Airbnb guest arrivals surged during Major League Baseball’s spring training season

Airbnb guest arrivals surged in Florida cities that serve as spring-training sites of multiple Major League Baseball teams.

Fifteen teams did their preseason training at 11 Florida cities and demonstrated their economic clout as tourism generators.

The number of Airbnb guests in the 11 cities that host spring training generally doubled during spring training, compared to the previous five weeks.

Airbnb guest arrivals in Jupiter, for example, jumped 133 percent from the previous five-week period while the St. Louis Cardinals and Miami Marlins did spring training there.

The comparable sequential increases in Airbnb guest arrivals were 92 percent in Tampa, 100 percent in Sarasota, 112 percent in Fort Myers and 157 percent in Port Charlotte.

Airbnb reported that the surge in guest arrivals included late-winter tourists who traveled to Florida to watch such teams as the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies. – Mike Seemuth