The snowbirds are back.
With the prices of keeping your home warm as high as they are and with the growing population of retirees, it's no surprise the gulf coast is seeing unprecedented demand for winter rental properties.
Take a look at the beaches in Gulf Shores and it?s easy to see there are many attractions that keep tourists coming back year after year. Now something else is back on the list of attractions.
"Snowbirds love 'em. Snowbirds love the casino buses,? says Mike Foster of the Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau. And, they?re back. The casino charter buses are back in Baldwin County. "For them it's another attraction something they can do or see during the day, It's very, very popular in fact, we got a lot of calls asking whether the casino buses had started running again," according to Foster.
"Today was the first day that we actually had a bus trip out of Gulf Shores to Biloxi." Jerri Smith is General Manager of Good Time Tours. "This last two months has been really slow we were very excited to see the casinos were opening back up."
Casino tours represent about fifty percent of their business. There were 30 reservations on the inaugural return trip and Smith says it will only grow from there. Good news for a business that has struggled over the last year.