Collier tourism up 6.5 percent in June
Daily News staff | Tuesday, July 23, 2013
The skies may be cloudy, but tourism continues to look sunny in Collier County.
The county saw a nearly 6.5 percent jump in visitation in June.
The strong growth was primarily driven by three of its core markets: Florida, the Northeast and the Midwest, according to a report by Tampa-based Research Data Services Inc., a county consultant.
The county had 128,800 visitors staying in hotels and other vacation rentals last month, up from 121,100 in the same month a year ago.
The visitors pumped more than $110 million into the county’s economy, up 11.7 percent over last year.
Occupancy rose 5.3 percent, with the average daily rate increasing by 3.7 percent to $146.70 in June.
From January to June, the county saw 963,800 visitors, up 4.6 percent over the year. The economic impact from those visitors exceeded $1 billion, up 11 percent from the first half of last year.
The future continues to look bright, with nearly 86 percent of Collier’s lodging managers reporting that reservations for the next three months look the same or better than they did a year ago.
Passenger traffic up 4 percent at RSW in June
Passenger traffic increased by 4.2 percent in June, compared to the previous year, at Southwest Florida International Airport. Year-to-date, passenger traffic is up 6.5 percent from the same period last year.
Last month, 473,208 passengers traveled through the airport. The traffic leader in June was Delta with 120,410 passengers traveling to and from Fort Myers. Rounding out the top five airlines were AirTran (86,167), JetBlue (56,797), US Airways (47,585) and Southwest (42,272).
Southwest Florida International Airport had 5,079 takeoffs and landings, an increase of nearly 3.5 percent compared to June 2012.
In addition, slightly more than 2.2 million pounds of airfreight moved through the airport in June, an increase of 17.3 percent compared to June 2012.
The airport served more than 7.3 million passengers in 2012 and is one of the top 50 U.S. airports for passenger traffic. Information: ww.flylcpa.com