Tourism in Florida has more than fully recovered from COVID pandemic

Florida’s flourishing tourism sector has totally recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic — after which some.

Roughly 36 million guests from across the nation and world touched down within the Sunshine State within the first quarter of this yr — 1.3% greater than throughout the identical stretch within the final pre-pandemic yr of 2019, in response to Florida tourism officers.

The variety of guests from January via March was 39.6% greater than the identical interval final yr, with the spike probably because of the elevated availability of vaccines throughout that point.

The totals have been additionally 19.29% greater than the primary three months of 2020, when the coronavirus started to accentuate.

With worldwide journey nonetheless hobbled by the virus, 95% of Sunshine State vacationers got here from different states.

Within the pre-pandemic first quarter of 2019, 2.28 million abroad vacationers got here to Florida.

That quantity dipped to 1.76 million within the first quarter of 2020 and plunged to only 492,000 over that span in 2021.

This yr, international tourism recovered some misplaced floor with 1.32 million abroad guests.

Spearheaded by Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida relaxed COVID-19 restrictions earlier than different states and declined to introduce vaccine mandates for eating places and leisure venues.

The tourism surge has additionally come amid a string of political controversies within the state, together with DeSantis’ tussle with Disney over laws that bans instruction on gender identification and sexual orientation for youths in kindergarten via the third grade.

Buoyed by growing tourism figures, Florida lawmakers need a $50 million allocation to fund new advertising efforts through the 2022-2023 fiscal yr.