Tampa Bay named 2020’s busiest journey place by Forbes

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – The Tampa Bay area was the country’s most preferred vacation destination this yr, in accordance to a new report from Forbes.

Irrespective of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, Florida remained open to tourists who sought a change of environment amid community lockdown limits.

The report made use of details from hospitality analytics agency STR to discover Tampa and St. Petersburg experienced the greatest regular hotel occupancy rate among January and November of any of the best 25 U.S. journey markets.

Go to Tampa Bay CEO Santiago Corrada told Forbes that the point out “never seriously shut factors down,” which served sustain the community’s initiatives to promote alone as a heat location with protected, open up-air actions.

Tampa Bay even topped the normally more traveled-to locations of Orlando and Miami, which experienced 41.8% and 46.2% hotel occupancy in 2020, respectively.

Just after achieving a lower place of around 22% occupancy in April, occupancy has recovered slowly in Tampa Bay just about every thirty day period. It’s now at 51% – not terribly significantly from its 72.6% occupancy final year.

When the sector is superior off in Tampa Bay than it is in other areas, it might choose years for the hospitality field to get well, the report states.

“STR predicted in August that it won’t be until eventually 2023 or 2024 that the sector absolutely rebounds.”