Gulf Beach Hotels by Season, With September the Quietest
By Matt Spaulding · November 14, 2026
Photo: G1images, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
September is the emptiest month for Pinellas hotels. They ran 57.1% full in September 2024 and 55.1% in September 2025, the lowest month in both years. October 2025 to January 2026 sat close behind, between 59.3% and 63.4%. Those are countywide figures. No source we could read breaks them out by city, so we can't tell you whether Clearwater Beach or St. Pete Beach was the quieter.
The full months are February and March
February 2025 was the fullest of the 23 months, at 86.3%. In 2026 the climb came late: January was 63.4% full and February jumped to 79.4%, where a year earlier January had already been 78.9%. March was 83.6% in both 2025 and 2026. April eased off, to 75.3% in 2025 and 78.8% in 2026.
The Florida State Fair runs Thursday 4 to Monday 15 February 2027 at the fairgrounds in Tampa. Tampa Bay 28 reports the Gasparilla Distance Classic for 20 and 21 February. Spring training runs from late February into March at BayCare Ballpark in Clearwater (the Phillies) and TD Ballpark in Dunedin (the Blue Jays). We haven't confirmed 2027 dates, and both schedules depend on a new collective bargaining agreement.
IndyCar races the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on the downtown streets 5 to 7 March 2027. Pinellas County Schools are off 13 to 21 March, by BayNews9's reading of the district calendar. If that agreement gets signed, the Rays open at Tropicana Field on 25 March against the Orioles (WUSF). The next day the Pier 60 Sugar Sand Festival starts on Clearwater Beach, and it runs to 11 April, per Tampa Bay 28. The Hilton Clearwater Beach Resort & Spa is two minutes on foot from the pier, and the Clearwater Beach hub lists the other hotels there.
May to August
Occupancy drops as the summer goes on. May 2025 was 70.1%, June 69.1%, July 67.0% and August 61.3%. May 2026 came in at 71.9% and June at 70.1%. July 2026 was 69.6%, still above the year before, and August 2026 hasn't been published. We have no dated event for these months, which is a gap in our research. August 2025, the lowest of them, was still fuller than either September.
September and hurricane season
The National Hurricane Center dates hurricane season from 1 June to 30 November. September and October sit in the middle of it, and November closes it. Read the cancellation terms before you book a stay in those months. At three of the small places further down, the full refund, or any refund at all, ends two to three weeks before arrival.
October 2025 to January 2026 ran close to September
Those four months ran 59.3%, 61.0%, 59.5% and 63.4%. The same four months a year earlier ran 70.3%, 78.0%, 77.0% and 78.9%. We don't know why the newer months fell. The earlier months were the ones after Hurricanes Helene and Milton in September and October 2024. At the Bilmar Beach Resort, Helene's surge put several feet of water through the ground floor in September 2024, and the upper floors spent about five months housing displaced locals and FEMA evacuees. The rebuild finished with a ribbon-cutting one year after the storm. That is one 166-room hotel, and it doesn't explain a countywide number.
Tampa's dated weeks, November to January
We found no monthly occupancy for Hillsborough County. For Tampa we have dates, and no measure of how much any of them moves a beach hotel. As of 14 November, the Buccaneers' remaining home games at Raymond James Stadium are Monday 30 November at 8:15 PM, then Sunday 6 December, Sunday 20 December and Sunday 3 January 2027. The ReliaQuest Bowl is there Thursday 31 December at noon. Children's Gasparilla is Saturday 23 January 2027 on Bayshore Boulevard, and the Gasparilla Pirate Fest invasion and parade follows on Saturday 30 January, with times subject to change. Our Gasparilla hotel guide has walk times from downtown hotels to the parade route.
Minimum stays and refunds at the small places
A single night is out at Frenchy's Oasis Motel, in a suite at the Berkeley Beach Club, at the Page Terrace Beachfront Hotel on most dates and at the Bon-Aire Resort Motel on a Friday or Saturday.
The Bon-Aire is on St. Pete Beach. Over holidays the minimum there is four to seven nights. The deposit is one night for a stay of three nights or fewer and two for anything longer. Only written notice at least 14 days before arrival gets a full refund, so a booking made inside two weeks has already missed that window.
The Berkeley keeps a suite's whole deposit inside 21 days of check-in, and refunds it less a 15% processing charge before then. Holiday stays in the suites need three nights, Thanksgiving four.
Every unit at Island's End Resort has a full kitchen, and holidays carry a four-night minimum. Cancel more than two weeks out and half the deposit comes back. Inside two weeks, none of it does. Confirm it's open before you book: its own site takes reservations, but a Pass-a-Grille lodging directory still lists it as temporarily closed after the 2024 storms.
Frenchy's, on Clearwater Beach, has fifteen units. Its published rate terms add $20 a night on Fridays, Saturdays and holidays and $20 a night per extra person, and list no resort fee.
Page Terrace, on Treasure Island, wants two nights on most dates. Summer weekends need three, and Memorial Day and July 4 need five. Checkout is 10 AM and check-in age is 25.
Where the numbers come from, and what they miss
The occupancy figures are Pinellas County hotel occupancy by month of stay, from STR, as printed in Visit St. Pete/Clearwater's TDC Economic Snapshot Reports. We read them on 14 November 2026, and the latest month published was July 2026. They start in September 2024, so August has one year of data and every other month has two.
We couldn't confirm the Yankees' spring schedule. Clearwater Jazz Holiday and St. Pete Pride have no 2027 dates we could confirm either. The tax and fees on top of a room are in our Tampa Bay hotel tax guide.
