by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Of the three beach cities, Jacksonville Beach is the destination for most visitors. It has the restaurants, hotel and parking to support tourists.
“I think tourism has definitely grown and continues to be family oriented. There has also been more surrounding tourism, where people are traveling from within Jacksonville to visit our restaurants and the beach,” said Bob Marsden, mayor of Jacksonville Beach. “It’s not necessarily people on vacation for weeks at a time, but people will come over for the evening or the weekends.”
Jacksonville Beach has also gotten more involved in trying to attract visitors to the beach during other times than festival time.
“I think it is a combination of more visitors to the beaches and the caliber of the visitors have gotten better,” said Jill Sprowell, executive director of the Beaches division of the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce. “A lot of the little dumpier mom and pop motels have gone away and so now the hotels that are here are catering to the caliber of the people that are coming here, people who have more discretionary income and are eating out more often.”
Sprowell said the beaches have gotten a great reputation even west of the Intracoastal.
“The beach is a draw in and of itself,” said Joe Mitrick,president of the Chamber’s Beaches division. “But, also there are more and more activities at the beach. There is more in terms of nightlife and restaurants and other places that have come to the Beaches because of the redevelopment and the work that is being done at the Beaches to make it more attractive for businesses to thrive and do well.”
“People come here now for their dining and entertainment,” said Sprowell.
At one point, there was discussion of a parking garage being constructed in downtown Jacksonville Beach to help with the parking needs during the festivals and high tourist times, but Marsden said at the moment it is not in the plans.
“It’s not dead, it’s just on hold,” said Marsden. “We
have drastically reduced our festivals which was a primary parking problem. We will have one festival a month with the exception of Springing the Blues and the Opening of the Beaches festival.”
They have started showing old movies at the Sea Walk Pavilion every Friday night which attracts quite a crowd, but maybe not enough to warrant the construction of a garage.
“The entire city is driven by the City Council, more or less, and there is still some indecision about where and how to build it,” said Marsden. “When we reduce these festivals we will look again to see how much of a need there is.”
Atlantic Beach has the Sea Turtle which attracts a few tourists, but overall tourism is at a minimum in that city.
“We are not a high tourist town and our zoning would prohibit us from expanding that,” said John Meserve, mayor of Atlantic Beach. “Atlantic Beach is a residential community and we will not grow big tourism dollars ever because we don’t have any land.”
Neptune Beach experiences tourism only in the spill-over sense.
“We are certainly not much of a tourist destination, but obviously visitors to our beaches would certainly visit restaurants and gift shops in Neptune Beach,” said Dick Brown, mayor of Neptune Beach. “We only have two hotels, so we are sort of limited. Jacksonville Beach is really the hub of visitor destination at the beach. We do get some spill-over which we enjoy and appreciate. It is good for our businesses.”
“The Chamber has a task force on tourism,” said Mitrick. “It works very closely with the hotels, restaurants, Beaches communities and government to identify ways to enhance or improve tourism and to make the Beaches a more attractive place to come to.”