Photo by Jorge Vasconez, Unsplash

Visit Florida is a public-private partnership that serves 12,000 tourism-related businesses in the Sunshine State and has been receiving tens of millions of dollars in both state and private funding since it was created by the Florida Legislature in 1996. The organization survived a bitter battle with the Florida House of Representatives yesterday and will continue to receive state funding for at least another year, but its budget has taken a US$26 million cut for the coming year.

A Florida House-Senate conference committee agreed on $50 million in funding that will keep Visit Florida running through its 2019-2020 fiscal year, which ends in June 2020. The Florida Senate had passed a bill that would have provided $76 million next year (equaling its current annual state support) and kept Visit Florida open for another half dozen years at least, a move that had the support of newly elected Gov. Ron DeSantis. But the Senate bill was opposed by Florida House Speaker Jose Olivia, who has been a consistent critic of Visit Florida in the wake of 2017 spending that including about $15 million to pay for items including a $1 million media campaign that included rapper Pit Bull and a group of bikini-clad girls in a video dubbed “Sexy Beaches.”

The state budget for the 2019-2020 fiscal year represents a cut of about 33 percent.

But as Visit Florida has pointed out in a press release, the law that created the tourism marketing entity requires a dollar-for-dollar private funding match for every dollar the state of Florida provides. Those millions of private dollars come from partners—and obviously powerful allies—a major strategic alliance of partnerships with Disney Destinations, Busch Gardens Tampa,  The Hertz Corporation, Hilton, LEGOLAND Florida Resort, SeaWorld Parks & Resorts Orlando, Simon Shopping Destinations and Universal Orlando Resort.

During the coming year, DeSantis has said he will evaluate the performance of Visit Florida and make a recommendation by the end that year about whether Visit Florida should continue to receive state funding.

But given the strong support Visit Florida has from the tourism industry in the state, and the money it receives through its partnerships, it seems quite unlikely that Visit Florida will disappear the way the Mexico Tourism Board did.

The $26 million cut in the coming year’s funding has already received a round of criticism from both tourism industry and editorial page writers around the state. A Miami Herald editorialist called the legislature’s move “Florida shooting itself in the foot.”

Veteran meeting planner and DMC owner Stuart Gardner, an MPI member since 1997 and former Visit Florida Advisory Board member, called the funding cut “just plain stupid.”

“I know that Visit Florida has made decisions in the past that rankled some political enemies,” he said. “But cutting off the funding to Visit Florida is like having a cut on your finger and putting a tourniquet around your neck to stop the bleeding.”

Gardner said Visit Florida is vital to every part of the tourism industry in Florida, including the meeting industry.

Olivia has said he thinks Florida tourism could survive quite well without Visit Florida because of the compelling winter weather, the massive hotel and attraction infrastructure and the millions that private entities such as Disney spend on their own promotion.

But Gardner says that view might be true if Florida were only Orlando, Miami and Key West.

“But the scores of mid-sized and small destinations in the state would suffer big time without the promotion they get from Visit Florida,” he said.

In addition to having a strong following in the industry in Florida, Visit Florida is adroit at documenting its performance, pointing out that a study by the Florida Legislature’s own chief economist shows that every dollar invested in Visit Florida results in a $2.15 return on investment.

One in every eight jobs in Florida is in the hospitality industry, with the total number of people working in Florida in the industry last year hitting between 1.25 and 1.5 million (with that number varying, depending on who tabulates it).

Visit Florida’s public description of itself includes the following points.

• Visit Florida is not a government agency, but rather a not-for-profit corporation created as a public/private partnership by the Florida Legislature.

• As the Sunshine State's No. 1 industry, tourism was responsible for welcoming 126.1 million visitors in 2018. Based on the latest economic impact study, Florida visitors spent $112 billion and supported 1.4 million Florida jobs.

• Visit Florida facilitates tourism industry participation in domestic and international travel trade and consumer shows, as well as media missions to the top global visitor markets. Visit Florida also works closely with travel agents, tour operators, meeting and event planners and is responsible for operating Florida's five official welcome centers.

• Visit Florida has 146 positions in Florida and an international team of contracted staff covering Canada, China, India, Germany, Latin America and the United Kingdom.

To be official, the current compromise on funding for Visit Florida for the coming year has to survive a vote Friday on the entire state budget, but the $50 million state figure is not expected to change.