{"id":383007,"date":"2026-08-27T23:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T23:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/383007\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T23:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T23:10:09","slug":"sarasota-county-tourism-grows-as-florida-numbers-decline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/383007\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarasota County tourism grows as Florida numbers decline"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">SARASOTA, Fla. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mysuncoast.com\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.mysuncoast.com\/\">WWSB<\/a>) &#8211; Sarasota County saw an increase in tourism in July, according to new numbers from Visit Sarasota County, even as Florida tourism overall has declined.<\/p>\n<p>Visitor numbers rise<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">About 156,000 visitors came to Sarasota County in July, up from about 144,000 last year, according to Visit Sarasota County.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Hunter Carpenter, director of community relations for Visit Sarasota County, said the county saw 13,000 more visitors this July compared to last year and roughly $19 million more in economic impact compared to 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Stephanie and Jeremy Schuster, who live in Ohio, have been visiting the Suncoast for about eight years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI think the family memories are nice, plus it\u2019s nice and friendly. The atmosphere where we stay at, everyone is just super friendly,\u201d Stephanie Schuster said.<\/p>\n<p>Florida tourism drops statewide<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Florida tourism has dropped for the second straight quarter this year, while Sarasota County\u2019s numbers have moved in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Carpenter attributed the increase to the county\u2019s identity as what he called Florida\u2019s Cultural Coast, combining its beaches with other attractions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWhy our numbers are up is because of that difference of being Florida\u2019s Cultural Coast. Those beaches, those attractions, they all tie in, and it\u2019s all intentional,\u201d Carpenter said.<\/p>\n<p>Hotel occupancy and spending increase<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Hotel occupancy and room rates are both up in the county. Visit Sarasota County said July marked the third straight month of year-over-year growth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Visitors spent nearly $146 million in Sarasota County in July.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" fetchpriority=\"low\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Sarasota tourism numbers are showing modest gains this year, according to new data released by...\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IHHZ254LGVAA5BI4P6GT3X3LT4.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"422\" \/>Sarasota tourism numbers are showing modest gains this year, according to new data released by Visit Sarasota County.(Visit Sarasota County)<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WWSB. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) &#8211; Sarasota County saw an increase in tourism in July, according to new numbers from&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[513,28,30,29,153614,5371,2075,107],"class_list":["post-383007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-beach","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-sarasota-county-tourism","tag-shopping","tag-summer","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383007","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=383007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}