Tourism information will be updated on a quarterly basis to provide users with current indicators on the tourism industry. 

Tourism as an Economic Driver

The tourism industry is a huge business internationally, nationally and locally.  According to the Travel Industry Association of America (TIA), tourism is a $1.3 trillion dollar industry in the United States, generating almost $105 billion dollars in tax revenues for local, state and federal governments.  Furthermore, the tourism industry employs 7.3 million in direct travel-generated jobs with $163 billion direct travel-generated payrolls.  In other words, one out of every eight US non-farm jobs is directly and indirectly created by tourism.

In the state of Florida, there is a significant economic impact from visitors.  In 2006, there were almost 84 million visitors to the state that spent about $65 billion dollars, and generated $3.9 billion in sales tax revenues. (www.visitflorida.org). The chart below shows that “Leisure and Hospitality” employ over 900,000 workers in 2006, or about 11% of all working Floridians.

Our goal as the Tourism Division in the Haas Center is to accurately collect, analyze, and disseminate information about the tourism economy to government agencies, industry, and the general public.

For comments regarding our tourism projects and indicators please contact Melissa Neal at
850-833-9113 or by email.