Move over, boomers. When your Millennial and Gen Z kids and grandkids come to Key West, they’re going to be dismayed by our alcohol-fueled Duval Crawl, clogged streets, casual (some would say, “oblivious”) treatment of the fragile ecosystems and our escalating penchant for forgetting we are One Human Family.

In a recent interview with Mandy Miles of Keys Weekly, Monroe County Tourist Development Commission executive director Kara Franker shared these statistics: “Millennials now make up 40 percent of Keys visitors, compared with 34 percent a year ago. The average visitor age is 42. Repeat visitors eroded from 95% in 2019 to 52% in 2025, Per-person spending has dropped 33% in two years, falling from $1,667 in 2023 to $1,112 in 2025. Similarly, the average length of stay has dropped 30%, from 6 nights on average in 2023 to 4.2 nights in 2025.”

I’m not surprised that Millennials are swiftly becoming the Keys’ primary visitor model. After all, boomers and their Xer siblings are aging out of the travel market. The oldest Xers turn 61 this year; the oldest boomers don’t have room on the cake for 80 candles. Our let’s-take-a-trip enthusiasm these days probably means a Miami doc visit, not a seven-day bacchanale in Key West.

Getting old aside, those statistics are harbingers of a generational shift, which, if ignored, will sideline Key West and the Keys as major travel destinations. And while that might bring cheers from some quarters, if we continue to shape our civic, political, social, environmental and growth and development policies the way we are now, Millennials and Gen Z will simply go elsewhere.

Though we are far too expensive for their pocketbooks, the Keys and Key West offer pretty much everything on the Millennial and Gen Z travel checklist: history; diverse and inclusive cultures; great food, music and entertainment; island time for families and friend groups, and immersive, natural experiences (think botanical gardens, dolphin watching, hiking and kayaking).

So if we’ve got the makings of a great travel destination for these younger generations, why would they turn up their collective noses at our island home?

Because we don’t walk the talk.

Key West isn’t built for Millennials and Gen Z

Let’s start with what really matters to Millennials and Gen Z when they make destination decisions. The Expedia Group’s research, which aligns with most every other study, brings this into perspective: “For island getaways in particular, travelers place especially high importance on destinations that protect nature and wildlife, support local communities and reduce overall environmental impact. … Younger travelers aren’t just talking about overtourism; they are changing their plans to avoid it. … 83% say they would support measures at popular sites to prevent overcrowding and protect natural/cultural assets, even if it limits their own access.”

Not only are they appalled by the cost, crowds, congestion and environmental scourges we’re willingly visiting on ourselves, but they don’t have much in common with today’s red-state-purple-island politics. These two generations, the most racially diverse in history, are strikingly similar in their world views — and, to use the vernacular, they’re “woke,” whether they identify as Democrat or Republican.

They’re comfortable with gay and interracial marriage, with non-traditional families and women in the workplace and politics; they’re champions of diversity and inclusion. They believe climate change is real, they see the resulting damage and they attribute the cause to humans making bad choices. They’re down with gender-neutral pronouns, if that’s your thing, and they think you should have more choices on your governmental IDs than male or female. They think family financial and childcare responsibilities ought be equally shared. They think immigrants are good for the country.

And what are we doing? Packing people into four square miles, rounding up immigrants, renting golf carts, cars, bikes and e-things by the thousands, enduring long waiting lines, turning an “it’s too expensive” blind eye to decaying infrastructure, running amok through endangered mangroves and removing rainbows and the last vestiges of One Human Family. We favor artificial turf and asphalt over open space and nature preserves.

And that’s before we get to the Duval Crawl celebrated by boomers and their parents. Staggering in and out of every bar and day drinking like Hemingway simply isn’t on the agenda for Millennials and Gen Z. Those two generations invented “sober curious” and they eschew Key West’s hard-drinking culture.

I’m not saying bars are dead. There will always be a plethora of visitors who intentionally choose a day of drinking, chatting up friends and strangers and toe-tapping to music. Millennials and Gen Z have their share of drunks, too. But boomers’ and Xers’ beloved and uninhibited bar crawls as the primary reason for a Key West vacation is waning.

Key West and the Keys are stuck in the “more is better, woke is bad” mindset — and if we stay there, it won’t take long for Millennials and Gen Z to find destinations in sync with their generational values.

Learn more

https://partner.expediagroup.com/en-us/resources/blog/how-gen-z-and-millennials-are-reshaping-sustainable-travel

https://www.condorferries.co.uk/millennials-travel-statistics-trends

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/01/17/generation-z-looks-a-lot-like-millennials-on-key-social-and-political-issues