Posted on 08/22/2003 5:29:59 PM PDT by Pikamax
Visit Florida: Tourism up, again Robin Londner In an increase the governor called modest but encouraging, the number of tourists who visited Florida during the second quarter is up .4 of a percent to 18.2 million people, improved from 18.19 million for the same period last year.
In estimates provided by Visit Florida, Florida's tourism marketing organization, the state says at 38.2 million visitors so far this year through June 30, tourism is 1 percent ahead of where it was at this time in 2002 -- 37.82 million visitors.
Last year, a record 75.6 million people visited Florida, up 9 percent from 69.35 million visitors in 2001.
"Tourism continues to recover from the September 2001 terror attacks and shows stability even as the rest of the country continues to rebound from a slow economy," says Gov. Jeb Bush. "Obviously if this pace continues, Florida is set for another record year in attracting visitors to our great state."
In the first quarter, the state estimates 20.1 million visitors came to Florida, up .2 of a percent from 20.09 million visitors in the first quarter 2002.
Breaking out the second-quarter estimates, Visit Florida says it believes the state hosted 16.8 million domestic visitors, up .9 of a percent from 15.41 million visitors for the second quarter 2002.
"The split between visitors arriving by air versus non-air was essentially unchanged with an estimated 51.1 percent of Florida visitors arriving by air in the most recent second quarter and 48.9 percent non-air," the state says.
For the same period last year, 51.6 percent of visitors came by air and 48.4 percent did not come by air.
The way people come to Florida may be the same from time period to time period, but tourists are coming from different places than they did before.
In Visit Florida's final, 2002 overseas visitor estimates, the group says 4.42 million overseas visitors came to the state last year, a 16 percent decrease from the 5.26 million overseas visitors who came to Florida in 2001. Visit Florida attributes the decline mostly to changing travel patterns as a result of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The majority of overseas visitors continued to come from the United Kingdom at 1.29 million visitors, followed by Venezuela at 301,000 visitors, Germany at 202,000 visitors and Brazil and France, both with 134,000 visitors.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.