But a substitute measurement - gross retail sales - historically jumps by almost a third at the season's height in January compared to the dog days of late summer.īut many snowbirds likely won't return this year because of damage to their vacation homes or because amenities - like shops and restaurants - won't have yet fully recovered. It's difficult to say exactly how much snowbirds boost the population. Lee County's population is almost 788,000 people. “Not today, but in the not-so-distant future.' “I think people are going to want to come,' DeSantis said. Visit Florida, the state's tourism marketing agency, was planning to run ads touting the recovery efforts, he said. The Republican governor warned that recovery efforts faced the challenge of a global supply chain crisis but was optimistic obstacles could be surmounted. Robbie Roepstorff, president of locally based Edison National Bank, said small businesses needed access to cash so they could make payroll, otherwise their workers would move elsewhere.

Ron DeSantis during a roundtable discussion Wednesday that they could get their businesses up and running within several weeks if they had access to generators and equipment to replace what was damaged from flooding. In Fort Myers, the sector added 2,700 new jobs in May over the same month the year before. The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity reported that the region's unemployment had continued to fall since last summer, as the economy rebounded from COVID-19 - with the biggest growth in the leisure and hospitality industries. Census Bureau figures show more than 60% of the businesses have less than five employees. “That's where our business comes from,' Maguire said.Įven before the storm, there were mixed economic signs for Fort Myers and the rest of Lee County, where U.S. Tourists lift the region's economy during winter as do snowbirds with vacation homes to escape the chill in the upper Midwest, the Northeast and Canada. The start of snow crab season in mid-October would usher in brisker business. Bars, restaurants and the many mom-and-pop shops that line San Carlos Boulevard, the thoroughfare into Fort Myers Beach, would usually begin filling. As winter approaches, business would have been picking up.

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