Visitors down, lodging spending up in Sarasota County in July

Tourism data for Sarasota County shows some slight dips in July compared with the previous year, while one indicator — average room rate  — was up nearly 3%.

There were 149,800 visitors to Sarasota County in July compared with 153,370 a year ago, according to Visit Sarasota County President and CEO Erin Duggan. That means visitation was down about 2.3%.

Fewer visitors tracked alongside other decreases:

• Lodging occupancy was 63.6% compared with 68.4% last July (down 4.8%.)
• Room nights sold totaled 267,300 in July compared with 285,500 a year ago (down 6.4%).
• Visitor direct expenditures were $141,012,900 in July compared with $145,328,800 in 2023 (down 2.97%).

The only metric trending up was lodging average room rate, which was $249.80 in July compared with $242.96 in 2023, amounting to about a 2.8% increase.

Where visitors hail from is shifting slightly to the north so far this year, according to Duggan.  

“The Fiscal YTD percentage of visitors from the Midwest and Northeast have increased compared to FY 2023,” Duggan says in a statement, “while the percentages of visitors from Florida and the rest of the Southeast have decreased.”