Vacationers have been flocking to East Coast beaches since the oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico last April.

Preliminary numbers show a trend of some vacationers steering clear of the beaches of Florida, Alabama and Mississippi fearing tar bars and oil stained shores.

“When you spend that kind of money on vacation you don’t want to really risk having a bad experience,” said Myrtle Beach vacationer Mark Rodgers.

Rodgers usually travels with his wife and two kids to the Florida Panhandle every summer but this year he changed that.

“With the oil being in the Gulf we know of five families just from our town that came to the East Coast that were planning to go to the Gulf Coast,” he said. “We just kept checking and calling back and then one day they had a cancellation and we booked it. ”

Beach house rental manager Ryan Sawim of Dunes Realty says Myrtle Beach business owners is pleased to see an influx of visitors, but he emphasizes nobody in Myrtle Beach is celebrating what is happening to the Gulf Coast.

“It’s something that we are very sensitive to and we have not targeted visitors to the Gulf Coast.” Swaim said.  He suggests tourists often favor the quiet waters of the Gulf over the frequently storm-tossed Atlantic.

“I am a pretty firm believer in what goes around comes around.  If someone from the Gulf Coast comes here we are going to show them all the hospitality we can but we are not going to be doing cartwheels over the fact that we are getting business from somewhere else.”