Florida is trying to fix something that isn’t broken with a reorganization plan that would dissolve VisitFlorida—the state’s official tourism marketing corporation.

The Florida legislature is debating bill PCB SCGR 11-03 and SB 2156, which would create a monster agency called Jobs Florida to handle tourism, economic development and sports marketing.

VisitFlorida reorganization chart

The sources currently earmarked for funding organizations like VisitFlorida and Space Florida would all end up as state funds. The legislature is authorizing Florida Governor Rick Scott control over a $427 million pool.

VisitFlorida, which is a public-private partnership, would be dissolved, and the Division of Tourism Promotion would be created inside Jobs Florida. Decisions regarding budget, marketing and tourism promotion would be made by an 11-member board of political appointees, and this same board would also have control over all the other organizations folded into Jobs Florida.

VisitFlorida’s current board of directors has 53 tourism industry leaders. The various committees and councils have 110 tourism industry members on board. There’s no way that 11 appointees without any expertise or background in the tourism industry can take away all this decision making power and do the same stellar job that VisitFlorida has been doing.

The government’s budget for VisitFlorida comes mostly from the state’s $2-per-day rental-car tax. There are 9,300 businesses involved as partners supporting the public-private partnership. Since it was created in 1996, VisitFlorida has spent more than a billion dollars for tourism promotion ($350 million in public funds and $776 million in private investment).

It’s  likely that many of these private business partners will now stop contributing since their money will go to Jobs Florida instead of VisitFlorida, and they would have no way of knowing if their contributions are used for tourism.

Tourism officials from 71 agencies around the state recently held a conference call and unanimously opposed the reorganization bill. They organized a campaign to get people to contact legislators urging them to keep VisitFlorida out of the reorganization.

About 20,000 people ended up  sending emails, but the bill is still on track to be approved. The Florida Senate has already passed it, and it is currently going through the state’s House with a good chance of being approved.

Enterprise Florida chart image – Florida House of Representatives

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