Florida’s hospitality economy reached a record scale in 2024. The state welcomed 142.873 million visitors, while tourism supported 1.8 million jobs, $79.9 billion in wages, and $133.6 billion in economic impact. These figures describe a broad industry that includes accommodations, food services, attractions, transportation, retail, and related business activity—not hotels alone.
Contents
- Florida visitor volume
- Domestic and international markets
- Hotels and lodging performance
- Airports and visitor access
- Hospitality and tourism employment
- Spending, wages, taxes, and economic impact
Florida visitor volume
Florida recorded 142.873 million visitors during calendar year 2024, an increase of 1.6% from 2023. The total was the state’s highest visitor volume on record. The annual estimate appears in the Florida Q4 2024 Estimates Packet, while the record designation is reported in the Florida Feb. 12, 2025 tourism release.
The quarterly pattern shows a consistently large flow of travelers:
- Q1 2024: 40.554 million visitors, up 1.1% from Q1 2023. The Florida Apr. 2024 tourism release described this as the highest first-quarter total on record.
- Q2 2024: 34.542 million visitors, up 2.7% year over year. The Florida Q4 2024 Estimates Packet gives the detailed estimate; the Florida Aug. 15, 2024 tourism release reported the quarter at 34.2 million and identified it as the highest second-quarter total on record.
- Q3 2024: 34.683 million visitors, up 2.0% from Q3 2023. The Florida Nov. 12, 2024 tourism release described Q3’s 34.6 million visitors as the highest third-quarter total on record.
- Q4 2024: 33.093 million visitors, up 0.7% from Q4 2023.
The full-year count is not simply a measure of hotel demand. Visitors may stay with family, use vacation rentals, travel for day visits, or combine several types of lodging. It is therefore best read alongside room-night and occupancy measures when assessing Florida’s hospitality business.
Domestic and international markets
Domestic travelers remained Florida’s largest visitor market in 2024, but international segments grew faster in several periods. Domestic visitors totaled 130.746 million for the year, up 1.3% from 2023. Overseas visitors reached 8.856 million, up 6.6%, and Canadian visitors totaled 3.271 million, up 1.2%. These figures come from the Florida Q4 2024 Estimates Packet.
The Florida Feb. 12, 2025 tourism release reported the annual market mix as 91.5% domestic, 6.2% overseas, and 2.3% Canadian. The shares describe visitor composition, not spending composition.
| Period | Total visitors | Domestic | Overseas | Canadian |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 2024 | 40.554 million | 37.338 million | 2.130 million | 1.086 million |
| Q2 2024 | 34.542 million | 31.788 million | 1.977 million | 778,000 |
| Q3 2024 | 34.683 million | 31.748 million | 2.270 million | 665,000 |
| Q4 2024 | 33.093 million | 29.873 million | 2.479 million | 742,000 |
Quarterly changes were uneven. Q1 overseas visitation increased 18.4% year over year, while Canadian visitation fell 9.6%. In Q2, overseas visitors rose 1.8% and Canadian visitors rose 1.5%. Q3 overseas visitation increased 1.9%, while Canadian visitation jumped 17.2%. Q4 overseas visitors rose 5.9% and Canadian visitors rose 6.7%. The Q1–Q4 estimates are from the Florida Q4 2024 Estimates Packet.
The Florida Nov. 12, 2024 tourism release separately reported Q3 domestic visitors at 31.8 million, overseas visitors at 2.3 million, and Canadian visitors at 582,000. Those rounded figures differ from the detailed Q3 estimates above, so they should not be mixed in calculations.
Hotels and lodging performance
Hotel indicators show that lodging demand grew in 2024, although the measures did not all move in the same direction. Hotel room nights sold increased 1.6% compared with 2023, and hotel occupancy rose 0.4%, according to the Florida Q4 2024 Estimates Packet. Average daily rate fell 0.5% over the same period.
The Florida Feb. 12, 2025 tourism release reported that annual room nights sold increased 1.6% in 2024 and that Q4 hotel occupancy increased 6.7% year over year. The annual and quarterly measurements cover different periods: the first compares the full calendar year, while the second compares the fourth quarter with Q4 2023.
Together, these statistics point to a distinction that matters for hospitality businesses. More room nights were sold and annual occupancy improved, but the average daily rate declined. Revenue performance therefore cannot be inferred from occupancy or room-night growth alone. A hotel operator would need revenue data, room supply, and costs to evaluate profitability; those measures are not included here.
Airports and visitor access
Florida’s 19 airports handled 111.606 million total enplanements in calendar year 2024, up 3.1% from 2023. Domestic enplanements represented 81.0% of the annual total, down from 81.6% in 2023. In Q4 2024, the airports handled 26.640 million enplanements, down 3.2% year over year, while domestic Q4 enplanements totaled 21.325 million, down 4.5%. These figures are from the Florida Q4 2024 Estimates Packet.
Airport performance varied significantly by location. Orlando International recorded 28.5 million enplanements, down 0.8% from 2023, and Miami recorded 28.0 million, up 7.3%. Fort Lauderdale reached 17.465 million, down 0.3%, while Tampa reached 12.373 million, up 3.5%.
Several smaller or regional airports also posted notable changes:
- Fort Myers reached 5.516 million enplanements, up 9.2%.
- Destin-Fort Walton Beach reached 1.187 million, up 4.4%.
- Gainesville reached 290,034, up 5.1%.
- Daytona fell to 348,028, down 3.9%.
- Tallahassee grew 13.8%, the fastest growth among the airports cited in the packet.
- Panama City grew 13.4%, and Pensacola grew 12.0%.
- Melbourne fell 4.3%, the weakest performance among the airports named in the packet.
Enplanements measure departing passenger boardings, so they are an air-travel access indicator rather than a direct count of all visitors. Still, the airport figures help show where travel demand was strongest and where hospitality businesses faced softer air traffic.
Hospitality and tourism employment
VISIT FLORIDA’s 2024 economic impact release says the tourism industry backed 1.8 million jobs, with tourism-supported employment growing 1.8% in 2024. The Florida EIS 2023 report provides a more detailed prior-year employment breakdown: Florida tourism was responsible for 9.5% of state jobs in 2023 and supported 2.1 million jobs when the report’s broader impact measure was used.
For 2023, the Florida EIS report counted 1,391,281 direct tourism jobs, 310,087 supply-chain jobs, and 413,390 downstream tourism jobs. Combined direct, indirect, and induced employment reached 2,114,758 jobs. The report also measured $58.0 billion in direct wages and salaries within that combined impact framework.
Food services and drinking places were the largest listed tourism-related employment category, with 642,222 jobs in 2023. Accommodations supported 314,860 jobs, followed by arts, entertainment and recreation with 246,781 jobs. Other categories included retail trade at 188,273 jobs; transportation and warehousing at 124,581; real estate and rental at 112,443; and administrative and waste services at 83,544.
The remaining categories show how widely hospitality demand reaches across Florida’s economy. Health and social services supported 73,139 tourism-related jobs; professional services, 63,991; finance and insurance, 57,464; other services, 55,422; wholesale trade, 20,566; management of companies, 19,057; information, 15,881; educational services, 14,566; construction, 13,694; manufacturing, 12,945; agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, 4,801; government, 3,803; utilities, 2,869; and mining, 1,814.
These 2023 category figures are not a count of only hotel and restaurant payrolls. They represent tourism-related employment across direct, supply-chain, and downstream activity as defined by the Florida EIS 2023 report.
Spending, wages, taxes, and economic impact
The VISIT FLORIDA 2024 economic impact release reported $134.9 billion in out-of-state visitor spending. Of that amount, $120.1 billion came from the U.S. domestic market and $14.8 billion from international visitors. The same release measured $133.6 billion in state economic impact and said travel and tourism accounted for 7.8% of Florida’s nominal gross state product.
Tourism-supported wages totaled $79.9 billion in 2024, up 4.6% year over year. Tourism-related activity generated $33.6 billion in federal, state, and local taxes, with tax growth of 3.3%. The industry retained 99 cents of every visitor dollar in Florida, up from 97 cents in 2023, and 59 cents of every visitor dollar supported worker salaries, according to the 2024 study.
The study also estimated a household tax effect. It said Florida households would pay $1,730 more annually in state and local taxes without tourism. It separately said tourism saved the state’s 9+ million households nearly $2,000 each in taxes. These are estimates from the 2024 impact study, not direct tax bills or a census of household payments.
For comparison, the Florida EOG tourism record release reported $127.7 billion in tourism economic impact in 2023, a 5.0% increase over 2022, and $76.4 billion in tourism-supported wages and salaries. The 2023 and 2024 figures come from different annual economic impact releases and should be interpreted within their respective study frameworks.
| Indicator | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Tourism economic impact | $127.7 billion | $133.6 billion |
| Tourism-supported wages | $76.4 billion | $79.9 billion |
| Visitor spending measure | Not stated in supplied release | $134.9 billion out-of-state spending |
| Tourism-supported employment | 2.1 million broader impact jobs | 1.8 million jobs |
The employment row is not a like-for-like replacement for the detailed 2023 total: the 2023 Florida EIS report’s combined figure was 2,114,758 jobs, while the 2024 release reported 1.8 million tourism-supported jobs. The published source labels and study definitions should be retained when comparing them.