U.S. and foreign airlines have upped their flight schedules to Florida in the hopes of capturing a continuing surge in consumer demand for air travel into the holidays and beyond. The question is: How many travelers are bypassing local hotels and moving on to the Caribbean and other destinations?
Since the passage of the COVID-19 pandemic, South Florida has enjoyed a status as one of the first U.S. vacation destinations to fully welcome visitors fleeing the dreariness of lockdowns, the rawness of inclement weather, and travel barriers posed by stifling international travel restrictions.
For the second straight year, airlines have loaded up on Florida routes to bring northerners to the state’s sun-drenched beaches and dining and entertainment attractions. Fare-cutting remains widespread to extend traveler appetites for flying.
On Friday, discounter Porter Airlines of Canada was scheduled to launch service between Fort Lauderdale and Toronto and Ottawa, another sign that Canadian visitors kept home by COVID are returning to the region in full force.
Earlier this month, United Airlines announced its intent to “offer more flights to Florida this winter than it has in the airline’s history” by growing its schedule by nearly 20% versus 2022. The Chicago-based giant is using larger planes with more seating on flights to Miami, Tampa, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale.
It said its booking data for Nov. 1 through March 31, 2024 shows Miami and Orlando “are two of the top five most-searched domestic travel destinations this winter,” followed by Honolulu, Cancun and Las Vegas.
The airline will start flying one of its newest planes — the Airbus 321neo — on routes to Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and Fort Myers beginning in December.
The airlines’ big Florida bets seemed to pay off if the Thanksgiving holiday travel period was any indication.
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport served approximately 1.31 million travelers over the 12-day Thanksgiving Day holiday travel period that ran from Nov. 17 through Tuesday, Arlene Satchell, spokeswoman for the Broward County Aviation Department, said in an email.
It represented a 9% increase versus the same period last year. “Overall, FLL saw an average of 109,168 daily passengers during the 12-day travel period,” she said Wednesday.
Also in a statement Wednesday,. Miami International Airport said it welcomed 1.86 million passengers during the same 12-day travel period, “shattering its previous record of 1.73 million travelers in 2021 by 7.3%.”
“The peak travel season also brought three of MIA’s five busiest days ever on November 18, 25, and 26, with November 26 setting a new all-time single-day record of 169,926 passengers,” the airport said.
Palm Beach International Airport said Wednesday that for the days immediately leading up to and following Thanksgiving, a preliminary estimate showed the airport had about 30,000 to 40,000 passengers a day.
“PBI is at record levels for passengers and has surpassed pre-pandemic passenger levels,” spokesman Joe Harrington said in an email. “Roughly 7.58 million people traveled through PBI in the last 12 months, which is an all-time high. In October, passengers increased 12% compared to October of 2022.”
Despite a surge of inbound passengers during the Thanksgiving holiday travel season, industry analysts are concluding that an undetermined number of South Florida-bound travelers aren’t staying in town for long as they head for cruise ships at a local seaport, for another flight to a Caribbean vacation spot, or to a city in Latin America or Europe.
The cruise line industry, whose core is at PortMiami, Port Everglades and Port Canaveral in Central Florida, is staging a strong rebound, reclaiming hundreds of thousands of customers lost when ships literally stopped sailing in 2020.
One travel analyst agreed that hotels in the tri-county region have lost some of their post-COVID business to the rebounding cruise lines, as well as to overseas travel as airlines resumed international flying.
“Cruising has done extremely well,” said Daryl Cronk, director of hospitality analytics at CoStar in Orlando.
All three major Florida ports — PortMiami, Port Everglades and Port Canaveral — “have seen dramatic growth this year,” he said.
“Outbound international travel has increased,” he said. “Americans are traveling overseas.”
“Over the last year or two, the U.S. dollar has been pretty strong, which is favorable for Americans traveling overseas,” Cronk added.
Conventions and conferences are also coming back.
“The general trend we’re seeing is group occupancy is growing,” Cronk said. “While transient occupancy and (average room rates) have kind of plateaued, the group segment is where we’re seeing some strong growth this year as conventions and trade shows continue to return.”
But the state’s cumulative domestic visitation numbers through three-quarters of this year were down 1.3% when compared to the same period of 2022, from 97.7 million to 96.4 million, according to Visit Florida figures.
Total visitations including both domestic and international traffic for the first three-quarters were up 0.7% to 105.2 million from 104.5 million in 2022.
For the third quarter alone, domestic visits rose by 0.4% from 32.1 million to 32.2 million last year. Total third quarter visits were up 1.6% to 35.1 million this year from 34.6 million in 2022.
“Visit Florida keeps touting we had a banner third quarter, but I don’t see it in South Florida,” said Peter Ricci, clinical associate professor and director of hospitality programs at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. “All three counties are down quite a bit.”
But he’s encouraged by the arrival of new airline service.
“Anytime an airline comes in, it’s a good thing for us. It’s a good thing for tourism,” he said. “And Fort Lauderdale can handle the capacity now. It’s never a bad thing.”
In a move that may not endear it to local tourism promoters, Southwest Airlines is suggesting on a website that South Floridians “take a break” from the region and fly to somewhere else.
The Houston-based carrier, which ranks as the third busiest at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood, suggests it’s a good idea for local residents to leave town to visit other U.S. cities.
“Take a break from Fort Lauderdale airboats and board a Southwest flight from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport to start your next getaway,” the airline says on one of its web links, which suggests visiting “famous U.S. cities you’ve yet to explore.”
“Flying with Southwest means you can easily transition from Fort Lauderdale ocean fronts and river walks to mountain ranges and skyscrapers to explore something new and exciting,” the site adds. “We know that Southern Florida has plenty to offer, but perhaps it’s time to experience the comforts of sweater weather in the Midwest or the excitement of live jazz performances on the streets of New Orleans.”
Milton Segarra, president and CEO of Discover The Palm Beaches, the tourism promotion agency for Palm Beach County, said the airlines have been big drivers of tourism traffic into countywide destinations this year.
“With record passenger volumes occurring at Palm Beach International Airport, we certainly have more visitors arriving directly into The Palm Beaches through airlines this season,” he said. “In November through March of last year we saw approximately 727,000 visitors arriving into PBIA, and we are expecting a 16% increase for the same time period this season to 840,000 visitors.
“While our research shows that 75% of hotel stays are booked about a month out, what we are seeing is that search behavior for hotel stays in The Palm Beaches for January through March is higher on the whole than last year, a great indicator for our upcoming hotel occupancy,” he added.
He said countywide that hotel occupancy declined “for five of the ten months of 2023 to date.”
“What we have experienced is a slight decline in groups and meetings as other states such as California and New York started to become more available to this market post-pandemic,” Segarra said. “This affects our occupancy numbers because in our summer months, a group traveler will typically stay longer than a leisure traveler as they tend to attend the entire conference or event and sometimes even extend their stay. However, our visitation shows an increase on the whole for 2023, and our alternative lodging (which includes Airbnb, Vrbo, and other rentals) has in fact been up every month this year.”
Visit Lauderdale, the promotion agency for Broward, did not provide any visitor information.
While Americans are rediscovering foreign destinations such as Europe, Mexico and the Caribbean, Canadians are rediscovering South Florida after a hiatus caused by COVID.
It’s a factor that likely gave Porter Airlines the confidence to add Fort Lauderdale and four other Florida cities as new destinations with one daily roundtrip flight. The airport is already served by Canadian carriers Air Canada and Westjet.
The other Florida cities Porter intends to serve are Miami, Orlando, Fort Myers and Tampa with flights to Toronto Pearson International Airport. and Ottawa International Airport.
Canada is usually the top international country of origin for visitors to Florida. The third-quarter numbers hit 666,000, a big increase from the 561,000 reported by Visit Florida in 2022. For the first nine months of this year, Florida drew 2.8 million Canadians, up from 1.749 million in the same period of 2022.
In 2019, 4.088 million Canadians made their way to Florida, with 2.997 million during the first nine months of the year and 703,000 during the third quarter.
Said Cronk, the CoStar analyst: “We may see travel from Canada this winter from snowbirds who will be back in a way they haven’t been since the pandemic.”
