Travel Bulletin recently sat down with the associate vice president of global leisure sales, Erick Garnica, to discuss the success of the board’s in-house trade training portal and how that correlates with the booming post-pandemic surge in British visitors.
Located two and a half hours south of Orlando and an hour and a half north of Miami, Palm Beaches connects the top tourist hotspots while providing a unique destination for travellers to discover something new.
“Even though we are on the same coastline as Miami and Orlando, we are very different,” Erick stated, “The reason why is because of how the destination came about back in the late 1800s, the founding father of our destination, Henry Morrison Flagler, established the railway from the northern portion of the US, and when he arrived there, there was nothing, leading him to build America’s first resort, that is what we are known for.”
“From there, the tourism development began for us. It is a unique destination because there are 39 cities within the Palm Beaches, and each city has unique attributes, so if you’re looking for the same experience, you are not going to find it.”
In terms of visitation numbers, the destination has witnessed a post-pandemic surge, with British tourists remaining its third largest international market.
“Total visitation for 2023 across the board was 9.49 million into the Palm Beaches. Out of that figure, we received 137,000 international visitors, and from the UK specifically, we had 37,000 British travellers. That was an increase of 2.3% compared to 2019,” Erick stated.
“We do have the numbers for the first quarter of 2024, so we are happy to report that so far from January to March, there has been 11,800 UK visitors, so that is nearly a 12% increase compared to the same time last year. We are on the right path to surpass the 37,000 of 2023 by the end of the year.”
A lot of the success in attracting British travellers after the pandemic can be attributed to the increase in knowledge regarding the destination and the experiences that can be had there. To capitalise on this growth, Discover The Palm Beaches launched a dedicated agent training platform earlier this year.
“Four months ago we launched our in-house travel certification programme for agents. There are a range of different modules, videos, galleries etc. It takes around two hours to complete, but you can go at your own pace, and once you’ve completed it, you become a certified ambassador of the Palm Beaches. We are trying to get to the 100 agent mark globally, and we’ll pick one of those lucky winners that completed the course to come with us for two nights, with a hotel to host them and flights paid for.”
“We think a platform like this is important for educational purposes. A lot of people still don’t know what the Palm Beaches is, they think it is one city, so it has been a lot of education over the years and being consistent on the messaging. It feels important for advisors to have the right tools available, understand what we are as a destination so they can continue to give us that increase in visitation, but also more of the awareness.”
