Pinellas County sees promising tourism data following Hurricanes Helene, Milton
Pinellas County posts strong tourism numbers despite storm recovery
Pinellas County has bounced back from Hurricane Helene with some strong tourism numbers. FOX 13's Kylie Jones reports.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - After Pinellas County's coastline was rocked by Hurricane Helene, tourism data shows a strong rebound. Visit St. Pete-Clearwater said the tourism numbers from October 2024 to September 2025 exceeded expectations.
The backstory:
The barrier islands and beaches in Pinellas County were hit hardest by Helene, suffering extensive flooding and wind damage. Hurricane Milton, which followed two weeks later, caused widespread damage throughout the Tampa Bay region.
The Pinellas County beach communities, which rely on tourism, faced an uphill battle in restoring the beaches and bringing tourists back.
Visit St. Pete-Clearwater President Brian Lowack said last year, they were questioning how to turn the page and move forward after the hurricanes.
"I think the mindset was, 'What are we going to do about it?'" he said.
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By the numbers:
Lowack shared some of the most recent tourism data at the Tourist Development Council's meeting on Wednesday.
"This was the fourth year in a row that Tourist Development Tax collections exceeded $90 million, which is incredible to think, because just 10 years ago, we exceeded $30 million for the first time."
Lowack said some of this money goes towards projects like beach renourishment and the Clearwater Marina project.
What they're saying:
Lowack said the county's southern beaches, which were some of the hardest hit communities, are almost completely back to normal.
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"On the southern county beaches, right, we've got about 98% of our hotel inventory is back online," he said. "In the southern beach communities, there are some properties that are still offline."
He said short-term rental properties were also hit hard.
"We're still down about 5,000 of those short-term rentals, but we're seeing that those are coming on more and more each month," Lowack said.
Local perspective:
The J.W. Marriott Clearwater Beach escaped major hurricane damage, but like the other hotels, it was challenged with bringing business back to the community.
"Everybody was really leery about coming to the destination," Jennifer Sack, the director of sales and marketing, said.
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Sack said they were worried about bouncing back and regaining momentum with hotel bookings.
"Going into January and February, we felt that anxiety," she said. "We weren't seeing books in groups come in as quickly as we wanted to, or the normal traveler. Then we got into that June and July timeframe, and it bounced right back so quickly."
Sack said business over the last few months has been promising.
"We had a lot of people make reservations in the week of Thanksgiving, for Thanksgiving," she said. "This year, looking at it now in 2025, everybody booked back in September and October for Thanksgiving."
What's next:
Lowack said they're still waiting on some additional tourism data that will help drive improvement projects around the county.
"How many visitors do we have come?" he said. "How many room nights did they take? And why that's also important is because, in addition to the Tourist Development Tax collection that we use to reinvest into the capital projects here in the destination and market the destination, there are also hundreds of millions of dollars that are infused into this local economy through property taxes throughout our municipalities, through sales tax that's used by the county and local governments to reinvest in capital projects such as roads, bridges, rec centers, playgrounds, parks."
The Source: The information in this story was gathered during interviews with Visit St. Pete-Clearwater's president and the director of sales and marketing for the J.W. Marritt Clearwater Beach.