The Florida tourism industry has seen a significant increase in visitors from countries like China, Brazil, and Mexico.
According to preliminary estimates, 31.7 million people visited the state in 2019, indicating a 220 percent rise over 2020 and a 6% increase over 2019.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis stated, “Not only did we have more tourists in the second quarter than we had in 2020, but the statistics indicates that domestic tourism has already completely returned to 2019 levels.”
ADVERTISING
The state’s tourist marketing organization, Visit Florida, praised its marketing efforts for helping to increase visitor numbers.
It developed a co-branded, multi-channel campaign marketing Florida to people 25 and older in key Northeast cities in collaboration with AAA Northeast.
“Visit Florida’s $150,000 investment in the campaign resulted in more than $24.5 million in overall bookings to Florida, including $16 million in bookings to Orlando,” according to the group.
What’s Hot Right Now
Visit Florida also collaborated on three Midwest and Northeast campaigns with Allegiant Airlines, American Airlines/American Airline Vacations, and United Airlines to “keep Florida front of mind and boost reservations to the state when travel resumed.”
Its $550,000 expenditure “helped generate over $1.2 million in media value and over 156.5 million impressions, surpassing expectations by 47.3 percent recovery and establishing Florida as a top destination for visitors throughout the United States,” according to Visit Florida.
Allegiant’s Florida bookings increased by 8.6% on average year over year; American Airlines’ flight to Florida increased by 80%; American Airline Vacations’ package bookings increased by 14.8 percent, with a 19.3 percent increase in room nights and 9.3 percent increase in revenue; and the campaign directly resulted in $2.9 million in air sales.
Visit Florida President and CEO Dana Young stated, “Florida tourism’s soaring increase in Q2 2021 is an amazing accomplishment for our state’s economic recovery and shows the efficacy of Visit Florida’s marketing.”
“With Governor DeSantis’ assistance, we were able to not only push travel far beyond 2020 goals, but also accomplish a 6% growth in domestic visitation from 2019.”
“Visit Florida is still solely focused on boosting Florida’s tourism industry and promoting all our wonderful state has to offer visitors.”