Gulf Coast Beaches

Gulf Coast beaches to get waves of visitors this weekend | NOLA.com

On Dauphin Island, Ala., real estate agent Cathy Havard is booked solid for this Memorial Day weekend, the first beach fling of the summer season. She sees dolphins in the water when she's walking along the beach. This spring, she and her customers saw what seemed to be a typical number of migrating birds stopping at the island's bird sanctuary on the way from Central America to points north, she said.

CHRIS GRANGER / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE The beaches along the Gulf of Mexico such as Orange Beach, Alabama are returning to a relative sense of normalcy after last year's oil spill. Kevin Dyess of Laurel, Mississippi, plays with his son, Bryson, 18 months, in the bright white surf on Wednesday, May 25, 2011. Dyess and his family visited the beach just a few days prior to last year's oil spill. In fact, when they were leaving their hotel the first drops of oil had hit the beach. While the long-term ecological effects of last year's BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are still uncertain, those involved in the Gulf Coast tourism industry are seeing business rebound to respectable levels. Some of the same real estate agents who last year faced 50 percent, 70 percent and 85 percent cancellations are at 80 percent or 85 percent occupancy for this weekend.

The American Automobile Association, in its national holiday travel index, predicted that this summer's higher gas prices won't keep people home and that nearly 90 percent of weekend travelers will go by car. AAA did predict that some people might stint on sightseeing excursions or choose lower-priced hotels or restaurants to compensate for fuel costs.

In the New Orleans area, people seem to be headed toward white-sand beaches in robust numbers, said AAA travel consultant Sandra Horton, who works out of the AAA office in Metairie. "We're constantly getting hotel and condo requests for the coast," she said, noting that their conversations with customers are also markedly different from last summer.

"We are not getting calls about whether our beaches are safe," Horton said. "We are getting requests for bookings."

The summer bookings for Dauphin Island Real Estate even give Havard cautious hope that 2011 will be a good year.

With one big if.

"If there are no manmade or natural events," Havard said.

Yet another natural disaster is fueling the most common question -- "How's the flooding down there?" -- from geographically challenged callers hoping to spend the weekend along the coast in Mississippi, said spokeswoman Janice Jones from the Mississippi Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau. Her staff has patiently explained that there is no effect since the river actually empties into the Gulf of Mexico from Louisiana.

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