A national consulting firm estimates that NASA’s landmark Artemis 2 launch from the Kennedy Space Center to the moon could attract 400,000 visitors to Florida’s Space Coast and generate an economic impact of $160 million for Brevard County.
“Most people are going to be in town for a few days. They’re going to spend money at restaurants, hotels, bars. All of that will have an economic impact and create new tax revenue,” said John Boyd, principal of Boyd Corp. in Boca Raton.
“It creates more revenue for hotel taxes. Staffing at restaurants and different types of events will increase in the short term,” Boyd said.
Artemis II: NASA’s giant crawler transports Artemis 2 moon rocket to launch pad in Florida
Designed to perform a 10-day lunar flyby, Artemis 2 represents the United States’ first manned return to the moon since Apollo 17 in December 1972. On Wednesday, March 18, four astronauts — NASA astronauts Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — entered prelaunch quarantine at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA is still working toward a launch as early as 6:24 p.m. on April 1, near the end of Brevard County’s spring break travel season, but has not yet announced a target date. Preparations continue as Giant Crawler Transporter 2 delivered the giant Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft to Platform 39B on Friday, March 20.
During NASA’s previous February launch window, about a dozen hotels in Brevard County reported being sold out or just a few rooms short, said Meagan Happel, a spokesperson for the Space Coast Tourism Office. Now, 14 hotels in Titusville, Cape Canaveral, Cocoa Beach and Viera are fully booked for the upcoming April window.
The launch of Artemis II will boost the restaurant and retail industries
The Boyd Company Inc. estimates the impact of the Artemis II Brevard launch on the tourism industry totaling $160 million:
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Restaurants and bars: $32 million.
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Retail sales: $19.2 million.
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Entertainment and attractions: $16 million.
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Event operations and staffing: $16 million.
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Local transportation (rideshares, taxis, rental cars, parking): $12.8 million.
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Indirect/induced impacts (vendor spend, local re-spend payroll): $8 million.
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Local and state tax revenue: $8 million
Boyd said these tourism forecasts are based on similar forecasts for major sporting events. However, he said NASA’s history and global stature will also add “enormous, almost immeasurable location brand value” to Florida’s Space Coast.
He said Orlando will also see a positive economic impact, with some tourists flying there and visiting attractions such as Walt Disney World Resort and Universal Studios. But those figures were not included in Brevard’s $160 million estimate.
Against this backdrop, preliminary estimates from the Florida Department of Tourism show that a record 143.3 million people visited Florida last year. An estimated 33.5 million tourists traveled to the state between October and December, the highest fourth quarter on record.
Anne Conroy-Baiter, president and CEO of the Space Coast Chamber of Commerce, cited the Artemis 2 statistics during a Feb. 24 Connecting Everyone Alliance space innovation webinar.
“We expect about 400,000 visitors to come to the Space Coast to check it out. One launch will have an economic impact of $160 million,” Conroy-Beit said.
“We’re talking about Starship coming in 2026: 500,000 people are expected to come to the Space Coast. So that’s going to impact every business on the Space Coast — from mom-and-pop stores to SpaceX — and have a huge spillover effect,” she said.
SpaceX Demo-2 attracted 220,000 people in 2020
This traffic camera photo from May 2020 shows heavy traffic on State Route 528 following NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission launch attempt at Kennedy Space Center.
For comparison, the Space Coast Tourism Bureau estimates that 220,000 people visited NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 launch in May 2020. The historic liftoff, which took place Saturday afternoon, marked the first time NASA astronauts flew from U.S. soil to the International Space Station since the end of the space shuttle program in 2011.
The launch of NASA’s Artemis I unmanned spacecraft from the Kentucky Space Center in November 2022 attracted an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 tourists, according to various sources. Instead, the rocket lifted off at 1:47 a.m. Wednesday.
Boyd said weekend rocket launches tend to boost turnout by 50% or more, while weekday attendance drops significantly. As part of regional tourism trends, Brevard benefits from its proximity to major high-growth population areas such as Central Florida, Tampa-St. Louis and other Gulf Coast cities, he said. St. Petersburg and South Florida.
Boyd noted that Hansen would be the first Canadian to walk on the moon. Boyd said that could attract a larger audience for Canadian launches amid political tensions between the neighboring countries.
Florida tourism records show that 3.2 million Canadians visited the Sunshine State in 2023. The total number of visitors increased to 3.3 million by 2024, but fell to 2.9 million last year as President Donald Trump escalated tariffs and trade-related threats.
On February 24, Hansen and his Artemis 2 crew wore blue NASA jackets to attend Trump’s State of the Union address in Washington, DC.
“It brings a global dynamic,” Boyd said of Artemis 2. “Florida and Canada have such important business, commercial and cultural relationships.”
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Rick Neal is a space reporter for Florida Today and has been covering news since 2004. Contact Neale: Rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter/X: @rickneal1
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This article originally appeared in Florida Today: NASA Artemis II tourist launch could boost Space Coast economy by $160 million
