Ax Governor James Folsom of Alabama once said, "there's notnin' louder than the sound of a hog bein' pulled off a tit."
Facing dissolution, Visit Florida getting key support from DeSantis
Visit Florida, the state’s tourism marketing arm, has been facing fierce criticism from GOP lawmakers in the Florida House in recent years. In this picture, Rick Scott - during his time as governor - stopped in Panama City Beach for a roundtable discussion about the local economic impact of Visit Florida and Enterprise Florida at Capt. Anderson’s restaurant. [ANDREW WARDLOW/THE NEWS HERALD]
By John Kennedy
GateHouse Capital Bureau
Posted Sep 28, 2019 at 4:00 PM
State’s tourism marketing arm will be abolished on June 30 unless lawmakers act
TALLAHASSEE — Visit Florida, the state’s tourist marketing arm, has been kept on a short — and tightening — leash by state lawmakers the past two years.
But now facing a deadline that would kill the agency outright, tourism officials say they are bolstered by what they see as Gov. Ron DeSantis’s show of support for Visit Florida.
“I think there’s been a real push throughout the state for (tourist industry) people to meet with their local representatives during these summer months,” said Virginia Haley, president of Visit Sarasota and chair of Visit Florida’s board of directors.
“And now, hopefully, the positive comments from the governor will make a real difference,” she said.
DeSantis said last week he expects to ask lawmakers for $50 million for Visit Florida next year, even though state law currently has the agency on track to expire with the end of the current budget year on June 30.
This is the second straight year lawmakers have set a deadline for eliminating the tourism agency, which earlier this year lost one-third of its 135 employees, after its budget was cut from $76 million to the $50 million level.
Lawmakers, though, did cut the agency some slack by extending its scheduled Oct. 1 expiration through June. But the latest cut-off date is keeping tourism industry officials on edge.
Legislation was filed last week that would keep Visit Florida alive into 2028. But there is no guarantee that’s going to advance, with House Speaker Jose Oliva, R-Miami, still seeing Visit Florida as non-essential and not playing much of a role in attracting tourists, even as the state pulled in a record 126 million tourists last year and set a new high mark for the first quarter of this year.
Oliva followed his predecessor, former Speaker Richard Corcoran, in declaring war on Visit Florida. Corcoran in 2017 railed against the agency’s free-spending ways, which included an almost $2.9 million contract with an auto racing team called Visit Florida Racing and a $1 million promotional contract with Miami rapper Pitbull.
With Visit Florida facing fierce criticism in the House, legislation was approved that tightened contract-reporting standards at the agency, while new rules also led to the severing of promotional partnerships with several local tourism organizations.
Corcoran has left the Legislature and is now part of the DeSantis administration, serving as state Education Commissioner. But Oliva has kept the tourism agency in his cross-hairs.
“Visit Florida, like all other agencies and programs, is competing for limited resources,” Oliva said. “Some of those very same agencies and programs are clearly essential government functions. For example, no one can argue that the Department of Children and Families request for an additional $275 million should take a backseat to Visit Florida.”
The state’s success at pulling in tourists, despite last year’s red tide and blue-green algae outbreaks, and the devastating effects of Hurricane Michael in parts of the Panhandle and Hurricane Irma in the Florida Keys, doesn’t convince Oliva that the state should be in the business of tourist marketing.
Haley, though, said that in the Sarasota area, alone, Visit Florida grants which financed promotional efforts helped the region recover after Gulf Coast tourism virtually ground to a halt during last year’s red tide outbreak.
But Oliva is unwavering.
“If we set another tourism record with Visit Florida’s budget cut in half, it begs the question: Is it necessary at all?” he said.
While DeSantis plans to at least seek the same level of funding from the Legislature next year for the scaled-back agency – apparently anticipating that the June 30 expiration date will at least be extended – he sounded primarily concerned last week with settling the status of Visit Florida in the coming legislative session, which begins in January.
“At some point, like we just need to make a decision on it, rather than continuing to have it be hanging on a thread every year,” DeSantis said.
He added: “Obviously, Jose is somebody that I think has legitimate philosophical disagreements with it. But I think we should just work through it... so it’s not a constant battle every year.”
DeSantis, though, acknowledged that his view of the agency has evolved.
As a three-term member of Congress from Palm Coast, DeSantis was a founding member of the arch-conservative Freedom Caucus, touting free-market views which left many establishment Republicans wary of policies the new governor would enact.
Evidently, though, some of his shifting view as governor of Visit Florida is based on findings such as those from the state’s Economic & Demographic Research Office, which generally concludes that visitor spending is strongly induced by state advertising dollars.
“I was not necessarily sold on it coming in,” DeSantis said. “But as they rate these things, this is one of the few economic development things that gets rated as positive and so my idea is I think we can support it.”
State economists also recently told lawmakers that more than 13 percent of the state’s sales tax collections – the highest level in at least three years – come from tourist spending. Still, tourist cash is susceptible to downturns in the national economy, when visitors may curtail travel plans, economists warned.
But it may be difficult for DeSantis to cross Oliva, one of his earliest allies in the Florida governor’s race. Similarly, another early DeSantis backer, Americans for Prosperity, the conservative advocacy organization funded by the Koch family, remains an opponent of Visit Florida.
“We still believe this agency is not a key function and role of government,” said Andres Malave, an AFP spokesman. “We should continue to cut back on this organization and ultimately end it.”
Countering critics of the agency are a range of tourist-related associations that want the state to continue putting tax dollars into marketing efforts. Among them: The Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, Florida Attractions Association, and even the Florida Brewers Guild.
Rep. Mel Ponder, R-Destin, has filed the House bill that would delay pulling the plug on Visit Florida. Sen. Ed Hooper, R-Clearwater, has the Senate legislation and likely faces an easier task, with his chamber having supported the agency in the past.
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