ST. PETERSBURG - If red tide is causing concerns for Pinellas County beachgoers, you wouldn't know the difference by looking at the latest tourism stats.

Pinellas County is on a record-setting tourism wave with another high number of hotel stays in the month of June.

Going into July Fourth weekend, the demand is not letting up. The tourism bureau, Visit St. Pete/Clearwater, sent Spectrum Bay News 9 the latest updated numbers.

In the last week of June, 2021 hotel occupancy data outperformed their record setting period in 2019.

The weekly average occupancy is 6% percent higher this year compared to the year before the pandemic.

The same metric is almost 10% higher than in 2018.

Tourism officials said it's only going to get better because visitor rolls are still missing key demographics.

Coming out of the pandemic, there are still two groups of travelers which are not back to normal explained Visit St. Pete/Clearwater’s President and CEO Steve Hayes.

"Our international traveler, if you thought our U.S. traveler demand is pent up, our international traveler demand is pent up even more,” said Hayes.  “I think that'll provide a rebound back and again that business travel and meetings and conference travel that I see coming back in the fall will certainly help us as well."

Hayes said the international traveler makes up about 10% of visitors to the area.

He said some of it happens in the summer from places such as Latin America and Europe.

But, those visitors are not all back due to pandemic restrictions.

It means domestic visitors are making up the difference, more than ever before.

Hayes said some of the growth can also be attributed to a lack of competition from the cruise industry which is just now setting sail on practice runs after a more than a year on hold.

VSPC published their date from Smith Travel Research which shows Average Daily Rate continues to be a huge success story as this week’s average ($194.14) was $48 better than 2019.

It makes June the destination's best on record.

This is good news for the entire area, when you're number one economic driver is setting records.

AAA expects more than 47 million Americans are hitting the road this 4th of July holiday weekend.