How full will Florida holiday villas and hotels be during the recession?

Even for those of us living in the Sunshine State, the economic news is almost unremittingly downbeat or even depressing these days. Borrowing, spending, unemployment, foreclosures and bankruptcies seem to be all that CNN, CBS and others can report. Even ABC, the parent company that owns the Magic Kingdom, has the same themes in its news programs and appears to have lost any semblance of Disney optimism. Almost every travel blog that I've read in the past few weeks has had some gloomy news on it.

So how has all of this impacted the Florida tourist industry?

Well, if you were around Central Florida during the recent Easter holiday you might not have thought that there was any impact at all. The roads were just as crowded in Kissimmee and the Four Corners area. Theme parks appeared to be just as popular as in previous major vacation times. And every restaurant that I visited had lines of customers waiting to get in for an evening meal.

And for another measure of how popular Central Florida still is, consider flight availability. For example, transatlantic flights and prices for Easter for UK tourists were at what appeared to be all time highs - and prices for the upcoming summer season remain very expensive. No signs of a big recession there!

But I have friends and relatives over in the UK for whom a Florida vacation is now much more expensive than it was last year. The weakening of the UK Pound Sterling against the US Dollar (it is now about twenty five per cent weaker than it's high of twelve to eighteen months ago) coupled with the rise in unemployment and the general "feel bad" atmosphere pervading the UK as well as the USA has certainly had an effect. Some of my contacts are definitely thinking twice before going ahead with a Florida vacation where they wouldn't have done before.

They are starting to favor European holidays a lot more - travel times are much shorter, availability is good and so the attraction is strong - so it is quite possible that Spanish holidays and Portugal travel packages and Greek and French vacations will become more popular for them. In particular amongst my friends, this Lisbon travel site has become a favorite.

On the other hand, Florida does still retain it's magic for a lot of people. The language is the same as the UK (well, almost), the concentration of theme parks and other attractions is unmatched and the wide range of restaurants to sample (still a lot less expensive than UK restaurants) has a lot of appeal.

Clearly a continuing recession will have vacation home owners and hotel operators reaching for the tranquilizers. But they shouldn't be too downhearted yet - if the economy starts to improve later this year, as some forecasters predict, the downside for the Florida tourist industry may be very limited indeed.