Daniel Samess, CEO of the Greater Marathon Chamber of Commerce, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about upcoming events.
The annual awards banquet is coming up next month on October 17.
Samess said, “As always, it’s at beautiful Hawks Cay Resort in the Grand Ballroom. It’s where we really take a moment to enjoy each other’s company. Get a little bit dressed up if you want to, which definitely a lot of folks, especially the ladies, do, and they look amazing that evening. It’s always great to see. And we’ll give out our annual business awards, not to be confused with the Best of Marathon, which is another great event, and that’s actually this weekend. But our awards are a little different. There’s only eight of them, and only Chamber members vote, and they get one vote only, and the nominees are out. So there is a survey online. There’s a link for our Chamber members to vote in our E-blasts and they could always reach out to me directly for the link as well. So we give out the awards. We thank board members terming off the chamber board. We welcome and officially install those who were elected onto the board and election ballots are out also for our members, so keep an eye on those. The deadline to get those back is this Friday, and then we will count ballots literally at 5pm this Friday. We verify and re-verify and confirm. It’s great to see so many members taking the time to quickly fill out a ballot to determine who will voluntarily serve on the chamber board, which the mission is to advocate, support, promote our business community.”
The big raffle contest is also coming up.
Samess said, “We only sell 500 tickets. We’ve already started selling them, $30 a piece or four for a hundred. Those proceeds help to fund our annual scholarships that we give to Marathon High School seniors, which this year was $10,000 worth, as well as $5,000 in continuing education scholarships for Chamber members. So this is a great little program. It’s a grand prize of $2,000 cash or vacation of your choice. We have four of them, so the grand prize winner picks the cash or the trip, which almost all of them involve airfare for two, hotel, dinner and other fun activities. I think one of the choices is San Diego, Nashville, New Orleans. Then we have an Orlando, a Disney one which doesn’t have airfare, because you could drive to Orlando, but really cool options. Then there’s other prizes too. It’s fun, all for a good cause, and you don’t have to be present at the banquet to win. We’d love for you to be there, but if you can’t be there, though, that’s okay, we pull your ticket. You will get your prize.”
Being three quarters of the way through 2025, how has the year been going?
Samess said, “As far as tourism, I guess you could say, as far as bed tax collections, it’s been fairly flat as compared to last year, I would say, probably down a couple of percentage points from 2024. We’re still not doing as good as 2022 and ‘23 but those were the kind of crazy COVID years, as I call them. Because Florida opened up first, and then everything really got funneled down to the Keys, because cruise lines were down, international travel, California, New York, other major domestic travel places were all shut down and closed, and Florida opened earlier than them, so it was great for us. So we enjoyed record years that were stressful, but money was flowing. We’re down from that, of course, but we’re still better than our previous best normal years, I call it, which was 2019, we’re still about 20 to 30% up from that and 2019 was a banner year then. We had the best numbers we’ve ever had, as far as bed tax collections, occupancy levels, average daily rates at properties. Property values were very healthy. So that was a good banner year, and there was no knock on wood, crazy storms, no pandemics, nothing crazy with the market. So it’s a nice benchmark, even though it’s now unfortunately, about six years in the rears, but just to give perspective, we’re still doing a lot better than that, however, cost of living have gone up, inflation, COLA, all that stuff. So tourism wise, we’re flat, maybe slightly down. We’re definitely back to the seasonality we had pre-COVID, as a lot of locals and business owners, remember, if you were here running a business, working, before COVID, you remember that once school got back in in August, things really slowed down. It was little bit of weekend traffic. We would get more Europeans in the late summer. Unfortunately, we are down there which was expected, take it or leave it, or however you like it politically with the tariffs it has created, certain issues. Canada is our number one international visitor by far, and we are down quite a bit on seeing our Canadian friends to the north coming down and that’s also reflected in airports as well, because that’s where they typically connect in through and then drive on in to the Keys to spend some time. So we’re definitely seeing decreases in the international side. Our TDC is projecting some increased travel domestically, which is good to help counteract that because a lot of Americans are looking to just kind of stay domestic for a lot of their trips. A lot of people the last few years did go over the pond to Europe to enjoy that after they reopened. But since then, and due to cost and the currency as well, the Euro is now worth a bit, a little bit more than the dollar. A lot of Americans are saying, let’s just stay home. Let’s go to Florida. Let’s go to the Keys. Let’s go to other places, Texas, whatnot. So we’re hoping to make a little bit of the international up domestically, as far as labor force, just looking at the recent data, our unemployment is always one of the lowest in the state. We were, we’re at, I think, as of July, 2.8% which I think nationally, it’s over four. So we’re definitely much better than the national average. But it’s not all roses, right? Because it’s also a lack of workforce housing that we always have, even though the county and the city of Marathon, are really working hard to build more, there’s still always going to be a deficit. So it’s 2.8. This time last year, July, as of last year, it was 2.7% so we ticked up a 10th of a percent, not a whole lot. So small fluctuations there. Domestic sentiment is down a couple points from last month and that’s just really reflects Americans expectation on a national level, as far as economically, how things are going to look, how the market’s going to do, property values, the economy, that ticked down from about 84 points to just over 80%. So I think Americans are just kind of like a lot of us, are kind of sitting back waiting. It’s been a bit of a roller coaster. The market’s been great this week, and then it takes a small turn, and then it’s back up again. We’re waiting for the Fed to cut rates, I tell people don’t hold your breath anymore. But we’re hoping, before the months end Powell will do it, and I think that’ll spur the market. But real estate wise, supply is up, meaning listings, and supply is what dictates the real estate market. When there’s more listed, more properties. It’s more of a buyer’s market. During COVID, our property values almost doubled, which is good for some, not good for others, right? Because supply was so low. So it was a seller’s market. So we’re still in a bit of a buyer’s market. So we’ll see what happens if the feds do drop rates, and then some people kind of get off the benches and say, okay, I’m ready to go get that loan now.”
For more information, click here: https://floridakeysmarathon.com/