TOURISM
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enues over 2020. This trend is continuing,
Okiye said, albeit it at a slower rate.
For October, November and December
the first three months of this fiscal year,
she said, collection rates have increased
61% over the same months in 2021.
In St. Lucie County, 2021 ended up registering
a 334% increase in bed taxes over
2020, amounting to $4.78 million in revenues.
Even though 2020 numbers were
disastrous everywhere, St. Lucie County
showed revenues were 15.6% higher in
2021 than in 2019, the latest available
comparable year.
Officials attribute the rebound to a variety
of factors. The Treasure Coast has never
relied on theme parks or more organized
tourism centers, Bireley pointed out. “We
rely on a more organic, unspoiled environment
and miles of empty beaches to
attract visitors,” she said.
Those wide-open spaces helped to
make coastal distancing possible, Bireley
said, which eased many tourists’ qualms
about traveling during the pandemic.
TAKING UP THE SLACK
Bireley also noted that many out-ofstate
tourist attractions closed down during
the first months of the pandemic. The
Treasure Coast was able in some cases to
take up the slack. Florida reopened slowly,
she said, and has been able to respond
to pent-up travel demand. While international
travel is still down, attractions closer
to home have been doing well.
Bireley also pointed to sporting events
that have temporarily relocated to the
Treasure Coast. One of these was the U.S.
Olympic baseball trials, held last summer
at a number of venues across the Treasure
Coast and Palm Beach County. That event
generated more than 3,000 bed-night
stays in St. Lucie County, giving it valuable
national publicity and exposure in the
process, Bireley noted.
Tourism officials pointed out they have
been doing multicounty marketing for
some time. The pandemic pushed them to
accelerate the process.
Funnell in Indian River County pointed
to the successful joint sponsorship of the
Kids’ Corner at the I-95 Welcome Center on
Interstate 95, a site that typically receives 2
million visitors a year.
Underwater and sunken pirate ship
displays help “show we’re kid-friendly too,”
Funnell said. “We try to work together as
much as possible. It’s a good group effort,
and it shows.”
Okiye in Martin County credited her
county commission with allocating federal
>>
Charlotte Bireley, director of tourism and marketing
for St. Lucie County, says the area’s unspoiled
land and miles of beaches eased many tourists’
concerns about traveling during the pandemic.
INDIAN RIVER COUNTY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
The Treasure Coast’s lack of big cities comes as a decided advantage when studying the stars. Low lightpollution
in Indian River County has made paddle board tours, led by an astronomer, possible.
CARES Act dollars to pay for new COVID-era
promotional efforts. One of these was A
Moment of Escape, a video meditation piece
that celebrated our wide-open spaces.
It was launched at a time “when people
were going stir-crazy in quarantine,” Okiye
said.
Indian River County saw a significant
drop in its traditional visitors from the
Northeast, Funnell reported. However,
that decline was offset by an influx of
new visitors from drivetime sources such
as Atlanta, Charlotte, North Carolina, and
Birmingham, Alabama. Funnell said that
since widespread vaccine availability, the
traditional visitors have returned to Indian
River County, but the county has also
retained the new drivetime ones.
NEW WAVE ATTRACTION
Since the beginning of the pandemic,
there have been a number of attractions
built or upgraded across the Treasure
Coast. These range from the Barn Theatre
in Martin County to the very busy new
Marriott Courtyard hotel in Tradition in
St. Lucie County. Bireley also noted the
creation of a new KOA campground in Fort
Pierce, which has attracted more than 170
large RVs.
On the horizon are two massive touristrelated
developments that are being
described by many as game-changers. The
$150 million King’s Landing development
in downtown Fort Pierce, which received
preliminary approval by the city commission
in January, will bring shopping,
residential development and an upscale
140-room boutique hotel to the city.
Farther to the south, the Willow Lakes
Resort Village and associated Wavegarden
on Midway Road will make an even bigger
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