Manatee County is the only county along the Florida Gulf coast to boast better tourism numbers now than in 2019.
Because of pandemic-forced shutdowns, peak tourism season numbers were skewed in 2020. So industry research experts are basing comparisons on 2019 to evaluate the 2021 season, Anne Wittine of Research Data Services Inc. told the Manatee County Tourist Development Council April 19.
As Florida began a phased reopening about 11 months ago, travelers experimented with short trips of two or three nights, booked within a few days of travel, Wittine told the TDC members at their
meeting at the county administration building in Bradenton.
Now, as more people receive a COVID-19 vaccine, traveler stays are getting longer and booking windows are expanding, she said.
In March, Wittine’s team surveyed people, asking for one word to describe their feelings about travel. A majority expressed trepidation but 34.7% used words such as “safer,” “possible” and “ready.”
That is a spike over February’s 25.4% of “ready” travelers.
The first spike was in September, when the percentage of travel-ready people went from 16.7% in August to 25.8%.
A post-Thanksgiving surge in COVID-19 illnesses and deaths led to a decrease in traveler positivity — from 27.1% in November to 12.7% in December.
But in January, as a new calendar year and vaccine rollouts began, researchers saw another increase in positive travel sentiments.
Another emerging trend: More out-of-state residents are traveling to the county, Wittine reported.
Between May 2020 and November 2020, most visitors to the county were Floridians, as travel marketing campaigns focused efforts within the state in the early phases of reopening.
But in December 2020, the number of Floridians and out-of-state tourists was nearly even.
And though numbers of out-of-state travelers have not rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, Wittine said the numbers of visitors from other U.S. regions continue to climb and in January they surpassed the number of in-state visits.
Many visitors are booking travel sooner and for longer stays, Wittine said.
Due to travel limitations in place in much of Europe, Wittine said there weren’t enough visitors from those overseas markets in 2021 to measure the results.
The TDC will next meet at 9 a.m. Monday, June 21, at the Manatee County Administration Building, 1112 Manatee Ave. W., Bradenton.