel executive is claiming the demand for rooms is generating record revenue for hoteliers, pushing the price for a hotel stay in the usually affordable vacation spot higher than it’s ever been before.

For years, Myrtle Beach has been listed as an affordable vacation destination by GOBankingRates.

Patrick Norton, vice president of sales and marketing for Brittain Resorts and Hotels, said 2021 has been every bit the anomaly 2020 was, albeit a positive one.

“While the labor shortage has been challenging to navigate, the intense demand is generating revenue records that are shattering our previous high of 2019,” Norton said. “Memorial Bike Week and July 4th are historically sell-out weeks and this year looks to be no different; however, we are seeing significant increases in (average daily rates) as the increased demand has created compression.”

Karen Riordan, president and chief executive officer of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, said the Myrtle Beach region’s occupancy rate is 19 percentage points higher than it was at this time in 2019.



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“Occupancy is really high and there are a lot of people really excited to be here (Memorial Day) weekend,” she said. “Businesses are so excited. The optimism is through the roof.”

Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Karen Riordan gets ready to speak to reporters Friday, May 28, 2021, from the chamber’s hea…

“We do think this is an indicator for the summer. Everything that we’re seeing right now… is that this is the summer of the great American road trip. We are a 90 percent drive-to market, so that does bode well for us. And if we look at the other part of the equation, air service is way, way up at MYR.”

Myrtle Beach is really close to 90 percent occupancy, which, Riordan said, in the travel industry is considered “really full.”

She said 67 percent of vacationers arriving in Myrtle Beach are repeat visitors.

Riordan said anecdotally the chamber is seeing the price of rooms inch higher and higher, but Myrtle Beach is not seeing double-digit increases like other tourist destinations throughout the nation.

“With that increased compression and more demand, there is an opportunity for accommodations to charge more for those rooms since they are perishable and they do want them to sell,” Riordan said. “But I don’t think it’s going to, in any way, hurt our reputation as being a family beach and being an affordable beach and that’s how we want to be seen in America and in the world.”

Riordan said the word ‘hopeful’ is the best way to describe the projection for 2021.

“There’s such a positive mood right now. It’s like people have been released,” she said. “I feel like people do see a light at the end of the tunnel in regard to COVID… and they so want to get back to doing the things they enjoy doing. There’s just this level of optimism and hopefulness that certainly was not in the air in May of 2020, and I think in 2019 we took all those things for granted.

“And now that we spent an entire year plus living like this, I don’t think we’ll ever take that for granted again.”

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Taylor Damonte, director of the Clay Brittain Jr. Center for Resort Tourism at Coastal Carolina University, said he is seeing an increase in occupancy rates, as well.

“Based on the data from KeyData Metrics… vacation rental reservations for the next 60 days appear to be substantially stronger than they were during either 2020 or 2019,” Damonte said. “… Of course, the hotel lodging segment suffered more in 2020 than did the vacation rentals, but hotel occupancy during most of the last four weeks this year appears to have been higher than it was even in during the same weeks of 2019.”

“It appears to me that the Myrtle Beach area tourism industry is once again poised to rebound from a national/international crisis before many of the long-haul international or business travel destinations will.”

The Myrtle Beach International Airport is experiencing the same surge of business that’s performing better than their record-breaking 2019 season.

The airport is coming off an April that saw arrivals reach more than 108,000, which was above the 2019 record-breaking 107,488 April arrivals. However, as of the end of April, year-to-date totals in 2019 are still outperforming this year with totals of 291,431 and 237,517, respectively.



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The airport is, however, on the verge of 10 new Southwest Airlines destinations, some flights occurring five times per week, while United Airlines announced three destinations. Spirit Airlines is still, by far, Myrtle Beach airport’s leading carrier, followed by American Airlines and Delta.

Airport officials have said MYR’s recovery rate has continually outpaced the national average since June 2020.



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Norton said he’s glad 2021 looks like it will make up for a lackluster 2020.

“It’s been a once-in-a-lifetime year, one that was sorely needed following the lost travel season 2020,” he said.