Not surprisingly, tourism is the No. 1 industry in the state of Florida, the top entity that brings in the most money. In fact, tourism makes up half of all sales tax revenue in the state.
So when the coronavirus pandemic hit last year, tourism wasn't just another industry in the state that was affected. It was THE industry that was affected. As goes tourism, so goes the recovery of Florida's state economy.
That put an ungodly amount of pressure on Visit Florida, the state's main tourist arm.
It was a responsibility that Visit Florida President and CEO Dana Young took on with equal parts vigor, pride and savviness.
"The tourism industry as a whole has been tested like never before," Young told TravelPulse in an exclusive interview. "Particularly here in Florida we've shown that we're extremely nimble, extremely resilient in terms of our ability to recover from crisis. But a crisis of this magnitude certainly is something that none of us could have planned for. But Visit Florida has gone through some pretty severe budget cuts and staff reductions two years ago, so we have gotten to a place of extreme mission focus, tremendous efficiency, and we were just poised to be in a really good operational place when this thing hit."
Young spreads the praise around her staff, but the bottom line is that thanks to her initiatives - and Gov. Ron DeSantis' gamble to roll the dice and open the state far sooner than his colleagues - Florida has done a tremendous job of weathering the storm.
Oh, that's not to say the Sunshine State wasn't clobbered by COVID-19.
The agency released estimates last week showing that Florida handled 86.714 million travelers in 2020 or a decline of 34 percent compared to 2019 and the lowest number in a decade. Yet while losing a third of your tourists is devastating, it wasn't nearly as bad as other traditional tourist destinations, such as Las Vegas, which lost almost 56 percent of its tourist traffic in 2020 compared to the previous year.
In large part, Young and Visit Florida helped mitigate the loss.
"When our fiscal year ended on July 1 of 2020, we were in a situation where we had to pause marketing, as did everybody," Young explained. "Nobody knew what direction this pandemic was going to take. We had about $13 million slated to be in market so we were able to shift that to this fiscal year, and we used that to fund two major rebound campaigns."
One was an in-state campaign that started in August and ran through November, encouraging Florida residents to get out and see the natural wonders in their own state. Just on that campaign alone, Visit Florida generated almost 775,000 room nights, garnering $43 million and netting the agency a 133-1 ratio on its return on investment.
The agency also launched a domestic campaign for drive markets, or destinations within 700 miles of Florida, as far west as Houston and as far north as Philadelphia. That campaign generated 362,000 room nights, $22 million in gross bookings and return on ad spend of 135-1.
"Those metrics showed that our marketing is working," Young said.
And there's a method to that madness - whatever the projected date is for getting 'back to normal,' Young wants to beat it. Whether that's by a month, six months, maybe even more than that, she wants to restore the tourism numbers because doing that means Visit Florida is also helping to restore the state's economy that much sooner.
"Here's the silver lining," Young said. "Because in Florida we've been able to stay open through much of this, because of the lifestyle we have and always being outside, we have been able to be in market since late summer."
Currently, Visit Florida's campaigns have been geared toward the Midwest, Northeast, and any corridor particularly hit hard by winter storms.
"We like to think that Florida has everything to offer," Young said. "It's our responsibility to market that diversity."
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