There’s a Foul-Smelling Algae Eating Profits at a Key West Resort

(Bloomberg) -- The last thing hotel owners need is foul-smelling algae eating into profits.

Yet that’s what happened at the Southernmost Beach Resort in Key West, where a “seaweed outbreak” cost landlord Pebblebrook Hotel Trust an estimated $850,000 in food and beverage sales, Chief Financial Officer Raymond Martz said on a quarterly earnings call Friday.

The seaweed in question was identified as sargassum by Michael Bellisario, an analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co. The slimy, brown algae, which is said to smell like rotten eggs, has also put a dent in Cancun’s tourism business.

Pebblebrook’s shares were down 3% at 11:48 a.m. New York time, as softening business and leisure travel trends led the company to lower its full-year guidance.

To contact the reporter on this story: Patrick Clark in New York at pclark55@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Craig Giammona at cgiammona@bloomberg.net, Christine Maurus

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