No, you’re not imagining it. Hilton Head fall tourism is booming in an ‘endless summer’
It’s October, off season on Hilton Head Island. But it’s also 2020, which means all bets are off.
This time last year, you may have grabbed a drink at a busy-but-not-crowded outdoor bar on Skull Creek. Barring a possible hurricane evacuation, you may have run into a small group of golfers.
Typically, October weather is gorgeous. Festivals liven up island parks nearly every weekend. Traffic is manageable. The ocean is still warm enough for swimming, and year-round residents, not tourists, pedal the bike trails.
But this month, that same busy outdoor spot has a 90-minute wait for dinner on a Wednesday night. Cars have backed up on U.S. 278 to Hilton Head. The only difference between summer 2019 and October 2020 may be that it’s 10 degrees cooler and everyone you see is wearing a mask.
What happened to off season?
As the nation works through the coronavirus pandemic and sends its children to virtual school, Hilton Head Island has seen an influx of visitors in September and October this year — it’s what one restaurant executive called “the endless summer.”
The busier-than-normal season is the result of people being more flexible to travel due to remote work and school during the pandemic and the first year Beaufort County hasn’t had a hurricane evacuation since 2015. It’s led to what industry leaders called Hilton Head’s most profitable September ever.
That’s a welcome change for island businesses, most of which are still reeling from a six-week closure in the spring. But for island residents, it means traffic when you don’t expect it, more exposure to people coming from potential coronavirus hotspots, busier beaches, and more homecooked meals instead of dinner on the water.
Travel has affected the number of coronavirus cases in the South, too. On Thursday, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, said, “We believe... much of the Southern surge (of COVID-19) was caused by individuals coming south for vacation.”
The Town of Hilton Head voted last week to extend its commercial mask requirement until early December to help slow the spread of the virus as visitor traffic picks up.
Staying here
One of the biggest changes to island tourism in 2020 is the departure from Hilton Head’s typical vacation schedule: weekly, Saturday to Saturday vacations that create gridlock on U.S. 278 and pack the beaches with visitors on weekdays.
Dru Brown, managing partner of Island Time Hilton Head, said vacations of different lengths were popular this summer with the crowd coming from around South Carolina. As winter approaches, longer vacations are more popular for visitors from northern states.
“Hilton Head has always been Saturday to Saturday, seven-day bookings,” he said Wednesday, “and we’ve all had to become a lot more flexible, whether that be shorter stays of four nights or longer stays of 30 days or more.”
Brown said his rental company received three reservations on Tuesday for stays of four months or longer — vacations that are more like temporary relocations for families who can swing them.
“September was one of the most highly occupied months ever, and that bled over into October,” he said.
Short-term rentals on the island are responding to new trends by boosting their internet speeds and being prepared for longer term guests, Brown added.
Eating (and paddleboarding) here
As servers around the island prepare for a shoulder season full of visitors — and not just golfers — restaurants have reported steady business well into fall.
“We really saw a nice steady build through the summer, but the capacities indoors kept the numbers just moderate,” Alan Wolf, the director of operations at the SERG Restaurant Group, said in a Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce teleconference Wednesday. “We were really happily surprised at the end of August, ... and now into October, that it seems like an endless summer.”
The restaurant group owns 11 restaurants with 15 locations throughout Hilton Head and Bluffton, and Wolf said Lowcountry restaurants have had an advantage throughout the pandemic due to the availability of outdoor seating.
While restaurants in cities had to co-opt bike lanes to create small seating areas, many SERG restaurants on Hilton Head are anchored by patios that hold dozens of tables.
Wolf said the restaurant group as a whole saw sales drop around 15% for most of the summer, but better-than-expected fall sales have allowed the restaurants to “claw back” from their six-week closures in spring.
Mike Overton, president and CEO of Outside Brands, said this summer set records for his boat tour, kayak and paddeboard rental operations in Shelter Cove Marina.
“There are a lot of transplants working remotely. They’re coming here and taking solace in being outdoors,” he said. “It was our best September on record, and it was nice we didn’t have a (hurricane) evacuation this year.”
For visitors, working remotely means more opportunities to try new restaurants and experiences on Hilton Head while wearing masks and spending time outside.
But for island residents, many of whom look forward to the slower fall season, it means a more sustained tourism season that can interrupt daily life and cause unexpected wait times like they have this week.
Getting here
Although rentals and restaurants are busier with visitors this October, the traffic coming to and from the island appears to be falling in line with years past.
Traffic counters from the S.C. Department of Transportation can’t quantify tourism on the island, but they can show the volume of vehicles traveling to the island on a specific day. As many people continue to work from home, the traffic patterns on Hilton Head have changed.
The busiest traffic days on the bridges this October have been Thursdays and Fridays, according to SCDOT data. Busiest traffic day numbers appear to be heading back to normal when compared with other years.
Air traffic to the island has picked up this fall, too.
Beaufort County Airports Director Jon Rembold said Wednesday that air traffic at the Hilton Head Island Airport last month was nearly the same as air traffic in September 2019.
He points to new flights to Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas/Fort Worth and Washington, D.C., that are driving visitors to Hilton Head. Just as throughout the summer, Rembold said private jet and business jet travel has been “absolutely nonstop” this fall.
This story was originally published October 16, 2020 at 8:29 AM.
