Visit Pensacola and tourism has a record-shattering year in FY 2021. CEO Darren Schaefer shared at yesterday’s annual meeting that Escambia County set records in average daily rates (ADR), occupancy, and tourism development tax collections (TDT). In fiscal year 2021, $17,671,461 in TDT dollars was collected, an increase of 59.9% over FY 20, and 23.3% over FY 19.
Last March, Pensacola host the Sunbelt Basketball Championships with the help of Visit Pensacola, Pensacola Sports, Escambia County and City of Pensacola. This morning on 1370 WCOA, Schaefer shared that more college sports could be coming our way.
“You treat people well, and they have a good experience–all of a sudden we see other sports taking an interest,” said Schaefer. “We’re hosting the SEC Women’s Soccer Championship that was most recently over in Alabama. We have an opportunity to try to bring that to the Pensacola area. We have a NAIA Men’s Lacrosse Tournament.”
He continued, “We’ve got some great facilities to be able to host competitions at that level. These are the kind of things that just build upon themselves, so we see a lot more of that potential in the future.”
