Florida Tourism & Recession

[SHELLY]

While the financial channel talking heads, the Fed, and the President all deny that we are going to have a US recession, apparently the Florida Legislature's Top Economist, Amy Baker, did not get the memo:

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Fla. tourism hit by national economic skid

By BRENT KALLESTAD
Associated Press Writer

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Florida's economy, already staggered by a stagnant real estate market and tight credit conditions, suffered another blow Friday when officials said tourism fell by 1.5 million visitors in 2007.

Preliminary estimates showed 82.4 million people visited Florida in 2007, compared to 83.9 who came in 2006. It was the first drop-off in visitors to Florida since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the northeast.

"Trends suggest that some vacationers traveling by auto may be staying closer to home," said Bud Nocera, president and CEO of Visit Florida, the state's private-public tourism agency.

Folks in other states apparently were staying closer to home too.

Tourism was flat a year ago as well, increasing by 1 percent, and Visit Florida has renewed its call on the Legislature for money to help lure more visitors with advertising blitzes.

"With ever increasing competition in the market place, it is important for Florida to be top of mind to all potential travelers," said Nicki Grossman, vice chairman of the Florida Commission on Tourism. "Now more than ever, Florida's tourism industry is counting on the Legislature."

Tourism leaders want lawmakers to support Gov. Charlie Crist's $43.3 million budget request for the industry.

Florida tax coffers received $3.9 billion in 2006 from the state's $65 billion tourism industry, which employs nearly 1 million Florida residents.

The Legislature's top economist, Amy Baker, said the national recession was largely responsible for the state's tourism downturn.:blink:

"The two places you'd see it the most are in sales tax collections and rental car surcharges," Baker said. "The housing was a homegrown problem, the tourism is not."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FL_FLORIDA_TOURISM_FLOL-?SITE=FLPEJ&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

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Now I know who stole my crystal ball :cool:

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[kurt]

Businesses and rental owners in WalCo need a really good season this Summer to offset some of the losses from real etstate and related businesses. A storm in season this year would be a tough blow to absorb.


In Walton County, according to the TDC:
Tourist occupancy tax collections in 2007 increased 12% over previous year.
Visitors to WalCo contributed nearly $131 million in revenue of which $37 million benefitted the school district and $93 million was general county revenues.
WalCo attracted approximately 2.6 million overnight visitors in 2006, an increase of 130 percent since 2000.
Visitor spending is more than $1 Billion in WalCo.

[wrobert]

Businesses and rental owners in WalCo need a really good season this Summer to offset some of the losses from real etstate and related businesses. A storm in season this year would be a tough blow to absorb.

I do not think that people realize how much money the State makes off of hurricanes, or at least in the past, now that they self-insured it probably would not offset the income.

The reason sales tax collections were so high, and the State had so much money to budget into recurring programs is all the storms that hit us a couple of years ago. All of that massive rebuilding was generating huge sums of sales tax revenue. We should go back and look at what sales and collections were before the rebuild period and use that as a baseline. I imagine we are still ahead, but since government was given all of that money, they found a program to put it into.