Managing Tourism and Local Life in St. Augustine

By Holly Hearn

Anyone who has spent any time living in St. Augustine – whether it be a first-year Flagler student or a lifelong resident – knows that tourists are a permanent fixture in town.

Between holding the title for the nation’s oldest city and being a beach town in Florida, St. Augustine has been drawing in visitors for over a century. Since COVID-19, however, the number of tourists visiting has skyrocketed.

Florida was one of the first and most accessible places for people to visit post-COVID. The state was able to have higher tourism numbers, with St. Augustine following the same pattern, seeing high numbers between the years 2021 and 2023.

Since then, St. Augustine has maintained a wide range of activities for people to enjoy. Tourists and residents alike have enjoyed choices in food and drink, beaches, shops, museums and more – there really is something for everyone to enjoy.

“People who are starting to travel on their own for the first time, don’t necessarily just want the fort and the historic stuff, they want a nice restaurant and a good bar or a ghost tour,” said Dr. Zachary Cole, a Hospitality and Tourism Management professor at Flagler College. “I think it’s a culmination of the things make our area so appealing, versus any one thing in particular. We are a victim of our own success, to be honest.”

According to a report from Visit Florida, there were 142.9 million visitors to the state in the 2024 calendar year. This was a 1.6% increase from 2023 and an overall record high.

The city of St. Augustine offers various events and attractions that contribute to this commercial success.

“There have been a number of events that have popped up,” said Blaise Morrell, owner of Pineapple Ride and Tour. “We have Sing Out Loud every year. We have the As If! 90s Fest. We have a couple seafood festivals and the Celtic festival. There are a number of festivals in Frances Field that have been growing in popularity. We’re on the map.”

According to a 2022 report from Downs & St. Germain Research and Florida’s Historic Coast, St. Augustine welcomed over 3 million tourists between July 2021 and July 2022, broken down into 786,500 day visitors and over 2.25 million overnight visitors.

The number of tourists visiting in a year is over 16 thousand percent higher than the number of residents and Flagler students combined.

With the combination of 15,596 St. Augustine residents, an average of 2,500 Flagler students and over 3 million tourists, it is hard for locals to feel like they have much control over their own town.

Even with the disproportionate numbers, the economy of St. Augustine relies heavily on tourism.

“It’s by far the economic base of the place,” Cole said. “We always think of the tourism industry and locals somehow being separate, but we know that they are one in the same. The people who work at these hotels, restaurants and attractions, live in these neighborhoods.”

With ever growing numbers, it is crucial for the city of St. Augustine to assess the impact of tourism on the local community and find ways to manage it to keep locals satisfied and make visitors feel welcome.

However, finding that balance is not always easy with the amount of people in town every day.

“The challenge always is, with the amount of growth that we’ve seen, those type of decisions that mitigate some of that impact, will always trail behind the impact itself. Especially when you’re dealing with people,” Cole said.

While it may not seem like it to everyone that gets stuck in St. Augustine traffic on a daily basis, the city and its tourism companies are working to improve conditions for everyone.

For example, the traffic circle at the bottom of the Vilano bridge that everyone knows and hates, was put in to alleviate the amount of backed up traffic on the bridge and keep a consistent flow of traffic. As confusing as the traffic circle is is, it worked.

A goal of the tour companies like Pineapple Ride and Tours, Old Town Trolley, Red Train and others, is to decrease the number of cars on the road.

“Instead of people driving around and seeing St. Augustine for themselves, they can come and use a service like ours or the trolly to get their car off the road,” Morrell said. “I think that improves the overall mobility of downtown St. Augustine. We also employ pedi-cabs and 14-passenger mini shuttles to bring people to and from places downtown, alleviating traffic. Between the trolley and our services, if we grow, St. Augustine’s mobility could benefit from that.”

There are still improvements to be made in terms of creating a healthy balance between an enjoyable vacation and a comfortable local life. But, with numbers increasing each year, finding that balance will take time.