Its that time of year again folks. Its Fall season. Time to carve pumpkins, break out those sweaters and sip on the pumpkin spice latte. But with the Fall comes a season we're not so happy with. Snowbird season. Though the politically correct word is winter visitors, snowbirds are the older folks who flock to Florida during the cold months, usually from October till May. We know they've arrived because there is so much more traffic on the roads.
Here we don't have the usual seasons the rest of the country have. We have out hurricane season, our lobster season, our manatee season, our turtle nesting season, and our snowbird season. In the sunshine state we get 900,000 to a million seasonal residents. Some say it could be higher.
For businesses that means money. They are a much needed
commodity. A lot of us make most of our money this time of year. Especially in
the service industry where you can constantly be working overtime hours to keep
up. Companies buy more products this time of year to keep up with demand, and its this time of year that smaller businesses count on to stay afloat. They definitely give our economy a vital boost.
The average snowbird is 67 years old and stays at least a month, though the usual stay is 3-4 months. Ten percent of them come from outside the US, five percent from Canada. Canadian snowbirds pump more than 4 billion into Florida's economy annually. Florida is their number one destination. According to tripping.com, Clearwater, Florida came in at the number one place for value for snowbirds to visit. New Smyrna Beach, Florida came in at number two. So keep on coming snowbirds, Florida welcomes you with open arms.
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