Florida
Bay Area sees spike in visitors as Florida reports record number of tourists
File tourism numbers
Catherine Hawley reviews.
TAMPA, Fla. – A file variety of vacationers visited Florida through the first three months of the 12 months. Within the Tampa Bay space, visitation numbers are additionally shattering information, even ones set pre-pandemic.
The Sunshine State welcomed 36 million guests within the first three months of the 12 months. With lots of these vacationers flocking to Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.
“For 2 years in a row, we have been the busiest journey vacation spot within the nation,” mentioned Santiago Corrada, president & CEO of Go to Tampa Bay.
He mentioned that’s primarily based on resort occupancy. For the month of March, each Go to St Pete/Clearwater and Go to Tampa Bay reported resort occupancy percentages above the statewide common of 81.4%.
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“When a customer involves city, solely a share of their greenback is spent on lodging. It is about 30%,” Corrada mentioned. “The opposite 70% of their greenback goes for meals and beverage, recreation, transportation, leisure.”
Each particular person paying to remain someplace is charged a six p.c vacationer growth tax, or mattress tax.
In Hillsborough, earlier record-setting mattress tax collections are being shattered.
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“January, February, March, big file setters, though we have been setting information since final April, imagine it or not. So it is nearly an entire 12 months of record-setting months,” mentioned Corrada.
The mattress tax reported in February by Go to Tampa Bay displays the greater than $5 million collected in January. February’s collections topped $6 million, and April’s vacationer growth tax collected in March surpassed $7 million.
“It is fairly outstanding that Tampa has turn out to be this vacation spot of alternative, Hillsborough County, that persons are coming right here from all around the nation,” Corrada mentioned.
The same increase is going on in Pinellas County the place month-to-month mattress tax collections for March eclipsed earlier information, hitting greater than $13 million.
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It seems this momentum isn’t slowing down heading into summer time.
“We’ve got preliminary numbers on April and Could, and they’re going gangbusters. So we will proceed to see these information fall as these numbers turn out to be official,” mentioned Corrada.
Native airports are seeing large passenger development as nicely. Sarasota Bradenton Worldwide says between January and the top of April they’d extra passengers than they usually see in a whole calendar 12 months.
Tampa Worldwide Airport had 31.5% extra vacationers this April in comparison with April 2021.