I recently spoke with Lee County Economic Development Director John Talmage about how the county is moving forward post-Hurricane Ian.
He first addressed the biggest negative impact on the local economy.
"There's two aspects of this: from the county revenue side, our bed tax collection is down 40% still. And that just won't recover until the number of short-term rentals and a lot of opportunities return. So that's a that's a rebuild issue though," said Talmage.
The second aspect included some positive news for tourism.
"We set some historical numbers two years ago: we brought in $65 million of bed tax that year. Now we are we're just 14% down from where we were in 2019," he said. "So, really from a long term trend, we've almost gotten back to where we were in 2019. But we're nowhere near where we were towards the high end of our of our collection period, which 2021. A lot of this is because the higher end properties aren't back: South Seas, Casa Ybel, Sundial."
Margaritaville on Fort Myers Beach, however, should provide a boost.
"With Margaritaville reopening that's gonna go a long way towards helping the beach portion recovery, because of the new hotel rooms that are going to be taxed--the room rates are gonna be substantial. So that will help us recover."
Talmage then addressed the current employment status of workers displaced by the hurricane.
"From a non-revenue and macro-economic perspective, job creation is way up," he said. "We think that everyone who lost their jobs on the beach and Sanibel, that wants to continue working in the county, has found another job on the mainland.
And I think the displacement of our workforce has largely subsided and people have found places to live, that have chosen to stay here. So our population has stabilized and will continue to trend back upward again. And our jobs: we've added 20,000 jobs since the beginning of the year, just on its own. So we're almost about to hit a workforce of over 400,000, which would be a total high number as well."
So, according to Talmage, the economic recovery from Hurricane is well underway as construction and job creation in Lee County take root and continue on the path forward.
Karen Moore is publisher of Southwest Florida Business Today and special to WGCU.
