Bare Necessities annual Nude Cruises to the Carribean, Alaska, and to Mexico are consistent sellouts.
Forbes Magazine, May 2006
Nude Travel Reveals Profits
This national business magazine did a revealing expose on the high flying nudist tourist industry and marvelled how it has grown quickly over the past decade to be a foce that destination locations and transportation officials dare not ignore.
The article quotes Castaways Travel, a Spring, Tex.-based travel agency as claiming they sold 70% of the charter plane's 172 seats in 2005 for a nude airplane trip from Miami to Cancun in just five days. The flight costs passengers $499 round trip and they stayed at the El Dorado Resort and Spa, where room prices start at $910 per week. Castaways selling tag line is, "Fly nude, dude!"
Nude cruises are also taking it off. For the second year in a row, Carnival is offering a clothing-optional cruise on its 2,000-passenger ship Ecstasy. Other cruise lines offering similar cruises include Cunard and Windstar (both owned by Carnival), as well as privately held Star Clippers.
Hollywood, Fla.-based International Lifestyles is the parent company of Super Clubs, which runs some of the best-known clothing-optional resorts in the Caribbean, such as Hedonism II and III, as well as the five-star Grand Lido, and the Breezes chain of resorts. Super Clubs' vice president David Hancock is quoted in the article as saying that business has been so good that International Lifestyles opened three new resorts under the Breezes chain last year (2005). "The nude market is very strong, and we are definitely looking to expand into Mexico and other Caribbean areas," he says.
Dr. George R. Harker, a former professor at Western Illinois University and nude enthusiast based in Hawaii, calculated the economic impact of transforming a nude beach. Kaloko-Honokohau, a former nude beach on the island of Hawaii, was converted back to a traditional beach in late 1998. Harker, citing the Hawaii Travel Authority statistics, says that in January 1999, the island of Hawaii had a 4% drop in visitors, while the rest of the state saw an increase. "I can't think of any other reason for the drop in visitors than the closing of the nude beach," says Harker. "The 4% decline in visitors translates to 2,873 people, who on average spend $1,700 apiece on hotels and food. His estimation is that closing the nude beach costs the local economy $4,941,904 per year.
Worldwide Nudist Tourist Estimated Gross Profits:
(Source: Forbes Magazine 2006):
1992….. $120 million/year
2003….. $400 million/year
2008….. $800 million/year
2010….. $1.1 billion/year
It is the one segment of the tourist business not affected by this recession! Worldwide, nudist tourists spend money!
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California Nudist Tourist Dollars: Black’s Beach, San Diego, CA
Source: A 2007 survey of Black's Beach Goers by the San Diego Tribune:
- Black's Beach gets 325,000 beach visitors per year.
- 25% of those visitors are from outside Southern California.
- 6% of those tourists visited other city attractions and spent 2 or more days in a local hotel.
The bottom line:
Black’s Beach estimated contribution to the local San Diego economy in 2007 was
$21 million ($17 million in hotel fees!
The Black's Beach Bares, the naturist Ambassador (the "neighborhood Watch") team on the beach) conducted their own survey in July 2006 which confirms the above numbers.
Click Here to read their 2006 results.
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Haulover Beach maintains an Information Center for its 1.3 million beachgoers each year. The secret: Beach Ambassadors make sure all understand proper beach etiquette and behavior guidelines.
Florida Tourists Flock to Haulover Beach, Miami, Florida
Background: Haulover Beach in Miami Dade County, Florida was approved as a clothing optional beach in 1991. It was an abandoned stretch of sand, filled with trash and visited mostly by gang members and transients. Today, its ¼-mi beach sees 7,000-8500 visitors on a typical summer day (an estimated 1.3 million per year in 2008).
A survey of beach-goers last year by the Miami Tourist Bureau revealed:
- 60% of those at Haulover were are tourists not from Miami-Dade County.
- The city estimated Haulover parking revenue in 2007 at $1.25 million annually.
The bottom line:
In 2007, Haulover's on-quarter mile beach contributed $ 842,000 in tourist tax revenue
It contributed $ 5.9 million in additional state sales tax.
Haulover’s total estimated contribution to the local economy in 2007 = $800+ million.
In 2008 they estimate this number to be $933 million.
Support Documentation for Haulover Beach can be found elsewhere on the menu if this Travel section.
