It's possible the fear of the oil spill may be over for tourists wanting to visit Panama City Beach.
After two straight months of declining bed tax revenues for July and August, the numbers are starting to turn around.
July and August saw a 14.5% drop in bed tax revenues from the year before.
Local tourism leaders blame both the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the recession for the decline, but September is giving them so hope the worst is over.
Even though tax collections were down a half a percent from August, they were slightly up from September 2009.
Despite the positive sign, business owners are still licking their wounds over what was supposed to be a comeback summer.
"This shows a turning point, but being flat with last year doesn't live up to the expectations. It does feel good that it's not in red ink anymore, but this year we were looking at before the deepwater horizon oil spill increases of 6, 8, 10 in the month of march 18% over the previous year, so it's good news bit it's tempered good news," said Dan Rowe, TDC director.
And they're hoping the October numbers will continue the positive trend, powered by a couple of big events.
"All of the fall events gives people another reason to come to the beach. You know 40% of our tourist development tax collections came historically in the moths of June and July and events help us drive in business throughout the year," said Rowe.
The fall Thunderbeach rally should add to those revenues and Seafood and Wine Festival organizers say they have proof this year's events attracted out of town visitors.
Florida State University business professor Dr. Mark Bonn surveyed crowds all three nights and found of the 20,000 people who attended around 12,000 were not from Bay County, and 6,000 stayed overnight.
"The mission of the festival is to put heads in beds and bring people to town and give them something to do in the fall to extend our summer season and I think we have accomplished that and now we've proved that in 2010 that it can be done," said Jack Bishop.
Bonn also says the event had a 3.2 million dollar economic impact on Bay County.
