Visitors saved your household about $314 last year, according to a recently-released study by the county’s office of tourism.
St. Lucie County recently released a study about tourism in the 2016-2017 fiscal year. Charlotte Birley, the county’s director of tourism and marketing, presented the study at the last regular meeting of the Port St. Lucie City Council Jan. 22. “Tourism is growing,” Birley told the council.
In an interview after the meeting, Birley said the study was based, in part, on almost 3,500 interviews with visitors from October 2016 to September 2017.
“We did some interviews at Mets’ spring training last year,” she said.
During the ’16-’17 study almost 1.2 million people visited St. Lucie County. They spent about $520.5 million – about $435 each. Additionally the visitors paid about $34 million in sales taxes, or about $28 each.
That’s one way visitors helped save St. Lucie households about $314 each. Sales taxes are split between the state, county and cities.
Those visitors also generated about 1.17 million room nights – nights spent at hotels, motels and other taxed lodging – and paid almost $4 million in tourist taxes.
Those taxes helped reduce the need for higher property taxes.
The Mets spring training is a large contributor to the county’s tourism, Birley said. In a presentation to the city council, Birley said Mets’ travel parties spend about $378 a day and $1,361 a trip.
That’s not the only tourist draw in St. Lucie West and Tradition.
For example, the South County Regional Sports Complex is next door to First Data. The Treasure Coast Sports Commission promotes it as a regional venue for various sports.
Tradition Square is also a regular day-tripper draw with events such as the Taste of Little Italy last weekend. The study figured about 362,000 of St. Lucie’s visitors during the studied time were day-trippers.
Another tourism draw in St. Lucie West and Tradition, Birley said, are golf courses.
“PGA certainly brings a lot of visitors to the area, PGA Village,” Birley said.
There’s another important visitor attraction in St. Lucie West and Tradition – family.
During the studied period, about 271,000 of the visitors were in the county to visit friends and relatives.
Unlike Central Florida, which draws destination tourists with large theme parks advertised internationally, St. Lucie draws a more local visitor mostly.
“The majority of our visitors are coming from Florida,” Birley said.
“They’re coming to our area to get away from the large crowded areas.”
Wherever they come from, on average every 150 visitors create a job in St. Lucie.
