With international travel clawing closer to pre-pandemic levels, Florida is on pace for a record-setting year for tourism, tourism-marketing agency Visit Florida estimated Thursday.
It said just over 35 million people traveled to Florida during the third quarter of 2023, 1.4 percent more than during the same period of 2022 and 7.9 percent above the total in 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic began.
The new numbers showed a rebound from a slight second-quarter dip, which industry leaders attributed to increased competition from other states and countries that were closed longer than Florida because of the pandemic.
Visit Florida said Florida had 105.2 million visitors during the first nine months of the year, up from 104.478 million during the same period in 2022. Florida posted a full-year record of 137.4 million tourists in 2022.
