Impact
Visitors to Central Florida reached a record high economic impact in 2023.
A new report by Tourism Economics finds that visitors spent around $58 billion dollars resulting in direct and indirect impacts of 92.5 billion dollars in economic impact last year.
“Overall, when you look at the taxes paid by visitors, you look at the businesses that visitors go to, the hotels that visitors stay in, that represents the $92.5 billion economic impact for the travel and tourism industry,” said Casandra Matej, president and CEO of Visit Orlando.
According to Visit Orlando, 74 million people visited Central Florida in 2023.
Matej said visitation numbers between 2022 and 2023 are relatively flat, but the economic impact by tourists grew approximately 5.6%.
She attributes that to an increase in the average daily hotel rate and more international visitors in 2023.
“We saw international visitors grow by 25%. When you look at the impact of the international visitors, they stay longer, they spend more money,” said Matej.
Visitors pay a tourism development tax (TDT)when they stay in hotels, which Matej said are restricted funds that can be used for tourism promotion.
“So what Visit Orlando does, it can also be utilized to help capital improvements of our Orange County Convention Center and operations, as well as in arts and sports. We bring a lot of sports events, so some of those dollars can be utilized for those types of events,” she said.
However, there have been some calls for TDT money to be used for roads or other infrastructure needs in the county.
In addition, visitors also pay local sales tax at businesses around Central Florida during their visit.
Matej said of the total sales tax collected in the state, 50% is paid by visitors
“That contributes to police, fire, developing and building schools through OCPs,” she said. “It has a ripple effect, so much so that every household in Central Florida, we save $7,400 on annual taxes because that's offset by what our visitors contribute to.”
Growth with sustainability in mind
Visit Orlando's vision is to grow visitation in Central Florida to 80 million visitors, which Matej said gives an opportunity for growth.
“Obviously there's going to be a need for talent growth, but we think that that's going to happen based on the population growth over the next 10 to 15 years,” she said.
According to Tourism Economics's report, tourism supported 464,000 jobs throughout Central Florida in 2023, up 3% from 2022.
Of the 464,000, about 284,000 were directly related to the tourism industry.
“I think it's important, because a lot of us know what those direct jobs that are easily associated with tourism [are] -- hotels, attraction, workers, restaurants, retails,” she said. “But the indirect are industries that hospitality supports, such as the insurance industry, architects, construction and even banking, along with many others.”
Although an increase in tourists can be positive for the local economy, it can put a strain on the environment.
Matej said preserving Florida’s environment is top of mind as Visit Orlando moves forward with visitation growth efforts.
She said they are working on a destination tourism master plan.
“We've involved the entire community to talk about, what are our gaps in the next 10 plus years that we really need to address to really impact affordable housing [and] transportation because we need our talent to be able to get to their location of work,” Matej said. “We're having those discussions right now on what are those trends, how can we be a part of it, and what does the overall tourism infrastructure look like in the next 10 plus years.”
Expected 2024 impact
Matej won’t know the economic impact of tourists in 2024 until at least spring of next year when Tourism Economics releases their latest analysis, but she’s optimistic.
“We're going to end this calendar year with a very strong next couple of months. So I think that is really great,” she said. “We looked at hotel demand, what the pre bookings are for airline tickets, and what conventions are coming to the community.”
Matej said travel and tourism is big business for Central Florida, impacting all who live here.