TALLAHASSEE — The number of international visitors to Florida fell in the first quarter of 2025 in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, according to information released Tuesday by the Florida Tourism Agency.
Governor Ron Desantis’ office has issued a news release highlighting all revised record tourist numbers for 2024. However, information posted on the Visit Florida website showed that tourism in the overall first quarter of 2025 was flat from the previous year, with 4193 million visitors.
According to Florida data, US travelers account for nearly 92% of people traveling to Florida from January to March this year.
Meanwhile, Florida showed that 12.27 million Canadians in Florida fell about 3.4% from 1.269 million a year ago, as President Donald Trump imposed tariffs and posed a threat to the Canadian annex.
DeSantis rejected reports that Canadians would leave Florida because of Trump’s actions and called for the transformation of Florida’s tax burden through sales tax to domestic owners, particularly Canadians and Brazilians. Desantis issued a statement after opposing the House’s proposal to lower the state’s sales tax rate.
The country’s data office, a preliminary figure for April from Statistics Canada, has found that 1.2 million Canadians have been returned by car from the US, falling 35.2% since April 2024.
The Canadian office also said in a news release on May 12 that aired travel from the US fell by 19.9% in April and April comparisons. The statistics did not detail where Canadians traveled.
Earlier this month, the Travel and Tour World news site reported that leisure and business travel from Canada is being restructured amid diplomatic tensions. This includes cutting air routes to cities such as San Francisco, Miami, New York and Washington and the ability to shift to Europe.
For example, Travel and Tour World reported that larger-capacity Airbus A320 aircraft have been replaced by smaller jets on flights from Montreal and Toronto to Fort Lauderdale.
According to a visit to Florida, international travelers to Florida have moved from 213 million in the first quarter of 2024 to 2.13 million from 213 million in the same period this year.
Florida has struggled to bring international travel numbers back to levels even before the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2019, the province had an estimated 4.088 billion Canadians and 98.1 million international visitors as part of 169 million visitors.
The full-year figures for 2024, which Desantis’ office advertised on Tuesday, raised the overall number from 142.87 million to 142.997 million.
Original issue: May 20, 2025, 6:47pm EDT
