Florida: Losing some of its tourist luster?
Despite modest tourism growth nationally, visits to the theme park capital that underpins Florida’s multibillion-dollar industry seem to be sputtering, according to several new reports.
The area has seen double-digit declines in September and October hotel occupancy, according to Smith Travel Research. It ranked worst in year-to-date occupancy declines among the company’s top 25 U.S. destinations (excluding Las Vegas), with a 4.6% drop so far.
At the same time, the average cost of rooms has increased 9 percent to just over $100.
The tax collections for hotel beds were down 4.2 percent in October from the same month in 2005.
The Smith numbers don’t include Walt Disney World hotels, which do not release occupancy figures.
The numbers also don’t reflect the area’s increasingly more prevalent and popular time-shares. Beyond that, passenger traffic at Orlando International Airport is still on the rise — up 2.9% increase to 34.7 million passengers for its fiscal year ending in October, according to airport officials.
Visitors to all areas of Florida are down so far in 2006, which could give the state its first year-to-year drop since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Florida has hosted 66.8 million people, according to figures released last week, down .8% from 67.4 million visitors at the same time in 2005.
Last year Orlando drew 49 million guests, 58% of Florida’s 83.6 million total.
Report by David Wilkening
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