Business and community leaders from across Southwest Florida gathered Feb. 1 at Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre in Fort Myers for a state of the economy presentation that revealed encouraging signs about the Lee County economy. The annual meeting of the Horizon Council, Horizon Foundation and Lee County Economic Development Office revealed more than 20,000 jobs were added year-over-year in Lee County in the first three quarters of 2023, 2,850 new businesses were registered and there were 4.4 million visitors to the county in the first six months of the year. Those visitors had an $8.3 billion impact on the economy.