Sunshine Matters

International visitors represent 11.7% of all Florida visitors.  In 2009, Florida welcomed nearly 9.5 million international visitors from 165 countries – who collectively spent over $5.8 billion in Florida.  This represents a decline of  3% in visitation and a 12% decline in spending from international visitors.  We could chalk the losses up to the global recession and presume that as the economy improves Florida will see international visitors return, but that would be a huge mistake.

The U.S. Travel Association has produced an eye opening report, titled The Lost Decade – The High Costs of America’s Failure to Compete for International Travel.  The research indicates that from 2000 – 2009 international tourism grew 29% – to over 880 million annual trips – and international spending increased 87% to over $889 billion per year.  Over the same time period, international visits to the U.S. were down 9% and spending was up only 12%.

The U.S. and Florida are losing international visitors while the rest of the world is experiencing explosive growth.  Not only are we are losing market share, but we are seeing a smaller slice of a much bigger pie.

Why is this?  We all know that destination marketing works and, unfortunately, until the passage of the Travel Promotion Act, the United States was one of the only countries in the world that did not have a cohesive national destination marketing organization.  This has left state and local destinations that rely on international visitors on a virtual island in an increasingly competitive international tourism marketing industry.

I just returned from ITB – Berlin, one of the largest travel industry trade shows in the world.  There were over 11,000 exhibitors from 180 international destinations ranging from Albania to Zanzibar who were competing for the attention of over 110,000 travel trade buyers.  It is expected that business worth over $6.25 billion was generated at the event.

Roger Dow, President & CEO of the U.S. Travel Association posed an interesting question during a press conference at ITB.  If a visitor from Mars was asked to identify which of the countries on Earth are rich and which are poor based solely on their experience at ITB, what would they say?

Take a look at this slideshow of pictures that I took of the destination exhibits at the event and let me know what you think.  Please keep in mind that the people you see walking the halls and talking to the exhibitors are travel trade buyers. 

While VISIT FLORIDA and the Florida tourism industry were very well represented, there was no significant presence for the United States.

In an increasingly competitive international marketplace, it will take aggressive international destination marketing from the United States and VISIT FLORIDA to reverse recent trends and grow international visitation to the country and the state.  The Travel Promotion Act will provide the type of umbrella marketing platform for the United States that VISIT FLORIDA needs to effectively leverage our limited resources.

The passage of the Travel Promotion Act is a very positive step in the right direction for the health of the U.S. and Florida travel industry.