Florida posts record tourism figures in 2024, with start of 2025 continuing the trend

Tourists are still flocking to the Sunshine State, with Florida in 2024 welcoming a record 143 million visitors.

That’s a 1.7% increase over the previous record that was set in 2023, according to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Office.

“Florida’s tourism industry leads the nation,” DeSantis said in a news release this week. “These results are proof that our freedom-first policies work — and that Florida remains the best place to visit, work, and raise a family.”

The record-breaking tourism figure includes some breakouts that involve notable increases in the last year. Most of the tourists who came to Florida were domestic travelers, with 130.65 million travelers coming from other states.

But foreign travel also remained strong. There were 8.94 million overseas visitors who came to Florida last year. Another 3.41 million tourists came to the state from Canada.

The tourism uptick continued into 2025, with the first quarter seeing an increase. Figures show 41.2 million tourists came to the Sunshine State during the first three months of the year.

Domestic tourists in the first quarter accounted for 91.9% of the travelers who came to Florida. That’s about 37.9 million domestic tourists. That’s a jump of about 0.2% from the first quarter of 2024.

Out of those domestic tourists, 35.8% of those travelers arrived in Florida by air travel.

Overseas visitation accounted for 2.1 million tourists in the first quarter of the year, with 1.2 million visitors coming from Canada.

That all translated to booming business in the lodging industry for Florida. There was a 2.4% increase in hotel rooms sold in the first quarter. The average daily rate for those units ticked up by 2.2% to $227.22. Hotel occupancy rates came in at 75.7% in the first quarter, a 1.6-percentage-point increase over the same time in 2024.