Leon County broke tourism records in February 2026, generating upwards of $800,000 in tourism tax collections and boosting local businesses.
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The County saw a 24% increase in tourism in February compared to the same month last year. The surge was driven by major events hosted in the area, including the World Cross Country Championships, the Savannah Bananas, and Professional Bull Riding.
"You want people coming from outside of our community, coming here, staying at a hotel, they're spending money at the gas station, which generates the gas tax. They're spending money in our restaurants, which supports jobs, helps sales tax. And then we take those money, and we roll it into our local economy," Leon County Commission Chairman Christian Caban said.
The influx of visitors is important to local businesses like Hearth and Soul. Founder Susie Busch-Transou said tourism weekends are vital for the local economy and hopes local leaders will prioritize them.
"Friends from out of town that come to visit do add to our business, they increase our foot traffic, they give us new energy and new ideas in our store, they'll actually recommend products to us sometimes that we then go and find and curate and bring home, so it's really about community building beyond the Tallahassee residents," said Transou. "Please keep funding local events, it is absolutely critical for local businesses, we love our residents in town, and we want to continue to support them so bringing out-of-town visitors to our establishments helps everyone."
Caban wants to build on this success to leverage tourism dollars to help locals.
"We support sidewalks, lights, roads. And so it's really awesome, and it's good for our taxpayers when we have folks from outside of our community coming in and spending their money, right? It helps us keep our cost base low for residents that live here," Caban said.
To ensure the momentum keeps going, Caban hopes to diversify the events hosted in Leon County to continue generating tourism dollars.
"Yeah, well, listen, one, when you demonstrate success, it gives confidence to our partners at Florida State University. It gives confidence to our board at Tourism. It gives confidence to our board at the Leon County Commission," Caban said.
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