Like the long-ago college students who once flocked to these shores, Fort Lauderdale has moved on.
“Where the Boys Are”? Don’t look for them here; the city took itself off the spring break party circuit in the 1990s and hasn’t looked back.
Today, following a concerted effort by the public and private sector—and despite the doubts of business owners who relied on spring break dollars every year—Fort Lauderdale has completely revamped its tourism image by transforming itself into a chic beach enclave of upscale shopping and dining, with cultured artistic performances replacing the wet T-shirt contests and luxury hotels like the W, St. Regis and Trump International supplanting the smaller properties that catered to the college crowd.
“We have just diversified so much in this destination,” says Pia Dahlquist, director of sales and marketing for the Mai-Kai, a dining and entertainment attraction that has been going strong since 1956.
Dahlquist first came to Fort Lauderdale in 1984 when she was a destination manager for a Swedish tour operator, and brought her first tour group down the following year. She joined the Mai-Kai in 1990.
“I like what I’m seeing here now,” she says of her adopted city. “It’s much more family-oriented, with more convention groups, and actually a mix of a lot of different groups.”
No matter the group, though, the end result is usually the same: Plenty of satisfied customers, if recent tourism figures are any indication. For the second consecutive year, Greater Fort Lauderdale welcomed more than 10 million visitors, with 2006 logging the highest-ever number of arrivals—10.35 million—according to the Greater Fort Lauderdale CVB.
So what’s the big attraction? The water, for one—23 miles of Blue Wave-certified beaches followed by 300 miles of navigable inland waterways that stretch from the Atlantic Ocean to the Everglades. Long known as the “Venice of America,” Fort Lauderdale reinforced that image recently with the addition of Venetian-style gondola rides along historic Himmarshee Canal to the famed New River.
Of course, where there’s water, there’s water sports, and Greater Fort Lauderdale is keeping things afloat with Broward Urban River Trails, a nonprofit group dedicated to developing canoe and kayak access areas, waterway trails and kids programs. While salty adventures like scuba diving and deep-sea fishing await offshore, you can hitch a ride in comfort via Greater Fort Lauderdale’s Water Taxi system, connecting the area’s top attractions, hotels, shopping areas, and restaurants, and allowing visitors to “dock and dine.”
Another great combo in Fort Lauderdale is shopping and entertainment, which you’ll find in abundance at venues like Las Olas Boulevard—where outdoor cafes and art galleries share a tree-lined promenade with upscale boutiques—and Sawgrass Mills, billed as the world’s largest designer outlet mall.
