Ten to fifteen years ago it was all about Panama City and Daytona Beach. This was a cheap spring break vacation. Gas prices had not skyrocketed yet and you didn't spend hundreds of dollars driving that Ford Bronco or Jeep Grand Cherokee to Florida and back. The hotel rooms were cheap and you didn't need a birth certificate or passport to go. Also, it was much easier to convince your parents to let you go to Florida. Letting their baby boy or girl leave the country always makes a parent uneasy and they felt like they could reach you quickly if a problem should arise.
Cancun, Mexico had its moment in the sun from 1992 to 2005. This was generally fueled by buckets of money pouring into MTV and other entertainment firms from Mexico. You couldn't turn on MTV during March without seeing college kids screaming and dancing in Cancun on spring break...drinks in hand. They sold the idea that Mexico was the number one destination for spring break and college students believed them. Every year saw bigger numbers than the previous. Hotels were booked out seven months prior and it seemed like spring break tourism couldn't get any better, but it was all about to change. The old law of supply and demand combined with mother nature would soon give college students a new spring break destination.
MISSIONS TRIPS
2006 was the year the Bahamas took over, and it has been that way ever since. They typical college student could no longer afford to go to Cancun. The hotels had increased their nightly rates to a level that was no longer affordable. Then in late 2005 the eye of a massive hurricane moved directly over Cancun. The lobby areas of most of the hotels has four feet of standing water. The hotels and beaches had suffered many millions of dollars in damages.
The Bahamas was affordable, it was just a short distance off the coast of Florida, and it was beautiful. Bahama cruises were suddenly full and the hotels were getting sold out in November. Parents liked the fact that Grand Bahamas and Nassau had a lower crime rate than Mexico and they didn't need to send tons of money with their kids to pay for overpriced food, activities, and drinks. The Bahamas had a variety of reasonably priced restaurants to choose from.
It's hard to say where college spring break students will be in 2020, but one fact remains. The pictures and videos shown of MTV spring break will look exactly the same regardless of the background. Spring break will live on somewhere.
Spring Break Trips - 1992 to 2009 MISSIONS TRIPS
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