Sure the Brits flock here through tour operators and under their own steam but out of the roughly 46M visitors to Orlando per year they are a minor part. Of course, the people writing the blog are likely to be British so they believe that the Brits are so important but the facts are that they aren’t.

I know of many management companies who don’t deal with the Brits and market elsewhere. They are amongst the most successful in the industry…charging sensible rates, making a profit and actually staying in business.

So far this year we’ve seen the demise of Travel City. No surprise there. People who compete on price alone eventually die.

Now let’s look at your list of reasons why the world is going to come to an end if the Brits don’t come to Florida in 2009.

1. The claim that the British economy is dying maybe true. But there again it’s true for a lot of other places. What is absolutely untrue is that people have no money to spend. People, in fact do and they will continue to spend it. What the marketer has to do is work out how and where they are spending it.

2. The pound has depreciated. Big deal. It’s back to where it was about a year or so ago. Sure it went to $2 to the pound at one time but that was the first time since the late 70′s.

3. So the British book their Summer vacation in January do they? Utter nonsense. That’s nothing more than old fashioned thinking. The reason this used to happen is because the UK was a large manufacturer…that is absolutely not the case today and people are far more flexible in their planning. Further, Brits also take more holidays than they used to do. A lot take 2 or 3 holidays per year and those that have been to Florida before do generally come back because they like a) the lifestyle, b) the language, c) the choices, d) the moreorless guaranteed sunshine, e) the value for money. Perhaps you’d like to write a blog accentuating the positives of those insted?

4. Air fares – sure Florida is more expensive to reach than a ten pound flight to Spain but so what? People looking to take a holiday in Florida already know it’s going to cost more than average. In fact 990,000 British guests, to quote your figures, already paid for flights last year. Flights haven’t increased in price over 2008 and with the sudden drop in fuel prices they may well drop in 2009 anyway.

Finally, let’s assume you are right and I’m wrong…a 30% drop in the number of visitors coming to Florida would not be devastating to the economy. Yes, the money would be missed by some folks but life would go on as normal and some people would then have to work out how to market their home / business in a smarter way. Sure some would go out of business…and they would deserve to.

People are still spending money. Money moves around. Just because one segment doesn’t have as much as it used to doesn’t mean it’s gone away…it’s simply moved to somewhere else. The task is “go find it”.

Nigel