Published on : Saturday, April 27, 2019
Whether or not Florida needs its own in-house advertising agency currently occupies the center stage of a budget debate at the state capital.
Florida House leaders want to eliminate Visit Florida, the state’s tourism marketing agency that spends millions of dollars on marketing campaigns to attract visitors to the state. Gov. Ron DeSantis has said that he wants to continue funding the agency at $76 million, while the Senate initially proposed reducing its budget to $50 million.
This week, the Senate and House agreed provisionally to provide Visit Florida only $19 million and allow the agency to expire in October. But the final budget agreement has not yet been reached and it is likely that Visit Florida could still survive before lawmakers adjourn.
Visit Florida’s new president and CEO, former Republican lawmaker Dana Young, said that the agency has played a vital role in the uptick of visitors that the state has seen in recent years. According to Young, Florida has stiff competition with other states and international destinations regarding tourism dollars.
“If we are not out there every single day doing what we do, they’re going to go somewhere else,” Young said. “People are pretty fungible in terms of the decisions they make.”
According to Visit Florida data, visits to the state have increased by more than 58% per cent over a 15-year period. Young claims that the visitation increase is a direct result of increased funding over the years.
More than 82 million people visited Florida in 2004 when the agency received $25.5 million from the state. With its current funding of $76 million, which Young called a “sweet spot,” more than 126 million tourists visited Florida last year. About 86% of the visitors were from the U.S., while a combined 5 million came from Canada and the United Kingdom.
“The marketing is absolutely critical,” said Young. “We are simply bringing people and their dollars to the state of Florida.”