With many hotels and motels on the brink of bankruptcy and Airbnbs heavily regulated, legal short-term rental options are running low in Miami-Dade County.

The county reopened hotels and motels on June 1 with new safety measures and restrictions, including mandatory mask-wearing for guests and staff, capacity limits for common areas, and pet, gym and minibar bans.

In July, hotels began to recover from record lows of 10 to 15 percent of their historical occupancy rates in April and early May, climbing to up to 40 percent on the weekend of July 4, according to countywide data by the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau.

But occupancy began plummeting again in mid-July, as Florida’s confirmed COVID-19 cases surged. On July 12, Florida reported 15,300 new confirmed cases, according to the Florida Department of Health — a single-day record in the United States since the pandemic began.

Occupancy rates fell to nearly 30 percent across the county in mid-July, forcing dozens of hotels to shut down indefinitely, the data shows.

“Our hospitality and tourism industry has been hit the hardest from this disaster with unemployment, the inconsistency of the openings, the closings,” said Wendy Kallergis, president and CEO of The Greater Miami and the Beaches Hotel Association.

Meanwhile, Miami-Dade County enforced new restrictions on short-term rentals and Miami Beach shut down all short-term rentals on July 15, meaning you had to leave the Beach and couldn’t book a future reservation for the time being.

Hundreds of Airbnb and VRBO hosts are offering discounted rates to lure guests to come back, but some could face criminal charges for violating county or local emergency orders.

Hosts still offering rentals are in violation of the city’s emergency order and could be subject to “arrest and criminal persecution,” according to Melissa Berthier, a spokesperson for the City of Miami Beach.

HOTELS, MOTELS

Members of the Greater Miami and the Beaches Hotel Association — including some of South Florida’s largest hotels, Fontainebleau Miami Beach and Loews Miami Beach Hotel — were filling just over 20 percent of their rooms from July 7 to July 18, according to Kallergis.

South Beach Group Hotels – which already had to furlough hundreds of employees in March – said they were sold out for the weekend of July 4, but guest volume dropped dramatically in the following weeks.

Last week, the group announced that it would be shutting down 16 locations in Miami Beach — including its 4-star Croydon Hotel in Mid-Beach and all-suites Riviera Hotel in South Beach — and lay off hundreds of staff members.

“I am hopelessly optimistic that we can reopen soon,” said the group’s general manager, Chris Rollins, “but we don’t have an exact (date). No one has a crystal ball.”

These hotels and hostels are currently not accepting reservations: