POLK COUNTY, Fla. -- Vacation home communities are being crushed by the coronavirus shutdown.
- Balmoral Resort vacation home in Haines City feels blow from COVID-19
- Operations suspending until April 30
- More coronavirus news
Gov. Ron Desantis has ordered they suspend operations until April 30.
It's a crushing blow to Garrett Kenny, who owns the Feltrim Group that owns and operates the Balmoral Resort vacation home community in Haines City.
Before closing the resort, he said the place was booked through March, both with vacation rentals and sports tournaments at the resort’s new sports complex.
“We were very happy thinking that 2020 was going to be a good year. Bear in mind, we were hit with a threatened hurricane in 2019. A hurricane in [2017]. So that did hurt our business so 2020 was shaping up to be a good year,” explained Kenny.
Balmoral Resort opened its new sport complex, complete with stadium lights, a turf field, locker room, and bleachers in December. The goal was to lure sports tournaments and athletes from around the world.
“The sporting events, you know we’ve invested so much money into the sports. It’s now dead. Crickets,” Kenny said.
About 35 percent of his customers come from the United Kingdom.
“What really hurt us was the travel ban to the UK, also because one of our biggest client is Virgin Holidays in the UK and when the travel ban was introduced, all of our UK business was wiped away,” Kenny said.
It led to him furloughing 65 employees. He estimates he’s lost about $1.2 million in revenue since mid-March through the end of this month. But Kenny said closing the resort for good isn’t something he’s considering.
“I’ve been in business 20 odd years. Failure is never an option. We have to retool ourselves and that was part of my conference call with managers yesterday. We have to retool and be different for a different world. But business will be there but it’s going to be a lot slower coming back,” Kenny said, worried people won’t want to travel by plane for awhile.
Kenny said he did apply for the Paycheck Protection Program, a Small Business Administration loan designed to help businesses keep their workforce employed during COVID-19. He said he was approved but hasn’t received the money yet.