With more international travelers this year visiting Florida rather than California or New York, the Sunshine State is on track to reach a post-pandemic record high of foreign visitors, according to the state's official source for travel planning.
Through June, Florida welcomed 70.8 million visitors, an uptick of 1.3% over the first six months of 2022 and 4.5% higher than 2019 pre-pandemic levels, VISIT FLORIDA says.
Although U.S. travelers accounted for 92% of the state's visitors in the second quarter of this year, Canadian and overseas visitors were up 81% and 22%, respectively, compared to a 1.1% dip in domestic visits.
VISIT FLORIDA President and CEO Dana Young attributed the state's tourism increase to Gov. Ron DeSantis' "freedom first" policies, including his decision to reopen the state early during the pandemic while blue states including California and New York instituted lockdowns.
"VISIT FLORIDA has been laser-focused on building our key international markets and ensuring the return of international visitors to Florida, and that work has paid off," Young said in a statement, Florida Politics reported.
"While other states have finally opened their doors to domestic visitors and created more competition, Florida is again leading in international visitors. Florida has the largest share of international visitors ahead of New York and California and we lead the nation in overseas arrival recovery compared to 2019."
VISIT FLORIDA's preliminary data showed that the Sunshine State, with an 80% recovery rate over 2019 numbers, is leading the country in recovering the number of overseas travelers visiting post-pandemic.
New York (75%) and California (68%) trail Florida, which also leads the national recovery rate (73%) for overseas visitors.
Over the past two years Florida has led the nation with the largest market share of overseas visitors.
In 2022, about 29% of Florida's international travelers came from Canada, followed by the United Kingdom (11.5%), Brazil (7.4%), Colombia ( 5.8%), and Mexico (4.6%).
A regional breakdown of Florida's international travelers showed 33.5% came from North America, 26% from South America, 25.6% from Europe, 7.2% from the Caribbean, 4.9% from Central America, 2.4% from Asia/Oceania, and 1.7% from Africa and the Middle East.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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