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Florida’s travel marketing organization, Visit Florida, was dealt a setback on Tuesday when a Florida House committee voted in favor of a bill that would slash its budget by 67%.
In defiance of Florida Gov. Rick Scott, an ardent defender of Visit Florida, the House Appropriations Committee voted 18-12 for a bill, HB 7005, that would cut Visit Florida’s budget to $25 million.
The current bill is an amended version of one that another House committee passed last week, which would end all state funding for Visit Florida.
Visit Florida’s supporters were not satisfied with the amendment. Gov. Scott’s office responded by saying the 67% cut would ultimately kill jobs.
“If we cut the budget by 67%, our state will lose visitors and our families will lose jobs,” he tweeted.
Florida House speaker Richard Corcoran on Monday proposed the changes to the bill, which call for limits on staff salaries and staff travel, and more transparency for operations and contracts.
Defending the limit, Corcoran said on Twitter that Visit Florida’s budget had “shot up by 169% since 2009, from $29 million to $78 million.” He also said the average state tourism marketing budget is $20 million.
Visit Florida’s defenders have responded by touting the organization’s success: its visitor numbers have jumped to over 100 million, the highest in the nation, from around 80 million six years ago.
Speaking on the House floor on Tuesday, Rep. Paul Renner (R-Palm Coast), the bill’s sponsor, said the new regulations would mean “no more Pitbull contracts in secret,” alluding to the uproar caused last year when it was revealed that Visit Florida had paid the rapper Pitbull $1 million to promote the state. The ensuing scandal led to the resignation of Visit Florida’s CEO earlier this year.
“What we’re doing with the $25 million is putting them back where they belong,” Renner said. “We’re putting them on a leash — a short leash — and provided that they show measurable progress and success with the new accountability measures that we put in place with this bill, then there is certainly an opportunity down the road for them to ask for more.”
No date has been set, but the bill’s next step would be to pass a full House vote during the next legislative session, which begins in March, and from there to be approved by the Florida Senate.
Sourse: travelweekly.com
