Domestic travel drives tourism boost for Florida in 2025

Florida attracted a record 143.3 million visitors last year, up 0.2% from 2024, Gov. Ron DeSantis' office announced Friday.

The preliminary estimate is bolstered by domestic tourism, which accounted for 91.5% of the travelers. The number of domestic visitors, at 131 million, was up 0.3% from 2024.

Overseas travel was up 4% from the 2024 figures, with nearly 9.3 million visitors.

But the 2.9 million Canadian visitors for all of 2025 marked a 14.7% drop from 2024.

Last month, tourism leaders in Florida said they were expanding efforts to draw Canadians, where the U.S. has seen a travel backlash over the words and actions of President Donald Trump, from tariffs to calling the United States' northern neighbor the 51st state.

"We're doing what we can, just as we are with any country outside the United States, to make sure that visitation remains strong," Visit Florida President and CEO Bryan Griffin said during an executive committee meeting on Jan. 26.

Friday's release from DeSantis' office stated that the Canadian visitation remained "consistent with historical trends where Canadian travel represents approximately two percent of total visitation."

In 2019, the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic, Canadians were at 3.11% of the state's tourism figures, with 4.088 million Canadians among an overall tourist count of 131.07 million.

The release also put fourth quarter numbers at a record 33.5 million travelers, of which 30.31 million were domestic, 2.55 million were overseas and 642,000 were Canadian.

The fourth quarter count is up 0.6% from the same quarter of 2024, with domestic visitors up 0.8%, overseas travel up 2.7% and Canadian visits down 13.1%.

At the January executive committee meeting, Griffin anticipated growth with the overseas figures as the top three sources were showing growth: Brazil was up 10.4%, the United Kingdom saw a 6% increase, and visits from Colombia were 6% higher than in 2024.

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