Sunshine Matters

VISIT FLORIDA and 13 Florida aviation and tourism industry partners participated in last week’s 20th World Route Development Forum in Chicago.  The forum, which serves as the largest global gathering of the route development community from the world’s airlines, airports and tourism authorities, consists of four main components: meetings, networking, an educational conference and route exchange airline briefings.  World Routes 2014 attracted more than 3,000 delegates representing 300 airlines, 800 airports and 200 tourism organizations.

As VISIT FLORIDA strives to reach 100 million annual visitors, the international market has become increasingly important, not only from a marketing awareness standpoint but also in terms of accessibility.  In 2013, Florida welcomed a record 14.9 million international visitors from 186 countries who spent nearly $16.1 billion in the Sunshine State.  These figures represent a 7% increase in visitation and an 8% increase in visitor spending over the previous year.

During World Routes 2014, VISIT FLORIDA and our partners – including five DMOs and eight airports – held pre-arranged meetings to discuss both new market opportunities and existing services in an effort to increase and establish new airlift into the Sunshine State.  These meetings were scheduled with a host of airline and airport representatives from across the globe representing destinations from Brazil to China.

As part of VISIT FLORIDA’s dedication to increasing accessibility, we introduced the Air Team Florida initiative in 2011 and for the 2013-2014 fiscal year increased the matching funds for the VISIT FLORIDA Airline Grant from $250,000 to $1 million. With this program, new service to Florida is expected to draw an economic impact of $1.9 billion.

For more information about our aviation programs, please contact me at aabney@VISITFLORIDA.org.