Tourism is not doubt a very important part of some states revenue, in fact in the United States revenue from tourism accounted for around $960 Billion dollars in 2014. Some states account for large portions of this while others do not. In 2014 California and Florida were ranked #1 & #2 in visiting tourism while Texas was ranked #4, New York #5, Virginia #6, and Ohio #12, this according to hotel bookings in each state. Hotel bookings can account for many different leisure activities like beaches, amusement parks, and sports (i.e. golf, football, basketball, baseball, & others).
If looking for beaches and sun Florida leads the way with over 1,350 miles of coastline while California is second with only 840 miles of coastline. The other states in this paper have very little in terms of beach tourism with Texas having 367 miles, New York 127 miles, Virginia 112 miles, and Ohio has no beaches at all. When accounting for tourism on beaches and in the sun Florida has a clear advantage over the other states.
Another source used to attract tourism is amusement parks. Again California and Florida are in leagues of their own compared to the other four states. California has the most amusement parks within the state with 32 parks like Disneyland, SeaWorld, Six Flags, and LEGOLAND being the largest of their parks.
While Florida only has 25 parks they have the biggest and most robust parks of any of the states with parks like Busch Gardens, Disney World and their multiple parks within Disney World, EPCOT, LEGOLAND, SeaWorld, and Universal Studies. By far the Theme park with the most revenue is Disney Parks and Resorts and while California may have Disneyland in Anaheim Disneyland can fit inside Disney Worlds parking lot.
Disney Parks and Resorts accounted for 15.1 Billion dollars in 2014 with most of that attached to Disney World in Florida. Second on the list is Universal Studies accounting for over 2.62 Billion dollars in Florida. Both Florida and California have LEGOLAND with 1.9 Billion, SeaWorld with 1.38 Billion, and Six Flags with 1.2 Billion in revenue. In terms of revenue from Theme Parks Florida is King.
Next we will look at how Sports impact states and tourism. For golf Florida leads the way over all states as it has the most golf courses in the United States and more PGA events than any other state in this paper. When looking away from golf into college and Professional Sports Virginia is the worst of them, Virginia has no Professional teams and really only has two major college sport programs in the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech.
The rest of these states all have every major professional sport and college sports within their state lines and in some cases multiple teams within a sport. But Florida has something none of the other have, baseball spring training. Spring Training helped Florida account for 44 Billion in sports and recreational revenue in 2014. I was not able to find accurate information on the impact of sports in California and Texas which I believe “could” be on the same footing of Florida in this category. But as it stands now Florida wins sports as well.
In closing California may have the highest amount of tourist cycling though its state but in terms of actual positive impact on a state Florida is clearly the winner.
