Visit St. Pete-Clearwater targeting cold-weather cities in 2025 marketing campaign to attract tourists

Pinellas County marketing to snowbirds this winter

FOX 13's Briona Arradondo reports that tourism leaders in St. Pete and Clearwater are looking to market Pinellas County and its beaches to new audiences domestically and internationally in 2025, especially as winter visitors seek out sunny destinations.

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Tourism leaders are looking to market Pinellas County and its beaches to new audiences domestically and internationally in 2025, especially as winter visitors seek out sunny destinations.

Drawing locals to enjoy the coast doesn’t take much since residents are already familiar with the benefits.

Sunset over Clearwater beach.

"We don’t have to introduce ourselves to someone in Florida or someone in the Greater Tampa Bay area. But we do want to capitalize on that large population growth that we’ve seen in recent years, so we focus on more short-term events," said Brian Lowack, the President and CEO of Visit St. Pete-Clearwater.

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Visit St. Pete-Clearwater said it will start 2025 with a new marketing and advertising campaign to welcome people back to the beaches.

"We have done a number of things through our still shining campaign highlighting how our local businesses are still shining in the aftermath of the recent storms," said Lowack.

Their core audience consists of people in the north and Midwest, where it’s cold.

Visit St. Pete said it’s targeting new places they haven’t had a big presence in, like Nashville, New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago.

Clearwater beach.

Tampa Bay locals and out-of-state visitors aren’t the only people tourism leaders hope to bring to places like Clearwater Beach.

Visit St. Pete-Clearwater said they’re appealing to Canada like never before.

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"We’re marketing heavily in Toronto to a higher degree than we ever have in the past this year because we want to get the Canadian visitor back here," Lowack said.

With daily flights from Tampa to Toronto and the Blue Jays stadium in Dunedin, Lowack said focusing on Canada only makes sense to boost visitor numbers.

"Coming out of the pandemic, it dropped significantly," Lowack said. "We’re still getting back to those 2019 levels. But we’re almost there."

Tourism leaders also want to attract more international travelers from Latin America, and they plan to dip into Mexico City, Brazil, and more.

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Pinellas County commissioners approved an extra $6 million for Visit St. Pete to market the area as part of the organization’s $49 million budget, according to Lowack.

"We came off of another banner year for us in Pinellas County in 2024, and we’re confident that with our strategies and our new initiatives, we’re going to be in markets that we haven’t been in the past," Lowack said.

Visit St. Pete said Pinellas County brought in 15.4 million visitors in 2024 with $11.2 billion in economic impact, and they hope 2025 will be even bigger.

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