It's been a rough couple of months for Visit Florida.
The state-funded tourism marketing organization, a public-private entity which is responsible for promoting Florida as a top-tier visitor destination has been under fire as lawmakers decide whether public funds should go to support those marketing efforts.
The question first became an issue after a news story late last year revealed that Visit Florida had secured a $1 million contract with performer Pitbull. The hefty fee, said the organization, did not need to be revealed publicly because it did no meet the state's open records laws. Members of the State House and pretty much anyone who ever read a newspaper disagreed.
Eventually, the head of the tourism organization, Will Secommbe resigned to be replaced by Ken Lawson, formerly the Secretary of Business and Professional Regulation for the State of Florida.
Lawson, who within his first two weeks in his new position hired a consultant to review policies and procedures and cleaned house and annouced job openings for a new General Counsel, Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Financial Officer also brought greater transparency to the organization by posting salaries, some 600 organizational contracts, audits and tax returns, and annual performance measures online.
But the efforts seem to be a case of "too little, too late" for the Florida State House, where a panel voted 10-5 this week to end state funding for the organization-Visit Florida receives about $75 million from the state, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
Before the vote, more than 150 speakers from across the state, attended the meeting to appeal to lawmakers in support of Visit Florida, including representatives from many of the state's city-funded convention & visitors bureaus.
Of cutting state funding, Stacy Ritter, president and CEO of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau, said the decision "will have an extreme negative impact on tourism for us."
Others, like the county commissioner for Flagler County, Amy Lukasik argued that Visit Florida's efforts were good for small business. In particular, she argued, Visit Florida helped spread the news that Florida was open for business after Hurricane Matthew.
"The effort has shown dividends to our small business owners," said Lukasik. "In just one month, our collections rose 16 percent over the previous years. This would have never happened without the support of Visit Florida."
The sponsor of the bill, Republican Paul Renner, says that subsidies for preferred businesses like tourism are unfair to millions of businesses.
"At the most basic level economic incentives are fundamentally unfair to the millions, the vast majority of Floridians who work hard, try to run a business and will never see one dollar of economic incentives," said Renner.
But is he correct?
In 2015, the State of Florida welcomed a record-breaking 106 million visitors. (Numbers for 2016 have not yet been finalized) That same year, travelers spent $89.1 billion in Florida in 2015, generating $5.3 billion in tourism tax revenue. Some 1.2 million Florida jobs are tourism-related.
And while the big players such as Walt Disney World and Universal Studios Orlando clearly contribute to that number, statistically, some 84 percent of tourism jobs across the nation are created by small businesses, according to an infographic by the U.S. Travel Association.
What's more, according to the same infographic, "The travel industry has created jobs at a faster rate (12.8 percent) than the rest of the economy (10.1 percent) since early 2010."
Conversely, cutting tourism budgets can cause "immediate and severe" consequences, said U.S. Travel Association President & CEO, Roger Dow.
"Take Connecticut, in which travel revenue growth slowed to just half the pace it achieved during the deep recession years of 2009-2010 after the state eliminated its tourism office."
Dow also cites Washington state's "misguided" efforts to close their tourism office in 2011.
"Neighboring states likely sensed an opportunity to increase their market share and responded by raising their own promotion budgets," said Down. Montana alone increased its tourism marketing budget by 30 percent the following year. Predictably, traveler spending in Montana grew 70 percent faster, and as a result took in far more travel-related tax revenue than its more populous neighbor."
Now in particular, as global concerns and unease about traveling to the U.S. are on the rise, the challenges in marketing the U.S. as a visitor destination are increasing. State and city destination marketing organizations must convince an increasing number of peopl not to take a wait-and-see attitude about their American vacation. With no state-funded organization managing the messaging, it begs the question, "who will do it?"
What's more, if Visit Florida were to lose its funding, the tourism industry would also meet with internal pressures. Almost certainly Visit California would ramp up its efforts in targeting Florida-loving travelers. The state recently doubled its marketing budget, which now sits at more than $100 million annually. In return, California's visitor industry generates more than one million jobs, statewide, and contributes some $18 billion in tax revenue.
For people who don't think tourism marketing efforts work, simply consider such iconic slogans such as "I HEART New York," "Pure Michigan" and "Virginia is For Lovers," which all continue to resonate. These carefully crafted marketing campaigns spearheaded by the tourism industry might certainly have raised eyebrows with respect to costs, but with the clarity of 20/20 hindsight, the efforts were well worth the investment.
Florida Governor Rick Scott, who stands firmly in the pro-tourism camp, posted his frustration with the Florida House panel decision on Twitter earlier this week.
"Politicians in [the Florida House] turned their back on jobs today by supporting job killing legislation," he tweeted.
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