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Published on : Thursday, February 18, 2021
COVID-19 brought to an end a decade of Florida’s record-setting tourism numbers with the industry witnessing a 34 percent decline in visitors last year compared to the year before.
Visit Florida, the state tourism-marketing agency, late Monday, posted the first round statistics from the fourth quarter and for the full year. It showed 86.714 million visitors to the state last year. That was the lowest annual total since 2010.
Dana Young, Visit Florida President and CEO pinpointed an estimated 20.625 million travelers in the fourth quarter “exceeded our expectations.” Still, the count of visitors for the year might be decreased as figures are refined.
“Please note that due to the unprecedented nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact it has had on data used to produce visitor estimates, the numbers provided below are likely to face larger-than-normal revisions as new data become available,” the agency said.
Particularly, Visit Florida considers that an estimated 3.236 million foreign tourists calculated for 2020 by the state Revenue Estimating Conference is about 400,000.
But Young remained quite hopeful as the state carries on to expanding marketing efforts across the United States.
“Many of Florida’s top origin markets were under stricter travel restrictions in Q4 than the previous quarter, but thanks to our advertising in the Southeast, visitation from those states remains strong,” Young said in a statement. “Visit Florida’s marketing has been integral to Florida’s economic recovery and will continue to propel our tourism industry forward in 2021.
Tags: florida tourism