Tourism Trend - Research Paper Example

However, in recent years, Florida has been able to develop a novel niche in tourism business called Cruise Tourism. The paper focuses on this new upcoming tourism trend that is making rapid progress in Florida now. In recent years, Florida has become a major tourist destination for variety of reasons. Florida theme parks such as Busch Gardens at Tampa Bay, Magic Kingdom, SeaWorld and Typhoon Lagoon at Orlando, Epcot in Disney World offers a unique experience to the tourists. Most of the tourists make a dedicated visit to some of the theme parks in Florida.

Sun shines in Tampa Bay, for almost 360 days in a year, lures tourists to come over there. Tampas only water park, Adventure Island spread in 30 acres also supplements tourists’ experiences that they never want to forget (Henthorn, 2014). It is widely known that the US economy suffered immensely due to financial crisis during 2008-2009; accordingly, American spending on leisure travel also declined. In view of the depressed economic scenario, the tourism industry had to extend Cruise tourism is going to be a future trend in Florida as disposable incomes of the people increases.

As per Satchell (2013), Florida is the only state that has some of the busiest cruise ports that include Port Everglades, PortMiami, and Port Canaveral. These three ports in Florida generate around 36 percent of the total $19.6 billion business estimated nationwide. It is important to note that in 2012 almost 60% of the cruise tourists began their voyage from Florida registering a 2.6 percent increase over 2011. In 2011, 13.5 million passengers took advantage of cruise ship vacation. Port Miami and Port Everglades have become top cruise ship organizing port in Florida.

Port Everglades can boast of having the worlds largest cruise ship – a 225,000-ton Royal Caribbean mega ship called the Oasis of