It costs more to buy groceries than it did a year ago. It costs more to fill a tank. It costs more to do almost anything than it did before the pandemic.
None of that has kept people off the Alabama coast.
From Alabama to Panama City Beach, tourism activity continues to climb. In Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, even as visitor counts naturally recede heading into September, a strong summer has the region positioned for another record year — with total visitation approaching 9 million.
“Our Destination Performs Well During Uncertain Times”
Beth Gendler, president and CEO of Gulf Shores & Orange Beach Tourism, has watched this pattern hold through multiple economic cycles.
“I’ve been here 24 years and our destination, and probably all of the Panhandle, performs well during uncertain and down times for a lot of reasons,” Gendler said.
She listed several: growing vacation rental inventory, higher average visitor spending, and families continuing to protect vacations and youth sporting events in their budgets even as other spending gets squeezed.
But the durable explanation, she said, is simpler than any of those.
“These are Alabama’s beaches, and Alabamians will come to the beach and so will our regional visitors, especially in uncertain times,” Gendler said. “They want the solitude, happiness, and joy and memories that they are making.”
There is an economic logic underneath that sentiment. A drive-to beach destination is what households trade down to when money is tight, not what they cut. A family that cancels a flight to a distant resort does not necessarily cancel the vacation — it drives four hours instead. Destinations within driving range of a large regional population tend to absorb that shift rather than suffer from it.
The Streak Since 2010
If Baldwin County clears 9 million visitors this year, it extends a record-setting run that has held almost continuously since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
There has been exactly one exception: 2020, when beaches closed periodically during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Even that year did work for the destination in the longer run. Alabama’s beaches became a draw for travelers seeking outdoor, drive-to destinations when other options were closed. Gendler has said the pandemic introduced a wave of first-time visitors to Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, and that many of them continue to return.
Excluding 2020, visitation to Alabama’s beaches has increased every year since 2010.
The Numbers Behind the Streak
Year-to-date figures presented at a gathering earlier this month in Orange Beach fill in the picture.
Lodging revenue reached $739 million through July. Tourism-related employment climbed to 57,000 workers, up from 55,600 in 2023.
“The whole economy here is growing tremendously,” Gendler said.
She was blunt about what that means for the county.
“We are a tourism economy here,” Gendler said during the event. “It is the number one industry in our county. The community relies and thrives on our guests … it’s about strengthening the community we all call home.”
An Airport Changes Who Shows Up
The most significant structural development is 16 months old.
Gulf Shores International Airport, Alabama’s newest commercial airport, opened in May 2025. With tourism-oriented Allegiant Air expanding service, the airport welcomed more than 34,000 passengers in June alone and has surpassed 100,000 enplanements in its inaugural year.
The number that matters most is not the total. It is the composition: more than 40% of those passengers had never visited Alabama’s beaches before.
“It’s opened up our destination to people who never knew it existed,” Gendler said.
She noted that Gulf Shores and Orange Beach had not marketed heavily in places like Appleton, Wisconsin, and Des Moines, Iowa. Both Midwestern cities now have direct access to the Alabama coast.
An airport does two things a marketing campaign cannot. It reaches markets outside driving range, where the destination was not previously a realistic option. And it changes when people can come.
“It will allow people who drove here in the summertime to come again during another time of the year,” Gendler said. “It’s introduced new markets and people to the area and the doubling the size of the gates and the capacity of the airport will continue to be positive to the destination.”
That second effect is the more valuable one for a beach economy. Summer capacity is finite and already well used; the constraint on growth is the shoulder season. A two-hour flight in October is a trip a Wisconsin family might take. A 14-hour drive in October is not.
The airport is undergoing a $15 million expansion adding two gates, a larger baggage claim area and an outdoor patio. Completion is expected next year.
More Rooms, and More Expensive Ones
The coast is also drawing visitors who spend more.
Average daily room rates have risen only slightly, Gendler said. What has grown substantially is the inventory and selection of beach vacation rentals. The area is selling more room nights, and expectations are for continued growth.
More than 950 lodging units are planned over the next two years, representing an additional 346,750 room nights. Announced projects include Margaritaville Orange Beach, Abaco, Caribe Seaside and Phoenix Key. Hotel developments expected to add to those totals include AC by Marriott, TownePlace Suites and Hotel Rain.
The regional picture is consistent. In nearby Pensacola Beach, average daily room rates rose 4.6% compared with a year ago, which Visit Pensacola said shows rooms being filled “at stronger rates, generating additional revenue for local lodging businesses.”
Inland Attractions Are Feeling It Too
The activity is not confined to the sand. In Foley, the OWA entertainment center and amusement park has seen “steady growth in visitation, season pass engagement, and repeat visitors from both regional and day visitors and overnight guests,” said Ken Leon, property manager at OWA.
Leon pointed to a change in who is arriving.
“What stood out this year was the diversification of our visitor base — families, group travel, and event-based guests who extended their stays to explore the broader coastal Alabama region,” he said.
Guests extending a stay to see more of the region is the outcome destination marketers work hardest to produce. A visitor who adds a day spends across more businesses, and a visitor who explores beyond a single attraction is more likely to come back.
The Cheapest Thing at the Beach Is the Beach
For budget-conscious travelers, a beach vacation competes well precisely because its central attraction costs nothing, said Stephen Leatherman, a professor and director of the Laboratory for Coastal Research at Florida International University, better known as “Dr. Beach.”
“I think folks need to get away, build sand castles, go boating and all sorts of things they can do at a beach,” Leatherman said. “And a lot of it you can do for free.”
In Gulf Shores, a day at the Gulf Place public beach runs about $12 for parking, with few necessary expenses beyond the cost of getting to the coast.
That is the affordability argument in a sentence. A theme park charges admission per person per day. A beach charges for a parking space.
“It’s fresh air, and salty air and just the open horizon,” Leatherman said. “It’s very soothing to me. I like to go for a walk in the woods, too, but I don’t know. The beach has more to offer.”
What Would Have to Change
The case for continued growth rests on several things holding at once: that households keep prioritizing vacations, that the airport keeps converting new markets, that planned lodging inventory actually gets built, and that no storm or environmental event interrupts a season.
The record since 2010 suggests those conditions have held more reliably than anyone would have predicted in the summer of the oil spill. The single break in the streak came from a global pandemic — and even that one ended up sending the destination new customers.