Economic plus signs

Tuesday's second editorial cheers the ray of hope in recent economic news.

While it's clearly too early to celebrate, there are some positive economic indicators for the Myrtle Beach area in that the average weekly occupancy level for July is the highest since 2005 - better than forecast.

The real estate market also is seeing some signs of forward movement.

The Clay Brittain Jr. Center for Resort Tourism at Coastal Carolina University reported 97 percent of rooms at hotels, condo-hotels and campgrounds were occupied two weekends ago and also expected to be occupied this past weekend.

At the same time, everyone is rightly cautious, given the daily lines of people awaiting the opening at the S.C. Employ ment Security Commission Coastal Workforce Center. The unemployment numbers for June are 11.2 percent in Horry County, 12.2 percent in Georgetown County and 11 percent in Brunswick County, N.C. And those numbers don't include workers whose hours have been reduced to part-time.

Freestyle Music Park's John Stine, director of sales and marketing, says, ``We are having a very good July. That has to be a reflection of the volume of people that are in town.''

Brad Dean, president of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, is pleased to acknowledge the positive signs and is ``cautiously optimistic.''

We'll take that, for now.

The real estate market also is seeing some signs of forward movement.

The Clay Brittain Jr. Center for Resort Tourism at Coastal Carolina University reported 97 percent of rooms at hotels, condo-hotels and campgrounds were occupied two weekends ago and also expected to be occupied this past weekend.

At the same time, everyone is rightly cautious, given the daily lines of people awaiting the opening at the S.C. Employ ment Security Commission Coastal Workforce Center. The unemployment numbers for June are 11.2 percent in Horry County, 12.2 percent in Georgetown County and 11 percent in Brunswick County, N.C. And those numbers don't include workers whose hours have been reduced to part-time.

Freestyle Music Park's John Stine, director of sales and marketing, says, ``We are having a very good July. That has to be a reflection of the volume of people that are in town.''

Brad Dean, president of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, is pleased to acknowledge the positive signs and is ``cautiously optimistic.''

We'll take that, for now.