SWFL business owners looking forward to season traffic

It’s been a rough summer season for businesses near Southwest Florida water, but northern neighbors are starting to pack up to return for winter.

For Wanda Klopf, who owns a store near the Naples Bay, she has only been bringing in half of what she does during season.

And this year, due to water quality issues, she says she only brought in 50 percent of her usual off-season revenue.

“When the red tide came it was kind of average at first but then it slowly got worse,” she said.

But with people up north getting ready to move down to Florida for the winter months, that means better business.

“When we start seeing those transports come down the highway yeah it makes us really happy,” Klopf said.

Companies who transport cars from up north down to Florida for the season say their business is picking up.

Goliath Auto Transport says 220 cars have already requested to come within a 25-mile radius of Naples. If you put two people to a car, that means 440 people could be in our area soon.

Increased traffic really starts to ramp up around October and November.

“It’ll be great just to have an average season with what were faced against,” Klopf said.

Car transport companies say they usually bring 1000 cars down to Florida every year.