MILT THOMAS

Tourism is not only Florida’s number one industry, it has recovered from the Great Recession and is on track to break records. That was the takeaway from the Indian River County Chamber of Commerce Tourism Luncheon on May 22 at the Vero Beach Museum of Art. Guest speaker was Paul Phipps, chief marketing officer for VisitFlorida, the state tourism marketing agency.   “We are pleased to announce,” he said, “that final figures show this past year a total of 91.4 million tourists visited Florida, which is an all-time record.”

Of that total, 77.6 million were domestic visitors and 13.8 million were from foreign countries, both record numbers. Phipps went on  to say those tourists generated $71.8 billion (with a B) tourism dollars and the sales tax alone from tourism accounted for 23% of all sales tax collected in the state.

Locally, Penny Chandler, president of the Indian River County Chamber of Commerce, said that tourism generated $300 million to the local economy and employed 4,460 people. Jason Brown, director of management and budget for the county, explained how the four percent tourist accommodations tax, more commonly known as the bed tax, funds tourism promotion, beach restoration and maintenance and the former Dodgertown purchase.

The primary local tourism marketing agency is the Indian River County Chamber of Commerce, but a number of other non-profit organizations  bring tourists to our county and receive some funding. Since the bed tax is a percentage of hotel and motel receipts, it is a good indicator of the overall health of tourism in the county. According to Brown, tax receipts so far this fiscal year are up about six percent from last year, which was up 11.5% over the year before.

According to Phipps, the state’s greatest long term challenge will be to replace the 32 million baby boomers as they grow older and travel less. “We are gearing towards the youngest adult generation, the millennials. Besides water sports, they love racing and in Florida we offer every kind of racing in the world.”

Phipps relies on creative advertising programs to make Florida stand out among many other destinations compete for business. “For instance, in Chicago we painted the interior of some train cars as a 360 degree Florida beach scene and on a frigid Chicago January, that certainly piques the interest of riders.”

Another advertising theme encourages visitors to just stay one more day on their trip to Florida. “That one extra day,” says Phipps, “translates into one billion dollars of extra revenue.”

A co-sponsor of the luncheon was Melbourne International Airport. The airport’s executive director, Richard Ennis, spoke of a new startup airline, Elite Airways, beginning operation. He also commented on the importance of Port Canaveral to the airport and to the area’s economy. “Port Canaveral this year in the second largest port in the world and we expect next year it will be number one, passing Miami and Fort Lauderdale.”

The event ended with the announcement that Jamie Jackson, of J2 Public Relations, is winner of the 2013 Chamber Hospitality Award for her volunteer work on the tourism committee.