Travelers’ appetite for Florida is still as strong as ever despite the ongoing spread of the Zika virus and a tragic shooting spree in an Orlando night club.
Officials said 26.9 million people traveled to Florida between July and September, up 5.1% on a year ago.
The Sunshine State also faced challenges with two major hurricanes in recent months while the number of confirmed Zika cases continues to grow.
"Visit Florida does an incredible job of marketing our state and keeping all of our tourism partners, which include both large and small businesses, updated on how to keep our visitors informed when our state faces challenges like the Zika virus, hurricanes and the terrorist attack at Pulse nightclub," Governor Rick Scott said in a statement.
Preliminary data indicates 85.5 million have visited the state in the first nine months of 2016 and Scott has targeted 115 million for the full year.
This is the ‘highest amount of visitors in any nine months in the state’s history’ the governor’s office said.
The governor urged for no let up in tourism funding.
"Since I have been in office, we have more than doubled the funding for Visit Florida and these investments have helped bring more tourists to Florida and add more jobs for families in our state. We need to continue investing in our tourism industry so we can keep breaking records and add even more jobs," Scott said.
Will Seccombe, president of Visit Florida said: "It also shows that we will have to work even harder as a state and an industry to maintain that growth going forward."
