Industry frets over small increase in tourists

TALLAHASSEE — Tourism industry officials are worried about a possible downturn after third-quarter numbers released Wednesday showed tourist growth of 1.2 percent, the smallest increase since 2010.

In all, 31.6 million tourists flocked to Florida between July and September, according to Visit Florida. That’s the most ever for a third quarter, but the tiny year-over-year rise was still a cause for concern to the tourism industry.

“It’s scary, this quarter is scary, and that’s where it starts to go down on you,” said Santiago Corrado, president and CEO of Visit Tampa Bay.

Overall, tourism is up 3.7 percent with 101.1 million visitors through the first nine months of the year, but during the third quarter tourists from within the U.S., which had been driving tourism growth, slowed to 1.6 percent compared with the third quarter in 2018.

Tourists from overseas, not including Canada, was just less than 500,000, a 3 percent year-over-year drop.

“There’s no doubt that Visit Florida plays a major role in the overall health of Florida’s foundational tourism industry,” said Visit Florida CEO Dana Young. “While we didn’t see the level of growth that we hoped for this quarter, Visit Florida remains committed to bringing vacationers to our state.”

Carol Dover, president of the Florida Restaurant and

Lodging Association, and other tourism officials attribute much of the slower growth to budget cuts at Visit Florida, the state’s public-private tourism marketing agency. Lawmakers cut Visit Florida’s budget from $76 million to $50 million for the fiscal year that began July 1, the start of the third quarter.

“We just hope that we can get the Legislature to understand time and time and time again we have proven that the amount of money that Visit Florida pumps into marketing is a direct correlation to the number of visitors we have,” Dover said.

After years of growth coming out of the Great Recession, that trend could be ending, she added.

“Now we’re going to start to see this pendulum – I’m fearful – swinging in the other direction, which it already has,” Dover said.

Hurricane Dorian threatened Florida at the beginning of September, causing many tourists to cancel bookings and avoid the Sunshine State over

Labor Day weekend, historically a popular weekend. Hotel occupancy rates for the Orlando metro area dropped 40 percent in August, especially late in the month as Dorian menaced Florida’s east coast.

But tourism officials said numbers were down throughout the quarter, not just due to Dorian, which ended up missing Florida after churning slowly off the coast after smashing the Bahamas.

“There is always variability in weather events and certainly the overall the economy,” said Robert Skrob, executive director of Destinations Florida, a trade group for local tourism marketing organizations. “When you see those numbers behind the bigger numbers, you see that there is a pattern that is bigger than a particular storm event.”

Dover said FRLA members have reported initial bookings for January and February are down – a trend that she called a “slippery slope” that could spell bad times for the industry.

“It’s one thing to have this quarter down; it’s going to be a major economic impact if we have a down first quarter (of 2020),” Skrob said. “That is where so much of our visitation comes from in terms of volume.”

Starting in 2017, House leaders have looked to eliminate Visit Florida. Former House Speaker Richard Corcoran called it “corporate welfare” and unfair to use public funds to pump up a private industry. But Visit Florida has held on with the support of former Gov. Rick Scott and his successor

Gov. Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis’ recommended budget released on Monday calls for Visit Florida to keeps its funding level at $50 million.

The cuts and uncertainty have taken their toll. Visit Florida laid off 44 employees in May – about one-third of its workforce – ahead of the cuts.