Florida's Tourism Economy

Introduction With 1,350 miles of coastline (States With Longest Coastline) along with world-class theme parks and attractions, the state of Florida is home to many different opportunities for tourism. Due to the renowned tourism destinations within Florida, many people have traveled far and wide from many different countries to partake in the tourism that Florida has to offer. With many people traveling internationally in order to get to Florida, there is a large exchange of money from their currencies to the United States Dollar. Money is always a major focus when planning a vacation and with exchange rates always changing, it adds in many variables that international tourists have to take into consideration when planning. The United States

I am also very intrigued to learn more about how the state of Florida works and to learn more about the tourism industry in general. For my career later in life, I wish to somehow be involved within tourism due to the passion that I have when it comes to discovering how tourism works and observing the behind the scenes of the tourism market. I also have an earnest desire to learn more about the role that economics plays within the tourism market. The combination of interest and personally affecting me is what sparked the research question “To what extent has the appreciation of the US Dollar impacted the tourism industry of

“Florida is the top travel destination in the world, relying on tourism to drive its economy more than any other state” (Walton) which indicates that the slightest change in tourism profits can affect everything else within the state. In 2015, tourism spending contributed $89.1 billion to Florida’s economy, “tourism spending refers to tourism/recreational taxable sales, which is the portion of total statewide taxable sales most influenced by tourism” (VISIT FLORIDA Research). All of this money into Florida’s economy creates a multiplier effect, meaning that the money initially put into the economy can create a ripple effect and cause the end monetary flow to be much greater than the initial injection. An example of the multiplier effect in this context would be a tourist coming to Florida, those tourists would then have food at local businesses, then the local businesses would spend money at other businesses due to their increase in profit, then the other business would spend money at other businesses, and so