2024 Legislative Summary for May

From Representative Matt Simpson, Chairman of the Baldwin County Legislative Delegation

It’s summer, so if you’ve tried to head to the beach lately, you’ve no doubt quickly realized that not only is housing booming in Baldwin County, but so is tourism.

Our beautiful home on the Gulf has been a long-kept vacation secret in the South. Though locals have flocked here for decades, word has finally gotten out, in a big way.

The 32-mile-long island on our southern shore greets more than 6 million visitors each year and for each of the last three years has earned more than $8 million from tourism annually.

Members of Gulf Shores & Orange Beach Tourism have often said the draw to South Baldwin County is more than simply the beautiful beaches. Visitors also come for our nature activities such as the trails of Gulf State Park and the Bon Secour Wildlife Refuge.

This means while summer is the busiest time, we see a growing number of visitors through the fall, winter and spring as well.

And our county continues to rake in accolades from travel experts and magazines. The most recent comes from U.S. News & World Report which poured the following titles on the city of Gulf Shores:

• #1 in Best Alabama Beaches
• #1 in Best Family Beach Vacations in the U.S.
• #2 in Best Weekend Getaways in the South
• #5 in Best U.S. Beaches for 2024
• #12 in Best Family Vacations in the USA for 2024
• #5 best beach in the United States for 2024

The end result is billions of dollars in income. 

In 2022, Baldwin County welcomed 8.3 million visitors who spent $7.9 billion dollars in the county – leading the state in tourism dollars, according to the latest Alabama Tourism Department Economic Impact Study.

That year Baldwin and Mobile counties combined generated 42.8% of the state’s total tourism expenditures, amounting to $9.5 billion

This region also accounted for almost 36.7 percent of the state’s total travel-related employment.

What does this mean for the state?

Roughly 4 percent of the sales tax from the island goes to the Education Trust Fund. Last year in Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, that amount was $1.4 billion. In Foley, the amount was $1.3 billion. And let’s not forget that those billions of dollars in sales tax revenues do a great deal of good for our county – especially our county schools that get penny sales tax revenue from that money, funds being paid by tourists to support the continuing operations and growth of our school system, not on the backs of our residents.

Another 4 percent of the lodging sales tax goes to the General Fund. Last year, Gulf Shores and Orange Beach sent $880 million to the General Fund from lodging sales. Foley sent an additional $30 million.

And in order to keep up with the needs and demands of these 8.3 million visitors, we cannot forget that our tourism industry is a major employment driver for our county, as nearly 65,000 people across Baldwin County are employed in tourism-related jobs – with 55,000 of that number in just the Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and Fort Morgan areas alone.

The tourism we have here is a great blessing for our big beautiful county, so if you do get stuck in the occasional bit of summer tourism traffic while making your way around this summer, just try to remember that those cars surrounding you from Louisiana, Mississippi and other parts of Alabama represent billions of dollars in revenue for our county and tens of thousands of jobs for our residents that we could not exist without.

As always, if you have an issue or a question, never hesitate to reach out by emailing me at [email protected].