Flagler County tourism is expected to do well in October in spite of, or at perhaps because of, Hurricane Matthew.

  • Flagler County tourism tax revenues likely to finish up despite Hurricane Matthew
  • County expects good October, partly because response workers stayed in hotels

Rob Plympton's Toes in the Sand shop was doing well prior to last month.

"It was going real good until Matthew came through," said Plympton.

His tourist destination shop took about a 50 percent hit from the storm.

"It's been a rough couple months," said Plympton.

He wasn't the only one -- other businesses also saw huge drops in their tourist foot traffic.

But despite the challenges, the local Tourism Development Council said the county finished the overall fiscal year with about a 3 percent increase from last year just days before Matthew hit.

The increase brought in an additional $56,819 in tourism tax dollars, for a total of $2.09 million in revenue.

October numbers aren't in yet, but officials project it was actually a good month.

"One of the big factors is the hotel occupancy and that drives the bed tax and the tourism dollars. A lot of the hotels were occupied by the [hurricane] response people, really," said Michelle Brown, who owns the Flagler Beach Gift Shop and serves on the tourism council.

"We depend on that traffic. We're a small community as a whole so we definitely depend on tourism," said Brown.

"When you're in business and you see a bunch of goose eggs on your books day after day," Plympton said.

But Plympton remains hopeful he and other business owners' books will start reflecting some high numbers once again.

"If a couple buses came up with some tourists that would be nice," said Plympton.

The county also took a hit in August. Tourism was down by about 7.5 percent from last year because school started earlier this year. But overall for the state, Governor Rick Scott announced tourism was up 5.5 percent.