Visit Florida

With the state drawing record numbers of tourists from other parts of the country as the industry rebounds from the COVID-19 pandemic, Visit Florida President and CEO Dana Young received an 8.6% pay boost.

Visit Florida has drawn praise the past few years for its marketing work amid crises such as toxic algae outbreaks and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Visit Florida is set to run out of funding in fall of 2023 — unless state lawmakers act before then.

The president and CEO of Visit Florida said the agency will continue to expand its marketing efforts and encourage tourists to vacation in Florida this winter.

Tourism officials are slightly lowering expectations through the middle of 2022 for Canadian and overseas travelers, along with looking at the impact on the state's economy.

Visit Florida reported the positive outlook as more people become vaccinated from the coronavirus and cruise ships resume sailing.

More visitors are coming to the state as the 2021 numbers from April 1 through June 30 were just 2.2% below where the state was in 2019.

The policy coordinator for Gov. Ron DeSantis' Office of Policy and Budget said he expects the White House to match the Canadian border-policy changes within the next three weeks.

Florida drew 26.162 million domestic and international visitors from Jan. 1 to March 31, down from 30.4 million tourists during the first quarter of 2020.

The new estimates by Visit Florida included a revision of the overall numbers for 2020 that indicates the pandemic was worse on the leisure and hospitality industry than previously projected.

Forbes called it a “brand new genre of television marketing by a tourism organization.”

Estimates show the state handled 86.714 million travelers in 2020, down 34% from the previous year and the lowest number in a decade.