Pinellas County has authorized nearly $4 million in contracts with firms that promote St. Pete-Clearwater in Europe, part of a years-long effort to bring more international travelers to the area.
County commissioners this week added another $575,000 to keep that work going through September 2027. The contracts cover Central Europe and the United Kingdom, Ireland and Scandinavia.
Visit St. Pete-Clearwater officials say international travelers, while a relatively small share of the area’s visitors, are especially valuable to the local tourism economy.
“Every international traveler that we get here, I mean, that’s a high-value visitor that we’re bringing into our destination to spend money and inject that money into our economy,” said Brian Lowack, president and CEO of Visit St. Pete-Clearwater.
Figuring out exactly how much of that spending can be credited to the county’s work overseas is more difficult.
Visit St. Pete-Clearwater does not calculate a separate return on investment for the two contracts. Spokesman Jason Latimer said the agency instead looks at its advertising and promotional work as a whole, along with broader results such as the number of visitors and taxes collected from overnight stays.
International travelers make up less than 10% of all visitors, but Visit St. Pete-Clearwater’s public data dashboard shows that travelers from some of the countries Pinellas targets spend hundreds of millions of dollars in the region each year.
Travelers from the United Kingdom spent $285.5 million across the broader Tampa-St. Pete area in 2025. German travelers spent another $101.8 million.
Those estimates cover the larger Tampa-St. Pete area, not just Pinellas County. They also cannot show how many travelers came because of the county’s spending overseas.
Canada brings the most international visitors to the area, followed by the United Kingdom and Germany. Lowack said Pinellas has focused on places that already send significant numbers of travelers here and where direct flights make getting to Tampa Bay relatively easy.
Recent numbers also show that spending money to attract travelers from a country does not guarantee more will come.
Visits from the United Kingdom increased 5.1% in 2025, while visits from Germany fell 16.4%. Canada saw an even steeper decline of 17.8%.
Lowack said international travel can rise or fall for reasons Pinellas has little control over, including exchange rates and events around the world. When an important source of visitors has a bad year, he said, the county’s approach is to keep promoting the area rather than walk away from relationships built over time.
“We’ve been over in these markets for a long time, and we’re not going anywhere,” Lowack said.
The money comes from Pinellas County’s 6% Tourist Development Tax, commonly called the bed tax, which is charged on hotel rooms, vacation rentals and other short-term stays. The county collected about $92 million from the tax last year, according to Visit St. Pete-Clearwater.
“This is 100% Tourist Development Tax dollars that we’re reinvesting to fuel increased visitation to the destination,” Lowack said.
Pinellas is also beginning to look beyond the countries where it has spent years promoting itself.
Visit St. Pete-Clearwater has tested efforts to attract travelers from Central and South America, where new and expanding flights are making Tampa Bay easier to reach. Lowack singled out Brazil as one place with considerable room to grow.
The latest numbers help explain the interest. Visits from Brazil increased 21.9% in 2025, while spending by Brazilian travelers jumped 25.5% to $49.2 million.
Brazil still sends far fewer people to the area than Canada, the United Kingdom or Germany. But the increase gives Pinellas another place to look for travelers as some of its biggest international sources struggle.
The value of international tourism isn’t limited to how much visitors spend. When they arrive also matters.
“They come at times of the year, they come at shoulder seasons. They come during slow times,” Lowack said. “So, times when Florida travelers aren’t coming, times when other U.S. markets aren’t producing, those international travelers are coming here to fill those rooms and go to our establishments.”
Despite international travelers remaining a small share of overall visitation, Lowack sees considerably more room for that part of Pinellas tourism to grow.
“Tampa Bay, St. Pete-Clearwater is no longer a secret,” he said. “The growth opportunity there is just astronomical.”
This content provided in partnership with StPeteCatalyst.com
