Tourism Stakeholders Are Staying Calm as Zika Spreads in Florida
Photo Credit: The Zika virus is still spreading across Florida, although the travel industry has yet to be severely impacted. Miami's Wynwood neighborhood, pictured here in late July 2016, is ground zero for the city's Zika outbreak. Skift / Dan Peltier
Skift Take
For now, things are stable for hotels and cruise lines in South Florida. If the Zika virus continues to spread during the period leading up to the winter, which is the area's peak tourism period, this may quickly change.
As the Zika virus has spread from Brazil to Latin America, the Caribbean, and now South Florida, alarm has been raised in the media about the very real danger the virus poses to women who are pregnant or may become pregnant.
Travel companies in Miami, however, say that the effect so far on tourism has been minimal, due to a number of factors.
As of Wednesday, 43 confirmed cases of non-travel related Zika infections have been reported in Florida, according to the Florida Department of Health.
The fact that the Zika outbreak had initially been contained to a small area of Miami, the arts-focused Wynwood neighborhood, has been the key factor in the lack of an effect on tourism the state overall, sources said. But on Friday, five locally transmitted cases were confirmed in Miami Beach, an area with much heavier tourist traffic.
Those infections prompted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to warn pregnant women not to travel to the two areas of active transmiss
