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Data show Hillsborough County visitors are coming in greater numbers, staying longer and spending more.
By MARK ALBRIGHT
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 9, 2001
TAMPA -- Attempts by Tampa to register higher on the radar screens of Florida vacationers are beginning to pay dividends.
The average hotel visitor lingerered almost a day longer in 2000 -- 3.2 nights, up from 2.3 nights in 1995 -- in a market that's still trying to shake its history as a tourism one-night stand. Visitors also spent more. And there are a lot more of them.
"We saw very positive growth in all categories in 2000," said Mark Bonn, president of BMRG Inc. in Tallahassee. The research firm tracks Hillsborough County's tourist industry, which has long relied more on business travel.
The Tampa Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau released the figures Wednesday in a profile of Hillsborough County tourism that found annual visitor spending increased by $1.1-billion to $2.48-billion over the past five years. With another one-third increase in the county's 18,000 hotel room inventory forecast by 2005, officials are optimistically expecting a repeat performance. Tourism is Tampa's largest industry, employing 40,000 people.
With the economy slowed and tourism showing signs of softening this summer, however, the bureau is bankrolling its biggest TV and print advertising campaign ever. The $450,000 campaign will hit in-state markets, offering discounts on hotels and attractions.
"I think we'll be helped and hurt by gas prices," said Paul Catoe, bureau president and chief executive. "It will hurt us with visitors from the Midwest and Northeast but help us get more Floridians."
Overall, the number of overnight visitors to Hillsborough jumped 10 percent to 4.8-million people in 2000 compared with 1999. Despite a big gain in new hotel rooms such as the 700-room Marriott Waterside, the occupancy rate slipped only 0.5 percent to 65 percent and the average room rate was up 2.6 percent to $82.08.
More significantly, however, a decade worth of major public and private investments combined to broaden the list of activities for overnight visitors to Tampa beyond Busch Gardens. Since 1997, the number of people drawn to Tampa to catch a cruise ship doubled to 12.2 percent of all overnight visitors. Busch Gardens slipped behind dining out as the most frequently cited visitor activity, while shopping rose to a strong third place thanks to two new malls and the arrival of Saks Fifth Avenue. The Museum of Science and Industry drew twice as many leisure visitors as it did three years ago.
But other tourist attractions that received big doses of taxpayer-backed improvements in the 1990s -- Ybor City, the Florida Aquarium and Lowry Park Zoo -- all drew about the same or a smaller percentage of all leisure travelers than they did in 1997.
Like many counties, Hillsborough counts as tourists those visitors who don't spend the night. That includes British vacationers staying in Orlando who venture over for a day at Busch Gardens as well as any resident of Pinellas or Pasco counties who crosses the county line for lunch or a shopping trip. Adding those people to the equation, Hillsborough marketers claim their county attracted 15.4-million tourists last year.
Rather than appear puny by comparison, Pinellas tourism marketers added day-trippers to their annual tourist head count this year. Pinellas claimed 12.3-million visitors in 2000, 7.6-million of whom did not spend the night. Pinellas, which has twice as many hotel rooms as Hillsborough, also drew about 100,000 fewer overnight visitors -- 4.7-million. The state tourism agency, Visit Florida Inc., estimates about 74.3-million people visited Florida in 2000. Visit Florida counts as tourists only non-Florida residents who spend at least one night.
- Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8252.