Florida Tourism Hits Record Levels

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Feb 15, 9:29AM EST

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Florida has staged a big comeback after years of high unemployment and one of the worst housing busts in recent memory. The state’s tourism industry posted record high results for a single year in 2013.

According to the state’s governor, Rick Scott:

…preliminary estimates released by VISIT FLORIDA – the state’s official tourism marketing corporation – 94.7 million visitors came to Florida in 2013, an increase of 3.5 percent over 2012. This represents a record year for visitation to Florida, exceeding the previous high of 91.5 million in 2012. The number of direct travel-related jobs in 2013 was also a record high, with 1,088,200 Floridians employed in the tourism industry – up 2.9 percent from 2012.

Scott commented:

“With nearly 95 million visitors traveling to the Sunshine State, the news that Florida broke another record year for tourism is a victory for Florida families. Every 85 visitors to Florida equals one job in our state – and it is clear that more visitors to the Sunshine State means more jobs for Florida families. That is why my ‘It’s Your Money Tax Cut Budget,’ commits $100 million to VISIT FLORIDA so we can grow more job opportunities for Florida families.”

Not too long ago, good news about Florida’s economy was improbable.

According to a report published in February 2011 by the Sun Sentinel :

Values of South Florida single-family homes, condominiums and co-ops have plummeted roughly 55 percent since 2006 and now are what they were in October 2002. Nationally, home values have dropped 27 percent in the past four years.

Since then, prices for homes in many markets have posted impressive rebounds.

The employment situation was just as bad as the housing market before the latest recovery . In March 2010, the state’s jobless rate in the state reached 12.3%. The national average for unemployment, by contrast, peaked at 10.1%.

Florida has made real but spotty progress on the jobs front. In December 2013, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the jobless rate had fallen to 6.2% , 22nd among all of the states. However, some cities along the state’s East Coast have not been as fortunate. Unemployment in Palm Coast was 8.8% in December. In Port St. Lucie, the figure was 7.2%.

Tourism is the largest industry in Florida based on GDP. Its recovery bodes well for the state’s economic future

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.