Florida attracted an overwhelming amount of 31.1 million tourists who had arrived here in the initial quarter of 2017 and this figure marks a 2.5% increase over the level of the year 2016, according to the announcement of Rick Scott, the Governor of this region.
Orlando and Miami are some of the major tourism hotspots of Florida that have been witnessing such a record growth.
In addition, Palm Beach County has also been witnessing a sharp hotel occupancy this year. In the first quarter of 2017, the countrywide occupancy rate stood around 83.9% marking a rise of nearly 1% over the level of last year, as per the account of tourism officials.
Though there has been a record growth, Scott continued to say that it actually cuts to the tourism marketing budget and it is likely to threaten the tourism sector leading to job cuts throughout the state.
Last week, the legislature had approved a $83 billion budget that leaves aside a $25 million for the tourism marketing agency of the state known as Visit Florida.
Scott said that such a noticeable number of tourist arrivals would never have been possible in the absence of a significant funding that was invested in Visit Florida over the last few years. Tourism is one of the largest industries of Florida as it is known to contribute over $7 billion to the local economy of the county.
As much as 7.4 million tourists had visited Florida in 2016, marking a 5.8 increase over the level of 2015.
The county has projected a 3.5% growth this year.
