Around the world most people think of Florida as a vacation destination. Beginning in the early nineteenth century its warm winters attracted visitors, and their numbers have grown ever since. Today approximately 40 million people visit Florida annually. Hundreds of thousands more come to work, or to retire, drawn by the thought of year-round outdoor recreation. The state's saltwater beaches are undoubtedly the major natural tourist resource, but its lakes, rivers, and forests attract many people as well. Commercial tourist attractions are found throughout the state, but today those around Orlando are the most famous.
ECONOMICS OF TOURISM AND RECREATION
Florida's first tourists came to enjoy its rivers and springs and stayed in modest accommodations. As more Americans had both the time and money to take vacations, Florida's tourist industry expanded. By 1940, 3 million tourists arrived each year. After World War II, when retirees began to flock to the state, and millions of people began to vacation there, the industry grew to meet their needs. Today Florida has one of the most elaborate recreational infrastructures in the world, including thousands of hotels, motels, restaurants, and bars and hundreds of attractions. Some attractions are huge, like Orlando's Walt Disney World, whereas most are much smaller, such as the Snake-A-Torium in Panama City or the Old Jail in St.ÊAugustine. Private golf courses abound, including extraordinary miniature ones. Tennis clubs and swimming pools are common. There are museums to meet almost anyone's taste: from the Miami Museum of Science, the Norton Gallery of Art in Palm Beach, and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota to the Underwater Demolition Team Seal Museum in Ft. Pierce, Ripley's Believe it or not Museum in St. Augustine, and the Tupperware Museum in Orlando. Gardens, zoos, animal farms, and historical buildings abound throughout the state.
Spectator sports are popular with both visitors and residents. The state's national champion collegiate athletic teams draw huge crowds. There are post-season bowl games, the most famous being Miami's Orange Bowl. For decades a number of major league baseball teams have trained in Florida during the winter, playing exhibition games in the spring. Professional major league teams in football, basketball, and hockey are now located in the state, and in 1991 Miami obtained a franchise for a National League baseball team. Florida's Winter Equestrian Festival culminating in Tampa in March attracts internationally renowned competitors and their horses. Dog and horse tracks, as well as jai alai frontons compete for the better's money. Throughout the year communities attract visitors by holding festivals, tournaments, concerts, and other events.
Tourists spend an estimated 32 billion dollars each year in Florida. Residents add billions of dollars more to the tourist economy. Winter is still the peak season to visit Florida. Florida's tourist industry responds to national economic conditions. During recessions the tourist trade grows more slowly or even declines.
The largest number of tourists visiting Florida from other states come from east of the Mississippi River. In the winter most are from the Northeast and from along the lower Great Lakes. Many summer visitors come from Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee, a large share heading for the Gulf of Mexico beaches from Panama City to Pensacola.
The number of foreign visitors to the state increased steadily throughout the 1980s and was approaching 5 million annually by the end of the decade. Almost 30 percent of all British tourists to the United States choose Florida for their vacations. Most Europeans, many on tours that include lodging and a rental car, and a visit to Walt Disney World, come in the summer. Over 2 million Canadians arrive each year to escape their nation's cold winters. The largest number go to southeast Florida.
The Economic and Demographic Research Division of the Florida Legislature has estimated that the demands of out-of-state tourists have created almost 700,000 jobs, about 13 percent of all jobs in the state. Earnings from tourist-related jobs total 10 billion dollars. More than half the jobs in restaurants and bars, hotels and motels, and amusements and attractions depend on the tourist trade. Approximately 15 percent of sales tax collected in Florida comes from sales to out-of-state tourists.
In the past thirty years the difference between the peak and low tourist seasons has diminished greatly. Until the end of the nineteenth century Florida's summers were considered excruciatingly hot and unhealthy to people from the northern states. Malaria, and even yellow fever outbreaks, were not unusual. Since the end of World War II a successful effort has been made to extend the tourist season. Air conditioning has contributed enormously to increasing the summer tourist trade. Also, there has been a huge investment in tourist facilities that appeal to children. During the summer typical tourists are young couples who arrive with their children, usually by car, to visit the large theme parks and the beaches. During the rest of the year most visitors are adults. Notable exceptions are the college students who pour into Ft. Lauderdale and Daytona Beach during their spring break from all over the eastern United States.
THE DISTRIBUTION OF COMMERCIAL TOURIST ATTRACTIONS
The evolution of the transportation system, the increased ability of young families to take long vacations far from home, and the immigration of large numbers of Hispanics into the Miami area have all affected the distribution of commercial tourist attractions and facilities in Florida. Early in the nineteenth century tourists from the North reached Florida by boat, but by the end of the century rail service was established to both the Tampa area and down the east coast. Grand hotels were built by the developers of the railroads. St. Augustine was the first tourist town, but by the beginning of the twentieth century a number of tourist communities had developed along the Atlantic coast as far south as Miami. On the Gulf coast St. Petersburg, Sarasota, and Ft. Myers began to emerge as winter resorts. With the advent of the automobile, tourist facilities became less concentrated. The automobile especially increased tourism in the state's interior. By the middle of the twentieth century tourist attractions were widely distributed throughout the state.
Shortly after World War II with the wider use of air transportation tourist accommodations became more concentrated in certain parts of the state. Miami benefited the most. Package tours to Miami including the cost of air travel, accommodations, and a rental car became popular. The nation's largest rental car agency, Hertz, was opened at this time in Miami. For twenty years after World War II tourism on Miami Beach boomed with opulent new hotels opening almost every year. During this period the geography of tourism was also altered by the construction of the Interstate Highway System. Automobile tourists, many of whom were young families arriving in the summer, tended to follow the new limited-access highways. Tourist facilities along the older federal and state highways suffered, and many were closed. New facilities sprung up along the exits of the interstates. The tourist industry in towns like Perry in north Florida suffered severely following the construction of the interstate whereas towns like Lake City, also in north Florida, but where two interstates cross, greatly benefitted.
The CubanÊRevolution also precipitated change in tourism in the state. Cubans by the hundreds of thousands left the island to live in Miami, radically altering the character of the city. Many tourists, particularly from the northeastern U.S. chose other places for their vacations. Towns farther to the north on the Atlantic coast, and along the southwest coast profited from Miami's decline in tourism. The Gulf of Mexico port of Naples, a small town with fewer than 400 hotel and motel rooms at the close of World War II, now has over 5,000 r
