Tourism numbers plummet in second quarter
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Florida’s essential tourism industry suffered an estimated 60.5 percent drop in visitors as the Covid-19 pandemic hit hard through the year’s second quarter, with international travel off a lot more than 90 percent.
And the outlook remains dim for the state following practically 20 million visitor drop from April through June. The tourism industry must combat ongoing negative perceptions of Florida’s handling of Covid-19, international travel bans, people slow to return to entertainment venues and double-digit unemployment.
Through the second quarter, around 12.801 million persons --- almost all traveling from other states --- found Florida as businesses were shut down in April and amid harried reopening efforts in May and June, according to numbers posted Sunday by the Visit Florida tourism-marketing agency.
In 2019, Florida recorded 32.4 million visitors in the next quarter and 68.2 million for the first half a year. For the first half of 2020, the state saw its tourism numbers drop 35.2 percent, attracting 44.188 million visitors.
Florida saw a 12.3 reduction in first-quarter tourism from 2019, representing a reduced amount of 4.4 million visitors, as the pandemic began to take hold. In every, around 31.39 million visitors found the state during the first quarter.
Florida ended 2019 with 131.4 million visitors.
Among the second-quarter 2020 numbers, Florida saw just 235,000 overseas visitors and 9,000 Canadians, per the numbers posted by Visit Florida.
The state, which had been on a nine-year run of increasing tourist numbers, estimated practically 2.65 million overseas visitors in the second quarter of 2019 and 931,000 Canadians in once.
After releasing the second-quarter numbers Sunday, Visit Florida added an email online that the pandemic has impacted the way the numbers were estimated and that the international figures released may be higher than using the totals.
“Please note that because of the unprecedented nature of the Covid-19 pandemic and the impact it has had on data used to create visitor estimates, the numbers provided … will probably face larger-than-normal revisions as new data become available,” Visit Florida said in the note.
“Also note that for Q2 2020, Visit Florida believes that the number of overseas visitors to the state was actually 20,000-30,000, but the officially published estimate was calculated using the typical methodology per request from the principals of the Revenue Estimating Conference,” the agency note said, discussing circumstances panel that analyzes monetary data and revenues.
With Florida continuing to add thousands of coronavirus cases a day, a sharp rebound in the tourism industry isn’t expected soon.
Visit Florida has reserve $13 million to advertise toward a tourism rebound. The original emphasis is to get Floridians to explore other areas of the state and also to attract people in local states.
While Florida has been working to reopen the economy since May 4, an increase of Covid-19 cases and deaths starting in late June has slowed your time and effort, amid continued negative news about the state and bars and breweries prohibited from on-site sales of alcohol.
Last week, Walt Disney World posted on its website plans to cut back hours starting Sept. 8 as the Florida theme parks have reported more cancellations than anticipated since reopening in the first half of July.
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As July found a finish, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine continued the NBC show “Meet up with the Press” and warned that his state was at an essential stage with Covid-19 cases rising and “could become Florida.” Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf followed with his own statement that, “We don’t want to be Florida.”
At the same time, Toronto Blue Jays President Mark Shapiro spoke against moving baseball games to the team’s spring training facility in Dunedin due to player health issues. Canada’s international travel restrictions about the U.S. required the team to find a home ballpark in the U.S. The team settled on Buffalo, NY.
On Aug. 5, Christopher Thompson, president and CEO of Brand USA, warned members of the Economic Club of Florida that international tourist spending in america might not go back to pre-coronavirus levels until 2024.
Thompson, appearing at the Governors Club in Tallahassee, said that despite having a vaccine for the coronavirus, consumers should be confident about their health whilst travelling even though at the destinations.
“Today's environment is the worst we've ever faced,” Thompson said. “As the remaining economy is in a recession, the travel industry is in a depression.”
Thompson, who served as chief operating officer and president of Visit Florida ten years ago, said a lot more than 50 percent of the hospitality industry is facing unemployment.
Source: https://www.bizjournals.com