Now that BP has opened up the spigot and agreed to fund a $20 billion claims fund, there’s plenty of cash to go around and even the USTA is commending President Obama for looking out for Gulf Coast tourism businesses.

VisitFlorida ad funded by BP

But asking BP to pay for tourism wasn’t this obvious or easy a month ago. Who got this gravy train rolling for Gulf Coast tourism?

The ka-ching began when BP agreed to fund $200,000 worth of tourism ads promoting the Gulf Coast.

Gov. Charlie Crist then demanded that BP fund a $34.75m tourism promotion campaign. Within 5 days, BP had agreed to pay $25 million for tourism promotion to Florida, and a further $15 million each for Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama.

VisitFlorida is now on its third round of oilspill ads funded by BP (1, 2, 3).

Before you start heaping praise on Gov. Crist for being the visionary who saved Florida tourism by having BP pay for tourism promotion, you might want to thank a few more Florida pols, each of whom deserves at least some credit.

Here’s a timeline (H/T to politifact) that clarifies the issue:-

May 17, 2010 – BP CEO Tony Hayward and Gov. Crist announce that BP will pay $25m for Florida tourism promotion.

May 12, 2010 - Gov. Crist asks BP for $34.75m to fund tourism promotion campaign

May 11, 2010 – BP funds $200,000 worth of tourism ads promoting Gulf Coast states.

May 10, 2010 - Florida CFO Alex Sink sends letter (pdf) to Lamar McKay, President, BP America Inc., asking BP to work with VisitFlorida and fund a worldwide ad campaign.

May 8, 2010 – Alex Sink meets with BP executive Keith Seilhan, where she enquires about the possibility of BP funding a tourism ad campaign.

May 6, 2010 – Florida State Rep. Marti Coley (R-Marianna) brings VisitFlorida and BP together for initial talks about funding a $19.45m ad campaign plan put together by VisitFlorida at Rep. Coley’s request.

May 5, 2010 – At a meeting  in Biloxi, BP representative Bruce Johnson agrees to fund $500,000 worth of tourism ads for Gulf Coast states. 

May 4, 2010 – Rep. Marti Coley speaks with VisitFlorida CEO Chris Thompson, and asks him if it would be help to have BP fund tourism ads.

May 4, 2010 – Rep. Marti Coley meets with BP representative Hope Lanier at a town hall meeting and tells him that if BP agrees to fund a tourism ad campaign, she would talk to VisitFlorida about it. 

May 2, 2010 – An aide to State Sen. Don Gaetz (R-Niceville) spoke with BP about funding tourism ads, but no amounts were mentioned.

As per this timeline, it looks like Rep. Marti Coley is the one who did most of the spade work – She talked to both BP and VisitFlorida, asked VisitFlorida to put together a plan and then got them together. The Governor’s office then took over the project, nearly doubled the price tag and got the job done.

CFO Alex Sink was working on a parallel track, and so were others in Mississippi and Alabama. Sink should also get brownie points for putting pressure on BP - she can now be found confronting BP claims officials who aren’t prompt in forking over cash to affected businesses.