Dorian cost Florida money, even if storm skirted by state

ORLANDO, Fla. – Although Hurricane Dorian skirted by Florida with hardly any damage, it still cost the Sunshine State money.

In Orlando, the nation’s most visited tourist destination, hotel occupancy was down by almost 42 per cent on the Saturday before Labor Day, compared to the same time the previous year.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that just around 70,000 of the almost 130,000 hotel rooms in the Orlando metro area were occupied that day.

University of Central Florida tourism professor Deborah Breiter says leisure trips are often easier to cancel than business trips, so when there is a prediction of a storm, people will cancel.

The area’s tourism marketing agency, Visit Orlando, put out marketing materials on social media letting potential tourists know the area was open for visitors.