Handle has fall through winter

In January, the normal daily temperature runs froma high of nearly 60 degrees to a low of 41.
PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) -- Winters can get chilly -- even icy at times -- in the Florida Panhandle, but not nearly cold enough to discourage Canadian "snowbird" Phyllis Kenwood.
The 69-year-old retired hospital personnel staffer from Guelph, Ontario, is among an increasing number of visitors who have helped expand Panhandle tourism from summertime-only into a year-round activity over the past dozen years.
The normal daily temperature in January ranges from a high of nearly 60 degrees to a low of 41, according to the National Weather Service. That's considered cold in Miami, but not in Michigan, Minnesota or Ontario.
"I don't know what snow is like anymore," Kenwood says. "I haven't seen snow for years."
That's because she spends six months of every year, from October through March, in the Panhandle where the average annual snowfall is 0.1 inch with no accumulation.
Kenwood stays in a condominium overlooking the Gulf of Mexico at Fort Walton Beach. It's in the middle of a 100-mile stretch of the Panhandle, anchored by Pensacola on the west and Panama City on the east, that has been a summer playground for decades.
Plenty of space
Sometimes called the Emerald Coast, Miracle Strip or Redneck Riviera -- the latter term never found in tourism brochures -- the Panhandle boasts uncrowded sugar-white beaches and clear, blue-green waters.
Hotels, motels and condos often are booked solid in the summer, but they usually have plenty of space available during the cooler months. Prices often are deeply discounted in winter, which is an attraction unto itself.
"The Panhandle area as a whole is a bargain over what it costs to vacation elsewhere in Florida," says Ed Schroeder, vice president for tourism development with the Pensacola Chamber of Commerce.
Schroeder has no data yet on whether the Panhandle is attracting winter tourists from other destinations, but he suspects that is happening to some extent.
"What I'm being told is that there is a kind of been-there, done-that attitude toward South Florida and that folks are looking toward the Panhandle," he says.
Nice people
Kenwood has spent most of the past 25 winters in Fort Walton Beach, except for one year at Venice in southwest Florida. She missed the Panhandle's Southern hospitality and returned the next year.
"I like the people," Kenwood says. "They are very, very nice and very polite. If you need help, they help. They are very obliging."
Panhandle tourism officials are spending promotional dollars to boost the fall and spring in-between seasons and winter off-season, focusing on the Midwest and Canada instead of the South, where most of their summer advertising is targeted.
The Okaloosa County Tourist Development Council, which includes Fort Walton Beach and Destin, devotes most of its resources to the nonsummer months, says executive director Darrel Jones.
Tax receipts from hotels and other accommodations show the effort is paying off, Jones says. The bed tax has increased an average of nearly 10 percent every year for the past 12 years, dropping only in the past year because of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a depressed economy and unusually bad weather, he says.
Pensacola's off-season situation has been similar, Schroeder says.
Panama City Beach once looked like a ghost town after Labor Day, with "closed for the season" signs posted by many -- if not most -- businesses, but no longer. It most notably has expanded to become the nation's leading Spring Break destination, welcoming a youthful clientele that other cities, including some in the Panhandle, would rather do without.
'Spring Splash'
Okaloosa even shuns the term "Spring Break" but does bid for visitors during the same March-April time frame.
"We do 'Spring Splash,' which is geared toward the dinks -- double income, no kids -- retirees and so on," Jones says.
Many Northerners have no qualms about a chilly winter dip in the Gulf of Mexico, and beachcombing remains popular in any season.
Also, it's seldom cold enough to keep golfers off the Panhandle's growing inventory of courses. Golf Digest magazine this year rated Panama City Beach and Fort Walton Beach as Florida's top two public golfing sites.
Other lures are festivals, snowbird clubs, fishing and outdoor recreation such as hiking and camping at the region's state and national parks, including the Gulf Islands National Seashore.
At Pensacola, visitors can explore the city's historical district and Civil War-era forts and watch an IMAX movie or ride a flight simulator at the National Museum of Naval Aviation.
There's even a minor league hockey team, the Pensacola Ice Pilots, for winter sports enthusiasts.
Another attraction is the Panhandle's proximity to casinos on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Special buses haul gamblers back and forth daily. New Orleans also is less than four hours' driving time from Pensacola.
Panama City Beach snowbird Jack McKay, 70, of Bellaire, Mich., says he prefers the Panhandle's cooler weather to the semitropics of South Florida.
"You get in the middle of December and it's like early fall and it never goes away," McKay said. "Fall's a good season in our part of the world up north."