In the middle rising gas prices, Collier County tourism is decreasing

Wednesday, June 29, 2022

For Southwest Florida, a drop in tourism, which is a big source of income, in the Collier County for the last few months has become a major concern.

Due to many reasons, people have got less money in hand suddenly and Paul Beirnes knows this. Sudden jump in index, raise in gas prices, starting right from the price of milk to consumer sentiment, everything is climbing up, said Beirnes. Paul is the executive director of the Convention & Visitors Bureau.

He is as an expert in tourism. In Collier County last year, Paul witnessed a record-breaking jump. However, he figured out that the spike cannot and will not last forever.

The recent numbers in tourism bookings are down as much as 8%. One justification could be given on this pretext that for business travel in the world, Florida is no longer the only option available for the tourists.

However, Mark Ferland, the area general manager of the Ritz Carlton, is of the opinion that we all are going to experience a lot of foreign travellers to come back to the United States once again. Hence he said that there will be some people who would explore other places of the world but we’ll also see a lot of the coming to the US as well.

On Fort Myers Beach and in Naples, others who manage hotels say that they’re yet to experience a major drop. Even though, the usual drop in traffic is more than usual at the airports.

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