TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – After COVID-19 cut Florida visitor numbers by about a third last year, tourism marketing officials have set themselves the goal of surpassing the forecast that the vital leisure and hospitality industry will not return to normal until 2024.

The visit of Florida President and CEO Dana Young called the effort Thursday “a huge effort” for an agency “facing many challenges”.

“Our team is committed to exceeding and exceeding this forecast as tourism accounts for roughly half of all sales tax revenue for the state of Florida, as does our tourism industry and the recovery of our state economy,” said Young, speaking on the board of directors of the Tourism marketing agency met at Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin in Lake Buena Vista.

“If we can beat these projections and recover a month, three months, maybe six months earlier, maybe more than predicted, our economy here in Florida would recover so much faster,” Young continued.

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The state agency published estimates on Monday that the state handled 86.714 million travelers in 2020, a 34 percent decrease from the previous year and the lowest number in ten years. Domestic travel declined by 29.7 percent last year, Canadian tourism by 64.5 percent and overseas visitors by 70.4 percent.

Last month, Amy Baker, co-ordinator for the Legislature’s Bureau of Economic and Demographic Research, told lawmakers that the tourism industry is facing another difficult spring due to COVID-19 and that overspending tourists are unlikely to flock to Florida on the coming Months.

The state has seen an increase in the number of people driving to Florida, which has been a Visit Florida destination since last summer. Young said Thursday the state began marketing to California, Oregon and Washington after months of targeting regions on the east coast that were easy to drive to Florida.

“There is so much to be done. And there are several direct flights from these areas to many different areas in our state, ”said Young. “So we’re excited to see how that works.”

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The Florida test will bring back long-distance travelers.

Baker said during a January appearance before the state legislature that tourists visiting Florida don’t, on average, spend as much time or money as foreign travelers and others flying to the state.

And Baker said while tourism numbers show expected improvements for the coming year, it might not be until 2024 for normalcy to return to the hospitality and leisure industries, which have suffered most from the pandemic.

“So 2021 will still be low. By the time we get to 2022, you can see that we have pretty strong growth, ”Baker told lawmakers. “From that point on, we think it will be a slower recovery, but that we should get closer to normal enough to say we have recovered by 2024. So that’s our current expectation.”

The forecast came when President Joe Biden reinstated a travel ban for European countries and added South Africa to a list that also includes Brazil, the United Kingdom and Ireland due to new COVID-19 strains.

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Governor Ron DeSantis has asked lawmakers to budget Visit Florida $ 50 million for the next fiscal year, just as it did this year.

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