Florida’s tourism industry experienced a record-setting year in 2017, Gov. Rick Scott announced Tuesday.

  • Florida set another tourism record in 2017
  • The state drew 116.5 million visitors last year
  • The new record comes despite Hurricane Irma

The Sunshine State drew 116.5 million visitors last year, a 3.6 percent increase from the previous year.

Florida set a new record despite Hurricane Irma, which wreaked havoc on the state in September.

A study by Visit Florida show that an estimated 1.8 million visitors were lost due to the storm. The storm’s impact cost the state $1.5 billion in visitor spending.

“Because of Visit Florida’s aggressive marketing efforts to make sure families across the world knew that Florida was open to visitors following Hurricane Irma, we were able to celebrate another recording-breaking year for tourism,” Scott said, in a news release. “This is especially great news for the 1.4 million jobs that rely on our growing tourism industry.”

Domestic visitors accounted for 102.3 million of the 2017 total.

There were 10.7 million foreign visitors, with 3.5 million coming from Canada.

In 2016, Visit Florida’s spending practices came under fire after it was revealed the agency entered into a $1 million promotion deal with the rapper Pitbull.

Then in May of last year, the Florida Legislature approved a budget that called for slashing Visit Florida’s budget by 67 percent. The agency’s budget was restored and approved during a special session in June.