Florida’s Tourism Alive Despite Inflation. But For How Long?

Photo byPhoto by: R Boed

U.S. tourists have been driving Florida's tourism industry to record earnings while international travel struggles to achieve pre-pandemic levels, according to the recently released Q3 2022 report.

Visit Florida, a tourism marketing organization, predicted that the state attracted 35.1 million visitors during the third quarter, a 6.9 percent increase from 2021. Additionally, the projection was 8% higher than in the same period in 2019, before the pandemic essentially shut down the state's vital tourism business.

The data from July 1 through September 30 – the fifth consecutive quarter surpassing the same period in 2019 – showed the industry has mostly recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Tourism is the number one industry in Florida, and it is the highest contributor to the general revenue of our state. So the health of our tourism economy is directly related to the health of our economy as a whole,” said Visit Florida President and CEO Dana Young.

The estimates, however, did not include impacts from Hurricane Ian, which caused damage to Southwest Florida on Sept. 28, days before the end of the quarter. Several resorts have reported layoffs as they try to recover from damage. So, these numbers might be sugarcoated to an extent.

After the initial blow from COVID-19 in 2020, the state originally concentrated on boosting domestic travel. The numbers only reached the pre-pandemic levels in mid-2021.

Young said the global inflation shouldn't hurt the state’s efforts to lure international visitors.

“What we are seeing is that people still want to escape all of that, and they are still planning vacations,” Young said. “And by and large, they are planning vacations to Florida. So, we are not seeing an impact from the negative economic situation around the world on the people that are actually planning a trip to Florida.”

What do you think about Florida's tourism lately?

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