Collier tourism leaders help shape Florida’s strategy

Visit Florida, the state’s destination marketing organization, kicked off its multiyear strategic planning process in late October, asking tourism industry stakeholders from the Paradise Coast to help shape the plan that will keep visitors flocking to Florida — in and out of high season.

The strategy session took place as several areas of the state — including Collier County — are slowly rebounding from two challenging years that saw visitors, especially from international markets, decline. Industry experts attributed the declines primarily to economic and geopolitical issues affecting international visitors.

Overall, however, Visit Florida says the state welcomed a record 143.3 million visitors in 2025 and led the nation in both domestic and international market share.

The meeting, held at the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort & Spa in Bonita Springs, attracted about 100 industry professionals who took part in an interactive brainstorming session focused on the Visit Florida mission statement: Leverage the power of the Florida vacation brand to protect and grow Florida’s share of the global market and enrich the quality of life for Floridians.

It was the first of five industry workshops planned around the state to solicit input from hotels, restaurants, attractions, destination marketing organizations and others on the front lines of the tourism and hospitality industry.

Building statewide support

Visit Florida, which functions as a public-private partnership, says its statewide partnerships give organizations access to cooperative marketing, global public relations, research and international travel trade representation that individual destinations often could not achieve on their own.

John Lai serves as president of the Greater Fort Myers and Sanibel-Captiva Chamber of Commerce and represents the Southwest Florida region — including Collier County — of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association.

Lai also serves on the board of Visit Florida and said it was important for Southwest Florida to have a seat at the table as the state builds its strategic plan for 2027 through 2031.

“It has been 10 years since we’ve done a revamp of our strategic plan as an organization, and we wanted to make sure that it wasn’t done in a bubble or a silo,” Lai said in an interview following the meeting. “We wanted to make sure that we covered all areas of the state, and Southwest Florida was a very important region for us to gather input from so that Visit Florida for the next 10 years meets the needs of our residents, our visitors and our business community.”

He said he was pleased to see a strong turnout from hotels, resorts, restaurants and attractions at the session, and emphasized that the tourism economy has an impact far beyond those categories.

“It’s also arts and culture, and the retailer down the street,” Lai said. “It’s even the banks and investment companies and realtors that are impacted by visitation that ultimately, typically, turns into our residents and our next-door neighbors.”

Meagan Chiamardas, Visit Florida’s vice president of brand and strategy, said insights from the five workshops would be used to draft a plan by December or January that will then be presented to the board in May or June.

“We are a partnership organization, and we represent the tourism industry at large,” Chiamardas said. “So, it’s important for us to gain their feedback and their insights to help us prioritize and focus as we evolve our efforts and grow into the future.”

And when the plan is finalized, she said, it will be monitored and modified as circumstances change.

“It’s not just going to be something we set and forget,” Chiamardas said. “We’re going to continue to have check-ins on it.”

‘Aching outside of season’

One industry leader says she thinks it is important for Visit Florida to be aware of the need in Collier County for visitation year-round, not just in season.

Kristina Park, president and CEO of the Greater Naples Chamber, said she applauds the organization for pausing and listening to the industry that they serve.

“And the industry is telling them that they’re aching outside of season,” Park said in an interview. “We know the best times to travel from a weather perspective and filling those other gaps really matters. It matters to being able to keep people employed. I mean, we’ve got restaurants deciding between serving lunch and dinner because they don’t have the staff to keep up. Or they’re so robust during season and then they have such a weak off season, they can’t keep those employees.

“My hope is that the results (of the planning sessions) will show how much is needed off season and that we can be responsive in that way, both as a Chamber, and as the official destination marketing organization for the state.”

Collier experts see value in partnership, promotion

Other Collier County industry experts said they also found value in the workshop and in the long-term partnership with Visit Florida.

As the county rebounds from a softening tourism market that started in 2024, Sandra Rios, public relations and communications manager for the Naples, Marco Island, Everglades Convention & Visitors Bureau, said the partnership with Visit Florida provides access to research that helps identify industry trends and refine marketing strategies to stay competitive.

“Visit Florida’s marketing cooperative programs also provide the CVB with opportunities to participate in national and international trade shows and media missions at a fraction of the cost of undertaking those essential industry initiatives independently,” Rios said in a statement after the strategy workshop.

She said the workshop was an opportunity for tourism industry partners from across Southwest Florida to share information, discuss trends and challenges, and communicate with the Visit Florida team about the region’s priorities and needs as the organization prepares its strategic plan.

“Maintaining a strong presence and remaining top-of-mind are essential to positioning [Collier County] as a destination of choice for both Florida residents and out-of-state visitors,” Rios said.

Renée Waller, director of marketing and guest relations at Naples Botanical Garden, which welcomes more than 260,000 visitors a year, said Visit Florida can help expose the attraction to audiences that its own budget couldn’t reach.

“They do really great work in amplifying our voices and representing not only our state, but our region, beyond our borders and beyond where my budget as a nonprofit might necessarily allow,” Waller said in an interview.

Regarding the value of the workshop, Waller said one of the main areas of interest for Southwest Florida that came out of the brainstorming session was conservation, which, she said, came up a lot in the conversation.

“And that, of course, lends itself so much to what we’re doing with plants, but it’s also our beaches, and it’s the Everglades,” Waller said. “It is so much of what is really our bread and butter, what makes us so unique in the state.

“It was really great that we were all putting that forward together as one of the things that we wanted to continue that investment in, however that might evolve.”

She said she thinks the strategic plan, when finalized, will help the Garden and other organizations refine their own efforts.

“I think knowing how our national and international guests are being targeted and courted by Visit Florida will help inform some of our own objectives, some of our own potential priorities,” she said.