BP oil spill – the reality

TravelMole US Editor David Wilkening explains how misconceptions are causing further damage to tourism in the Gulf Coast.

"Damage forecasts soon after the BP Gulf oil spill were bad. But then they got worse. Dead birds. Soiled beaches.

The reality, however, is that the spill led to the deaths of less than one percent of the number of birds killed in the Valdez spill.

The spill was enough oil to fill about one- sixth of the Louisiana Superdome.

“That’s not exactly a drop in the proverbial bucket, but it’s a strikingly different image from one emblazoned in people’s mind by the early reaction,” writes USA Today in an editorial.

Could there be unknown seabed damage? “So far, it seems the wildest predictions were just that — wild,” said the newspaper.

The publication suggested the news media did a poor job of providing accurate information about the event. There were many exaggerations.

Gulf coast tourism officials say the real problem with the spill has been perception.

“Despite the unfortunate images that you see on television, the most common experience of travellers who stayed with us this summer was that of beautiful beaches. Yes, we had tar balls from time to time, but the impacts were widely scattered and quickly cleaned,” said a tourism official.

The few tar balls that have been reported over the last several weeks have been small and weathered, and tourism official have been told by numerous agencies that they do not pose health risks.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has been conducting regular tests of the waters, and even when tar balls are present, those tests have yet to find any unsafe levels of oil contamination.

“Our reality is that isolated tar balls will occasionally wash ashore just as they have for decades along beaches around the nation. It’s an unfortunate nuisance, and but we are prepared and have place towelettes at each of our 60 beach access points for beachgoers who may find tar on their feet,” said a CVB official.

While the oil spill has finally been contained, misperceptions about oil on beaches may take far longer for the travel industry to fix, say various travel organisations.

“Travelocity recently conducted a poll of over 2,000 Americans and found that many travellers believe the oil has spread far beyond its actual reach. For example, one in four respondents named the Florida Keys as one of the top three destinations they thought were impacted by the spill. One in four also named Panama City as affected, although the beaches are clean and open,” said the company.

Meanwhile, the US Travel Association wants the federal government to set up a US$500 million fund paid for by BP to promote tourism in the Gulf Coast.

“Plans to travel to the Gulf Coast have fallen sharply since the April 20 oil spill, even along Florida’s west coast, which hasn’t been touched by oil,” reports the Houston Business Journal.

Without an aggressive programme to change perceptions that the entire Gulf Coast is covered in oil, the tourism-dependent economies of Gulf Coast states could take a $23 billion hit over the next three years, according to a study conducted for the association by Oxford Economics USA.

Kenneth Feinberg, who administers the $20 billion fund set up by BP to compensate victims of its oil spill, should decide which organisations receive this tourism promotion money, the association suggests. This would avoid potential political fights over how the money is doled out, it contends.

A tourism promotional campaign could reduce that negative impact by $7.5 billion, according to the study.

But some question whether it might take much longer for the Gulf states to regain their image of pristine beaches — once known as among the best in the world."