ANNA MARIA – Every other month, Research Data Services’ Anne Wittine addresses the Manatee County Tourist Development Council (TDC) to update them on the state of tourism not only for the Island, but Manatee County as a whole. At last week’s TDC meeting, held at The Center of Anna Maria Island, there was plenty of good news.
During the time Canada, Europe and many northern states were on strict COVID-19 travel restrictions, Wittine credits the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) for transitioning their efforts to local “drive” markets. These are markets in the state of Florida and nearby southern states with people likely to drive to this area for a vacation. The efforts paid off, as Island visitors actually increased in most categories during the worst of the pandemic.
While U.S. air travel has not recovered at the rate expected by many experts, Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ) was up 148% for the month of October as compared to October 2020. More surprising is that during the same time period, SRQ was up 78% from 2019, which was pre-COVID, the highest number of any airport in Florida. While the numbers vary from month to month, SRQ has been the state’s top-performing airport for most of 2021.
The October visitation numbers are up from last year as well. The total number of visitors was up 13.9%, room nights were up 14.1% and economic impact was up 29.1%.
“Last year we were attracting people from that local drive radius, and they came for shorter stays and spent less money,” said Wittine. “What we’re seeing now is people coming from farther away and staying longer. A pivot back to people from the Midwest and Northeast coming down and spending money.”
Visitors from the Northeast have risen from October 2020 to October 2021 from 5,450 to 10,090, an increase of 85.1%. The Midwest was the second-largest increased visitor origin for the same time period with a 44.5% increase to 10,910. Wittine also reports that October will be the last report not to include Europe and Canada, since those countries now allow travel to the U.S.
Wittine always includes a travel sentiment survey in her reports. This data gives the TDC an idea of how people feel about travel, how likely they are to visit the area and any concerns about health and safety. When asked to describe their feelings about travel in general using only one word, some of the most popular sentiments included cautious, hopeful, ready, hesitant and optimistic.
