COVID-19, Pent-up Tourism Demand, and the Role of Depleted Excess Savings: Evidence from Florida's Space Coast
Applied Economics, 2026
Abstract
This article offers a case-based demonstration from Florida's Space Coast of how COVID-19 era fiscal policy and behavioral responses translated into a temporary, measurable surge in county-level tourism tax receipts. It contributes to the literature by bridging macroeconomic theories of consumption smoothing and savings drawdowns with applied tourism analysis. The primary variable driving the study, estimated by Abdelrahman and Oliveira (2023), is accumulated excess savings, which essentially resulted from lockdown-induced spending constraints during a year in which more than $5 trillion in fiscal stimulus was introduced. At its peak in summer 2021, about $2.1 trillion in U.S. excess savings had accumulated, resulting in a pent-up demand that was subsequently released. From January 2022 through April 2024, we project a point estimate accrual for Brevard County, Florida of $7.3 million in real tourist development tax receipts above the pre-pandemic benchmark, constituting almost 14 percent of the tourist development tax revenues collected.
