Florida breaks tourism records in 2024 after hosting 142.9 million visitors

Florida broke tourism records in 2024. The Sunshine State received a total of 142.9 million visitors, surpassing the previous record in 2023 and achieving the highest number ever recorded in its history. Gov. Ron DeSantis celebrated the statistics and attributed them in part to his model of "openness" during the pandemic.

In the fourth quarter of 2024 alone, Florida welcomed 30 million visitors, about 3 million of whom were foreign.

“That is a pretty good increase over 2023 that’s the highest on record, including almost 30 million in the fourth quarter alone, and almost 3 million overseas visitors. And we know a lot of that is here in South Florida. So we’re really excited that our tourism industry is booming," the Republican governor celebrated during the launch of the Boater Freedom initiative, designed to prevent local governments from banning the sale or use of boats based on fuel sources.

"One of the things that was really important … was the fact that we were open during COVID. Because what happened was you had people fleeing Illinois, New York, all these places where they had really draconian policies. So they come to Florida. A lot of them just bought houses and decided they’re going to live here," DeSantis added.

As early as December 2024, the governor pointed out that for every dollar a visitor spends, Florida's economy retains 97 cents, of which 58 cents goes to pay workers' wages and 13 cents goes to tax revenue."

He further specified that tourism was responsible for 2.1 million jobs in the state, leaving a gain of $76.4 billion in income to Florida workers.

As for Governor DeSantis, he will not be eligible for a third term in 2026. There is speculation that Lieutenant Governor Jeanette Nuñez, Congressman Byron Donalds, former Congressman Matt Gaetz and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez may be interested in his seat.