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Year in Review: Tourism

Tourism numbers slip in November

Written by Jason Schaffer on . Posted in Business, Tourism.

MANATEE COUNTY – Research Data Services’ Ann Wittine presented her state of tourism update to the county Tourist Development Council (TDC) on Jan. 22, comparing tourism in November 2023 to the same month in 2022.

Total visitors were down by 6.4%, room nights were down by 7.5% and economic impact was down by 6.9%, said Wittine, the county’s tourism consultant, citing the latest available statistics. The average daily room rate was down 2.3%, at $186.63 per day in November 2023 compared to $191.11 in November 2022.

“This was the Hurricane Ian effect,” Wittine said. “Last year, we were hosting recovery workers, insurance adjusters, displaced residents and people who would have vacationed in other places but couldn’t because of other places being more impacted by the storm.”

Wittine was quick to point out that although last November’s numbers were down, the number of visitors (80,700) was up 45.1% from pre-COVID 2019 during the same period.

She said that although many of the numbers were down from the previous year, such as economic impact falling from slightly over $114 million in November 2022 to $106.3 million in November 2023, the goal of the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau is not necessarily to get more people to visit but rather see that those who do visit make a greater impact on the local economy. She said this strategy is working, as the pre-COVID 2019 economic impact for the same period was only $67.4 million, which makes November 2023 up 76.3%, a number the CVB is excited about.

Research Data Services also keeps track of where visitors are coming from when they visit the area. The largest increase in any visitor origin is Canada, which is up 51.8% over the same period in 2022. Travel from Europe rose by 1.3%. The largest domestic visitor origin outside of Florida was the Midwest, which saw 18,240 visitors in November 2023, down 1.3% from November 2022. Wittine credits the marketing efforts of the CVB in Florida for making visitors from within the state the largest of all measured regions.

“All of the marketing we did post-COVID to our immediate surrounding Florida markets has continued to have a ripple effect,” Wittine said. “This shows that if we can get a visitor from Florida here, they come back again. With that marketing, we brought a lot of people in that hadn’t yet discovered what they have in their own backyard.”

Idalia nudged tourism down slightly

Written by Jason Schaffer on . Posted in Business, Tourism.

ANNA MARIA – Hurricane Idalia caused many travelers to cancel their trips to Anna Maria Island in August, Research Data Services’ Ann Wittine told the Manatee County Tourist Development Council (TDC) on Oct. 16.

The Tampa-based consultant’s report featured the latest available statistics related to the tourism industry in Manatee County from August 2023 compared to August 2022. In August, the total number of visitors was down by 2% and economic impact was down slightly, by .01%. Room nights were also down slightly from August 2022, by .2%.

“The important thing to know is that even though visitors are down slightly, the economic impact remains flat, so the visitors that came, on an economic basis are leaving more of an economic impact on their destination,” Wittine said.

Room occupancy for August was down slightly by 3% after being down 2.6% in the last report, which quoted data from June 2023. The average daily room rate, was up 4.2%, at $183.63 per day in August 2023 compared to $176.22 in August 2022.

The consultant for the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau also tracks where tourists are coming from when they visit the area. The largest increase in any visitor origin came from Canada, up 40% over the same period in 2022. Travel from Europe has risen 5.8%. The largest domestic visitor origin was the Northeast, which was up 5.3% over the same period in 2022.

“Opportunity markets, which are essentially markets west of the Mississippi, are seeing growth,” Wittine said. “The biggest of these markets is Texas, where we’re seeing a lot of growth.”

She said the number of visitors in fiscal year-to-date in Manatee County was 983,900 as of the end of August. The economic impact of those visitors was $1,579,797,500, up 6.4% from the same period in 2022.

Tourism numbers stay strong on Anna Maria Island

Tourism numbers stay strong on Anna Maria Island

Written by Jason Schaffer on . Posted in Business, Tourism.

ANNA MARIA – Research Data Services’ (RDS) Ann Wittine presented an optimistic state of tourism update to the Manatee County Tourist Development Council (TDC) on Aug. 21 at The Center of Anna Maria Island.

She began by addressing her company’s research into public sentiment on the new water taxi service that is slated to begin operation soon.

The Tampa-based company is the tourism consultant for the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“We are doing a water taxi survey, and we have been doing that for a while,” Wittine said. “We were out for Memorial Day weekend, Fourth of July weekend and we’ll be out on Labor Day weekend. We are hearing more interest now than ever before. Not just a little bit more interest, but a significant interest in the water taxi.”

Wittine says RDS is not just talking to tourists, but also residents and business owners. She told the TDC the surveys are showing an increase in interest from all potential user groups. She said there will be more data available after the Labor Day weekend research is completed. That information will be presented at the TDC’s Monday, Oct. 16 meeting.

Wittine’s report featured the latest available statistics related to the tourism industry in Manatee County from June 2023. Total visitors were up by .8% and economic impact was up 2.9%. Room nights were down slightly from June 2022 by .5%. Wittine says this is due to larger party sizes this year.

Room occupancy for June was down slightly (2.6%) after being down 2.8% in the last report from RDS that quoted data from April 2023. The average daily room rate, however, is up 3.5%, at $216.41 per day in June 2023 compared to $209.19 in June 2022.

RDS also keeps track of where visitors are coming from when they visit the area. The largest increase in any visitor origin domestically is Florida, which is up 7.5% over the same time period in 2022. Globally, travel from Europe has risen 13%, after being down more than 13% in RDS’s April report. The largest domestic visitor origin was the Midwest, which is down 10% over the same time in 2022, but still remains strong.

“We are still double the number of Floridians that we had in 2019 that came this June,” Wittine said. “This is due to the marketing efforts we did during COVID. What this shows is, if we can bring first-time visitors, they fall in love and they come back again. That’s what the Florida number shows us.”

Wittine says the most growth potential for tourism is still Europe, which is down more than 67% since 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lastly, Wittine said the number of visitors to Manatee County was 821,900, up 2.4% from June 2022 and the economic impact was $1,382,734,200, up 7.6% from the same period.

AMI tourism numbers remain strong

AMI tourism numbers remain strong

Written by Jason Schaffer on . Posted in Business, Tourism.

ANNA MARIA – Research Data Services’ (RDS) Ann Wittine presented her state of tourism update to members of the Manatee County Tourist Development Council (TDC) on June 5 at a meeting held at The Center of Anna Maria Island.

As predicted in her April 24 address to the TDC, most numbers continue to be on the rise.

Wittine’s report featured the latest available statistics related to the Manatee County tourism industry from April. Total visitors and room nights were down slightly from April 2022, but economic impact was up for the month in 2023 with 97,000 visitors (down 2.1%), 220,700 room nights (down 4.1%) and $143,973,100 in economic impact (up 3.4%).

“While we did see a slight decrease in visitation this April over last April, a big part of this is because last year Easter fell on April 17, but this year it was April 9,” Wittine said. “This is a normal thing. When we see an early Easter, we find the season compresses. While we saw a slight decrease from last year, we see an increase in economic impact, meaning that visitors that are coming are spending more.”

Room occupancy for April was down slightly (down 2.8%) after being down more than 3% in the last report from RDS, which quoted data from February 2023. The average daily room rate, however, was up 7.9% at $265.70 per day in April compared to $246.30 in April 2022.

The Tampa-based RDS also keeps track of where people come from when they visit the area. The biggest increase in domestic visitor origin was the Midwest, which was up 5.1% over the same time period in 2022. Globally, travel from Europe fell 13.6% and travel from Canada was down 25.6% over April 2022. Wittine said the reason for the decrease in European and Canadian visitors was due to April 2022 being the first spring these tourists were not under COVID-19 lockdown orders. She said that current numbers are more in line with what is expected.

“As we have been seeing, we have a slight rollback in the number of people coming out of Florida,” Wittine said. “This is expected. The important thing to note is that we are still up 50% over where we were in 2019, so all of the marketing to the nearby markets has had an amazing ripple effect with the visitors continuing to come back.”

Wittine forecast numbers going down slightly at her last address to the TDC, but said at this meeting that rental agencies and condo owners on AMI have reported solid bookings for June and July.

Tourism numbers in for February

Tourism numbers in for February

Written by Jason Schaffer on . Posted in Business, Tourism.

BRADENTON – Research Data Services’ (RDS) Ann Wittine presented an optimistic state of tourism update to the Manatee County Tourist Development Council (TDC) on April 24.

According to the latest available tourism statistics from February, total visitors and economic impact were up over February 2022, with 88,900 visitors (up 1.6%). Room nights were slightly down, with 218,900 room nights (down 1.1%) and $214,439,600 in economic impact was up 5.4%.

“Some of these numbers don’t seem that impressive on the surface, but this is February, so we were pretty near capacity,” Wittine said. “There just isn’t room for those big growth numbers we’ve been seeing. This is also during a month when some property owners told us they were impacted by red tide.”

Room occupancy for February was down slightly (-3.5%) after being up less than 1% in the December 2022 report from RDS. The average daily room rate, however, is up more than 10%, at $265.02 per day in February 2023 compared to $240.51 in February 2022.

RDS also keeps track of where visitors are coming from. The biggest increase in visitor origin domestically is the Northeast, which is up 10% over the same time period in 2022. Wittine attributes this growth to additional non-stop flights being added from that region. Globally, travel from Europe is up 73.2% and Canada is up 153.7% over February 2022. The largest decrease was from the Midwest, which was down 9.5%, followed by the Southeast, down 3.5% and Florida, down 2.2%.

“We had a slight increase in number of visitors, which is why room nights are slightly down,” Wittine said. “At the same time, we have a slight increase in length of stay. We are at 7.7 nights average this year compared to 7.6 last year, but more importantly, we are up from 7.2 in 2019 pre-COVID, which is a huge increase.”

RDS’s fiscal year to date (October through February) numbers are up significantly, echoing the double digit increase in February economic impact. At 437,900, total visitors are up 6.4% and at $743,677,600, economic impact is up 11.8% from the same period a year ago. Wittine has said many times that a great deal of the large increases in visitors and economic impact since pre-COVID 2019 are directly related to Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ) adding dozens of new direct flights from all regions of the country. Keeping with the constant growth reported, SRQ is once again up 16.3% from March of 2022 with 1.29 million people traveling through the airport in just the first three months of 2023, which is more than the entire year of 2020 and only slightly less than the entire pre-COVID year of 2019.

Wittine says she forecasts a summer where the numbers go down slightly. RDS does extensive surveys with people who have shown interest in visiting Manatee County, many of whom will be coming to Anna Maria Island, and the consulting company is beginning to see a trend of people concerned about rising prices for travel to the area.

Wittine says there’s no way to exactly predict what the coming months will bring, but she shared some comments from the vendors surveyed, which point to good things to come: “Bookings are up;” “A lot more last-minute, shorter reservations than normal;” “Looking good for summer;” “March was beautiful, more than expected;” and “April reservations are strong.”

Tourism up, record set

Tourism up, record set

Written by Jason Schaffer on . Posted in Business, Tourism.

BRADENTON – As the busy tourist season approaches full swing, Manatee County’s tourism consultant delighted tourism officials with a milestone set in 2022.

“When we look at the entire calendar year, we see that for the first time ever, we exceeded over a million overnight commercial lodging visitors,” said Ann Wittine, of Tampa-based Research Data Services. “We also had a first-time-ever economic impact of over $1.5 billion for the year. That’s a 20% increase and a 50% increase from pre-COVID 2019.”

Wittine presented her state of tourism update to the Manatee County Tourist Development Council (TDC) on Feb. 13, featuring the latest available statistics related to the tourism industry in the county.

In December 2022, total visitors, number of room nights and economic impact were all up from December 2021, with 73,300 visitors (7.5%), 186,200 room nights (5.8%) and $91,956,200 in economic impact (14.5%).

“We gather this information in a number of different ways,” Wittine said. “We have face-to-face interviewers who are out talking to restaurant and lodging visitors for random surveys. We also talk to management companies, condo associations and others to make sure we get length of stay and party size, so we can calculate these estimates.”

Room occupancy for December was up slightly up (.7%) after being down slightly in the September 2022 report from RDS. The average daily room rate is also up, at $211.38 per day in December 2022 compared to $182.55 in December of 2021.

RDS also keeps track of where people are coming from when they visit the area. After being down in the last report issued in September 2022, visitors from Florida rebounded in December, up 13.9% from the previous year. While European visitors are up 115% from 2021, they have yet to rebound after COVID with only half the number from 2019 before the pandemic. With 12,610 visitors, the Midwest continues to be the largest visitor origin location outside of Florida, but that is down from 2021 by 10.2%. The Southeast region had the most growth with a 22.3% increase from 2021.

The report also included information about Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ). Data from these reports helps the airport locate markets that are underserved, so they can work to get direct flights to those markets, which boosts tourism to Manatee and Sarasota counties. SRQ reported serving 3.85 million people in 2022, up 21.6% over 2021.

Wittine predicted that the spring tourism season underway on Anna Maria Island will be busier than ever, saying that almost every property surveyed in January is reporting more bookings than last year, with many being fully booked through March.

Ian didn’t stop tourism, it’s boosting it

Ian didn’t stop tourism, it’s boosting it

Written by Jason Schaffer on . Posted in Business, Tourism.

BRADENTON – The latest tourism statistics shatter the numbers from pre-COVID 2019, according to Anne Wittine, of Tampa-based Research Data Services, Manatee County’s tourism consultant.

Wittine presented her tourism update to the Manatee County Tourist Development Council on Nov. 4 with the latest available statistics related to the tourism industry from September. The number of visitors and room nights and the overall economic impact of tourism on the county’s economy are up from pre-pandemic levels, she said.

“Compared to our benchmark in 2019, pre-COVID, our visitors are up 38.3%, room nights are up 36.7% and economic impact is up 51.4%,” Wittine said. “That’s also considering that most properties lost three days that month due to (Hurricane) Ian.”

Room occupancy for September was down slightly at 57.7% compared to 59.3% in September of last year, however, it is higher than September 2019 when it stood at 54% pre-COVID. The average daily room rate is up at $174.82 per day this September compared to $168.04 in September 2021.

While the Island is used to seeing a large number of tourists from Florida, those numbers have actually dipped 15.7% from September of 2021, but are up 61% from 2019, showing the effect that COVID-19 travel restrictions had on people who didn’t leave Florida during the height of COVID. The largest number of visitors to the county from outside Florida are coming from the Midwest, followed closely by the Northeast. Tourists from Europe and Canada are down slightly from 2019; there is no data from 2020 or 2021 since travel from those regions was restricted.

“In terms of the fiscal year, this is a major benchmark. For the very first time, we’ve got visitors staying in commercial lodgings numbering over a million,” Wittine said. “This is up 11% from last year; an all-time record. We have not seen this before. I’ve been saying to Elliott (Falcione, executive director of the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau) that this is a bubble; you guys aren’t going to be able to keep it up, yet you’ve kept it up.”

Wittine also discussed some occupancy barometers related to Hurricane Ian. She said October sold out with people looking for long-term rentals due to the storm. Many of the occupants were from insurance companies, recovery workers and people with damaged homes farther south.

Spring tourism surges on AMI

Written by Jason Schaffer on . Posted in Business, Tourism.

ANNA MARIA – Spring tourism was strong on Anna Maria Island, according to Anne Wittine, Director of Quantitative Research for Tampa-based Research Data Services.

The Manatee County tourism consultant told the Tourist Development Council at
its June 23 meeting at The Center of Anna Maria Island that April 2022 broke records.

With 99,900 visitors, tourism rose 19.8% from April 2021. Room nights were at an all-time high at 230,200, up 5.5%, with an economic impact of $139,186,600, a 35.9% increase from a record-breaking April 2021. “These numbers are partly due to the fact we were so full in March that many people simply weren’t able to come” until April, Wittine said. “Also due to a late Easter, some of those trips were extended to April.”

Wittine spoke of visitor origins, saying there was a notable increase in visitors from the Northeast, up 74.9% from April 2021, and from the Midwest, up 81.7% during the same period. The Southeast was up 24.6%, however, Florida visitation was down 31.8%.

The average party size was 3.0 people, up from 2.8 last April. Wittine says while that number doesn’t sound like much, it’s a significant increase of 7%. The average length of stay was 5.1 days.

Fiscal year-to-date numbers were equally impressive, with the number of visitors up 21.6% and the economic impact up 35.9% over the previous fiscal year.

Airport traffic at Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ) was also up over 15% from April 2021.

Wittine also addressed gas prices and their impact on tourism.

“Considering gas prices and all the things that are going on, we are not hearing from property managers that it’s affecting their summer business,” Wittine said. “For May, we’re still seeing properties reporting increases from last year.”

A Traveler Sentiment Study showed that concern about gas prices went from 38.7% last May to 60.6% this year. It also showed that 76.1% of visitors were optimistic about personal health and 53.9% were optimistic about personal finances. Both of these numbers are lower than last May, when 81.9% were optimistic about personal health and 76% were optimistic about personal finances. Concern about the economy almost doubled, but so far has not kept visitors from booking vacations.