Visit Jacksonville Sees Strong Return of Tourism in 2021 Fiscal Year

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (November 18, 2021) – As Visit Jacksonville begins a new fiscal year, data from the 2021 fiscal year shows a promising outlook for attracting leisure and business travel to the area through 2022 and beyond. Some of the impressive statistics for Visit Jacksonville during the 2021 fiscal year, included:

- Booked 164,167 definite room nights at hotels throughout the city.

- Established the Group Giveback Rewards Program, incentivizing groups to book a meeting in Jacksonville by December 31, 2021, with credit given towards the hotel bill based on the number of contracted hotel rooms. As a bonus if a multi-year meeting was booked, with at least one actualizing in 2021, the hotel room credit applied to multiple meeting years.

-Launched free concierge services where Visit Jacksonville employees served as a hotels’ concierge for pre-scheduled times.

-Attracted 69 new events or meetings to Jacksonville, versus repeat business.

-Generated 331 leads for conventions and meetings in Jacksonville.

-Saw an increase in year over year web site traffic of 53 percent.

-Had 7,000 new users download the Visit Jax app, a 35 percent increase over last year.

-Launched the new LiveChat platform on the Visit Jacksonville website and had 3,446 chats, providing information and answering questions.

-Had a mobile visitor center providing information to visitors at 93 events averaging interactions with more than 200 visitors at each one.

“It was a roller coaster year for everyone,” said Michael Corrigan, President and CEO of Visit Jacksonville. “The hard work and dedication of the Visit Jacksonville staff, and especially the many tourism and hospitality partners across the city, is shown in these statistics and all should be proud of what was accomplished.”

Throughout the past year, Visit Jacksonville focused on helping tourism and hospitality partners persevere through the pandemic while continuing to attract leisure and business travel to the area through numerous incentives and marketing initiatives. In addition to the new Group Giveback Rewards Program and the free concierge services, Visit Jacksonville:

- Offered businesses the opportunity to have a 360-degree video of their facility created by one of Visit Jacksonville’s marketing partners at no-cost to the business. The video can be used on Google, social media and Visit Jacksonville’s website as well as the business’ website.

- Provided a multi-year booking incentive for groups that booked multi-year contracts within the city, providing additional concessions such as individual round-trip airport transfers, on-site registration assistance and personalized name badges with lanyards.

- Regularly hosted news media and social media influencers to share things to see and do in the city through their platforms. A trip itinerary was created for each person who visited and included stops at businesses, restaurants and attractions.

As the 2022 fiscal year begins, Visit Jacksonville has aggressive goals to surpass the accomplishments of 2021.

“Last fiscal year we saw multiple months where hotel room occupancy surpassed where it was in 2018 and 2019, which were record breaking years,” said Corrigan. “I feel confident that tourism is back and will continue to thrive in Jacksonville.”

For the 2022 fiscal year, Visit Jacksonville will continue to support the tourism and hospitality industries, offering many incentive and marketing programs. Additionally, the Group Giveback Rewards Program will continue through December 31, 2021, and a new program will launch following its close.

For more information, go to visitjacksonville.com.

About Visit Jacksonville
Visit Jacksonville is a Destinations International accredited Destination Marketing Organization contracted by the Duval County Tourist Development Council (TDC) to champion the growth of business and leisure tourism in Jacksonville. For a closer look at all there is to see and do in Jacksonville, go to http://www.VisitJacksonville.c... or contact 800-733-2668.



###