Florida tourism set a new record last year, welcoming 143.3 million visitors, according to data released by Visit Florida. That represents an increase of 0.2% over 2024 and represents the highest yearly total in state history. Domestic tourism represented nearly 92% of all visitors. Overseas visits were up 4%, with almost 9.3 million visits. But visits from Canada were down a substantial 14.7%, reaching roughly 2.9 million for the year. Visit Florida, which markets the Sunshine State to the world, says it’s engaging in talks with Canadian travel groups in an effort to change that. But it may not be Read more
Florida tourism
Their timing was fabulous. Tourism folks from Meet Boston and VISIT FLORIDA, along with Elite Sports Tours, gathered in Toronto this week and treated a few lucky media and travel people to box seats for the Toronto Blue Jays. As a former baseball writer for the Toronto Star who covered the team for six years, attending at least 600-700 games, I always love a night at the ballpark. To be at games when the Jays are in the thick of a pennant race, like they are now, is doubly exciting. The home side didn’t fare well in the Boston game, Read more
Florida has posted a record third-quarter for tourist visits this year. Despite highly-publicized hurricanes in August and September, Visit Florida this week said 34.61 million people traveled to the Sunshine State in the third quarter of 2024, up from 33.995 million during the same period in 2023 and 34.551 million in 2022. “The hard work and resilience of Floridians have been instrumental in keeping our tourism industry strong, showcasing the best of what our state has to offer,” Visit Florida President and CEO Dana Young said in a statement. CBS News said Visit Florida estimates that 2.27 million overseas travelers Read more
Canada will smash through its 2022 visitation numbers for Florida when official stats are released later this month. The final tally isn’t in, but VISIT FLORIDA officials attending this week’s Florida Huddle event in Miami said 2,790,000 Canadians made their way to the Sunshine State in 2022. Statistics for 2023 show 2,803,000 Canadians visited Florida in the first nine months of the year, which is already ahead of 2022 as a whole. Preliminary statistics also show Canadian airlift to Florida in every month of last year was ahead of the same month in 2019, said Jacob Pewitt Yancey, director of Read more
Florida tourism today announced the strongest international visitation numbers the state has seen since 2019. According to new estimates from VISIT FLORIDA, international visitors have dramatically increased travel to the Sunshine state. The first half of this year saw massive increases in overseas (+21.8%) and Canadian (+81.1%) visitation compared to the same time period in 2022. Florida welcomed a total of 33.1 million visitors between April and June 2023, with 1.9 million of those being overseas visitors and 846,000 Canadian visitors. Florida also continues to beat records with annual visitation with 70.8 million visitors in calendar year 2023. “VISIT FLORIDA Read more
