Visit St. Pete-Clearwater\u2019s public data dashboard<\/a> shows that travelers from some of the countries Pinellas targets spend hundreds of millions of dollars in the region each year.<\/p>\nTravelers from the United Kingdom spent $285.5 million across the broader Tampa-St. Pete area in 2025. German travelers spent another $101.8 million.<\/p>\n
Those estimates cover the larger Tampa-St. Pete area, not just Pinellas County. They also cannot show how many travelers came because of the county\u2019s spending overseas.<\/p>\n
Canada brings the most international visitors to the area, followed by the United Kingdom and Germany. Lowack said Pinellas has focused on places that already send significant numbers of travelers here and where direct flights make getting to Tampa Bay relatively easy.<\/p>\n
Recent numbers also show that spending money to attract travelers from a country does not guarantee more will come.<\/p>\n
Visits from the United Kingdom increased 5.1% in 2025, while visits from Germany fell 16.4%. Canada saw an even steeper decline of 17.8%.<\/p>\n
Lowack said international travel can rise or fall for reasons Pinellas has little control over, including exchange rates and events around the world. When an important source of visitors has a bad year, he said, the county\u2019s approach is to keep promoting the area rather than walk away from relationships built over time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been over in these markets for a long time, and we\u2019re not going anywhere,\u201d Lowack said.<\/p>\n
The money comes from Pinellas County\u2019s 6% Tourist Development Tax, commonly called the bed tax, which is charged on hotel rooms, vacation rentals and other short-term stays. The county collected about $92 million from the tax last year, according to Visit St. Pete-Clearwater.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is 100% Tourist Development Tax dollars that we\u2019re reinvesting to fuel increased visitation to the destination,\u201d Lowack said.<\/p>\n
Pinellas is also beginning to look beyond the countries where it has spent years promoting itself.<\/p>\n
Visit St. Pete-Clearwater has tested efforts to attract travelers from Central and South America, where new and expanding flights are making Tampa Bay easier to reach. Lowack singled out Brazil as one place with considerable room to grow.<\/p>\n
The latest numbers help explain the interest. Visits from Brazil increased 21.9% in 2025, while spending by Brazilian travelers jumped 25.5% to $49.2 million.<\/p>\n
Brazil still sends far fewer people to the area than Canada, the United Kingdom or Germany. But the increase gives Pinellas another place to look for travelers as some of its biggest international sources struggle.<\/p>\n
The value of international tourism isn\u2019t limited to how much visitors spend. When they arrive also matters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey come at times of the year, they come at shoulder seasons. They come during slow times,\u201d Lowack said. \u201cSo, times when Florida travelers aren\u2019t coming, times when other U.S. markets aren\u2019t producing, those international travelers are coming here to fill those rooms and go to our establishments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite international travelers remaining a small share of overall visitation, Lowack sees considerably more room for that part of Pinellas tourism to grow.<\/p>\n
\u201cTampa Bay, St. Pete-Clearwater is no longer a secret,\u201d he said. \u201cThe growth opportunity there is just astronomical.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pinellas County has authorized nearly $4 million in contracts with firms that promote St. Pete-Clearwater in Europe, part…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-371638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}