Suzi Youngberg, president of the Key Largo Chamber of Commerce, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about upcoming events.
The TDC meeting occurred last week.
Youngberg said, “I was at the TDC meeting down in Key West last Thursday. Always good to get an update to hear what’s going on with them. And the positive news there is the numbers are looking good. Once again, the data shows that, maybe travel is down a little bit across the country. I think our international travel is definitely down, but people are still coming to the Keys, so that is definitely a good thing. They were actually comparing it to maybe back during the pandemic years when people really didn’t want to travel a lot, didn’t necessarily want to fly or go overseas, but they were coming to the Keys because we are the the tropical paradise that you can drive to.”
The Keys are outperforming other parts of the country in tourism numbers.
Youngberg said, “We have, of course, the official Florida Keys Visitor Center at mile marker 106 in our Chamber of Commerce building. And we greet visitors every day, normally, anywhere from 60 to 200 people a day stop in there. And just this week, we have been back up over 100 visitors a day, and that had sort of dropped off after the spring break. So from what we’re seeing at the Key Largo Visitor Center, April may even be better than March.”
The July 4 celebration will be big this year with the 250th anniversary of our country.
Youngberg said, “This year is flying by, but that’s a good thing. It’s going to be a huge year for celebrating our country and patriotism. It is the 250th birthday of our country. It will also be the 50th Key Largo Independence Day Parade. So we’ve got a little 250/50 theme going on, definitely. The theme for the parades is just patriotic. We just want it to be all about celebrating our country. But it’ll be here before we know it. We already have sponsorships open as we can’t do what we do for the community without the help of our business owners and our people who contribute and donate for this. We do the parade, we do the community picnic immediately following the parade, which is in the Key Largo community park, and then we also do the fireworks over the Blackwater sound. So it’s a big day for Key Largo Chamber of Commerce, but we really do need the help of sponsors. So it’s a good way to help your community, to help your chamber, and to get some exposure for your business. We do get lots of sponsor amenities to get your name out there and show the community that you are someone who supports.”
The April Members in Motion event will be held at the Vicky Bakery.
Youngberg said, “It is a great new venue. They are a, I guess you could say famous Cuban bakery and coffee shop out of South Florida. There’s several of them in the Miami location. Very proud to have them here in Key Largo. And I believe they are the only Vicky Bakery that is now going to have a bar. They did take over the old Denny’s there, which did have a bar. So why let space and liquor license go to waste? So they are opening bar Victor, and it is a gorgeous space. Last month, we did kick off our first sunrise networking, the coffee connections and conversations, thanks to them. They hosted in the bar Victor area there, and it’s just a lovely space. The vibe is good. The way they’ve got it decorated with lots of pictures of the family who formed the bakery. So just a really good location. And it’s going to be a fun nightclub type bar. They’ve got domino tables. They’re going to be open till midnight, which, there aren’t a lot of locations, especially here in the Upper Keys that are late night venues. So it’s really going to be a nice addition to Key Largo. So we’re really happy to have them, and we hope everyone will come out and check out the space on April 23. Non members are always welcome at our luncheons and our evening events. There’s usually maybe a $5 difference in registration. We do like to give a little benefit to our members, so if you want to get a little cheaper registration to the luncheons or the evening events, we’d love to talk to you about being a member of the chamber. But we welcome everyone. We want people to come out and check out our events. (We had) the Everglades foundation at our luncheon last month, which was really good. I sit on the council of chambers with the Everglades Foundation, so I got to go to their economic roundtable last week, and had a meeting with them on Monday. So it’s been really nice giving you updates here in the great things they’re doing with this EAA reservoir. I actually had the pleasure of touring that a month or so ago, they invited some of us to come up. It’s a project in the middle of the Everglades, bigger than Manhattan. It was amazing, just the scope of the size of the machinery and what they’re doing up there. But it’s all good, of course, for the health of our Florida Bay, which affects the Florida Keys directly, our drinking water, our reefs, everything that our lifestyles are based on here comes out of the Everglades. We have opened registration for our May luncheon, which will be a panel on health insurance, which is a very hot topic right now, very timely. So we will have some experts talking about what’s available. Some tips for people, so be looking again on the website, hit the Events tab and register for our luncheon and any other events coming up.”
For more information, click here: https://www.keylargochamber.org/