New research shows increased interest in lesser-known Florida destinations

The most remarkable increase in interest came from Treasure Coast, which has tripled the attention it receives from potential British and Irish visitors.

This follows news that in 2020 Florida overtook New York with its market share of all overseas visitation, going from 23.8% in 2019 to 30.3% in 2020, while New York dropped to 21.6% in the same timeframe.

Meanwhile, Florida has also overtaken California in the list of US states travellers from the UK and Ireland are most interested in, taking it to second most sought-after behind New York.

These findings were revealed at the Florida Huddle trade show hosted in Tampa Bay on 24 January 2022, where Dana Young, president and chief executive of Visit Florida, explained her reasoning behind the rise of the state’s lesser-known destinations.

“We’ve been marketing some of our off-the-beaten path activities and smaller and rural destinations,” she said, adding that “marketing these more unusual experiences like swimming with manatees or mountain biking in northern Florida is working”.

Young attributes Visit Florida’s marketing efforts and the fact the state has largely remained open to tourists to the success of the destination as a whole throughout the pandemic.

“Florida never stopped marketing,” she said. “We built a strategic advance as everyone else closed down and had about seven months of being the only state doing any marketing outside the border.”

“We’ve had an amazing head-start and there’s no plan to pull back on that.”

Florida Huddle 2023 will be held in West Palm Beach from 2-4 February.