Florida House considers bill that could cut state funding for ‘Visit Florida’

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Some Florida home lawmakers wish to minimize state funding to “Go to Florida,” the state’s tourism and advertising company. As an alternative, they need county-tourist growth councils to contribute a portion of their tourism tax {dollars}, however some county leaders argue the invoice disproportionately impacts smaller counties.

The Florida Tourism Trade Advertising and marketing Company, as often known as “Go to Florida” is a not-for-profit, personal/public partnership. Annually, “Go to Florida” will get state funding which it is required to match dollar-for-dollar by recruiting tourism companies, like Disney and Busch Gardens to spend money on partnerships with the last word aim of driving tourism to the state.

Over time, some lawmakers have questioned the effectiveness of “Go to Florida” and whether or not it is a good return on funding.

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For the 2022-2023 fiscal yr, “Go to Florida” acquired $50 million in state funding, but when handed HB 7053 would minimize that and as a substitute take a share of tax income between two and 5 % from Florida’s 62 county tourist-development councils.

“We’ve to market to get individuals right here. That is the cash that we depend on to try this with,” Citrus County Chamber of Commerce President & CEO Josh Wooten mentioned.

As Wooten defined, the county closely depends on tourism and has a advertising funds of about $3 million. Underneath the invoice, Wooten estimates it will value the county about $150,000 in tax income and power them to make cuts to their very own advertising campaigns. 

“Each greenback is a lot extra vital on the smaller county stage. The increasingly more we are able to do to clearly goal our area of interest of buyer and tourism vacationers, the higher it’s and the smaller your funds is, the extra each greenback issues,” mentioned Michael Mancke, the overall supervisor for Plantation on Crystal River, which is a full-service resort. 

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Crystal River is the one place in North America the place you may legally swim with Manatees. Mancke worries the invoice will imply the county must in the reduction of on advertising efforts, which is the one approach he says individuals know they exist.

Going ahead, he hopes lawmakers rethink the way to fund “Go to Florida.” 

“It is a snug, quiet, authentic a part of Florida that hopefully will final slightly bit longer, and we want to have the ability to inform individuals about that,” Mancke mentioned.

The invoice’s sponsor State Rep. Mike Giallombardo of Cape Coral advised the Orlando Sentinel that state funding allotted to Go to Florida might have had some influence on the rising tourism numbers however not as a lot because the information protection about Florida being open post-pandemic. In 2022, Florida noticed a 137 million guests, which is 5 % increased than the earlier excessive in 2019.

As for the invoice, it’s nonetheless working its approach by way of home committees.