TAMPA, Florida – On the way into what is expected to be a very busy summer travel season, the tourism industry is recovering in the United States and the Tampa Bay area in particular.

Travelers are eager to catch up on vacations they missed last year.

“We had the vaccine and now we feel a little more comfortable going out and visiting more places,” said Sean James.

James brought his family to LEGOLAND Florida Resort for the first major vacation since the pandemic. “It’s nice. It’s almost like life is going back to normal,” he said.

Economists say tourism is almost back to normal. During his presentation at a Tampa tourism summit, economist Adam Sacks said 89% of travelers said they had plans to travel in the next six months.

“By the end of 2022, as many people will be traveling in the US as before. International travel will take a few years longer, ”said Adam Sacks, president of tourism economics.

Visit Tampa Bay tells ABC Action News that tourism is doing very well given the lack of international travelers.

“There were a lot of local vacationers that we obviously saw from all over the state, but also from other parts of the country. We had some big events that drew a lot of people to the goal. We had a Super Bowl, Wrestlemania, ”said Santiago Corrada, President and CEO of Visit Tampa Bay.

Visit Tampa Bay said the opening of new hotels like the JW Marriott Tampa Water Street speaks for the resurgence of tourism in the area.

The occupancy figures in Tampa hotels are almost back to 2019. The hotel occupancy is currently 72 percent compared to 23 percent in the previous year and 77 percent in 2019.

“We added 2,000 rooms during the pandemic, which many other places haven’t,” Corrada said.

We did a bit of digging to find out how many visitors were to local tourist destinations.

At LEGOLAND, they are planning to reach or even surpass 2019 this summer.

“We really saw it as a turning point with Spring Break. We see a return not only of our Florida residents, but also of our local US tourists, ”said Rex Jackson, President of LEGOLAND Florida Resort.

Bok Tower Gardens in Polk County said March attendance was the best it had in more than 30 years. According to ZooTampa, 2021 was a record year for visitor numbers that are expected to exceed a million visitors.

“Not only do we have tremendous traffic when people come through the gate, but we also have people who are spending money when they come into the park and have fun and have a wonderful time,” said Joe Couceiro, CEO of ZooTampa.

While tourism has made a comeback, workers haven’t. All of the targets we spoke to stated that they are hiring aggressively.

However, experts say the economy will be a catalyst for travel in the coming year.

“The people who travel and spend the most have been relatively untouched by the job losses themselves and have saved tremendous amounts of money. When things open up, we see pent-up demand,” Sacks said.

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