Florida creates jobs and has experienced both record-breaking budget surpluses and record-breaking growth in recent years. But now lawmakers are trying to take away a key investment in our state by completely defunding Visit Florida, the state’s destination marketing organization. House Bill 7053 (HB 7053) is not only a direct attack on one of our state’s strongest and most fundamental industries, it is also a brilliantly bad piece of legislation.
If signed into law, HB 7053 would effectively destroy tourism in our state and eliminate the local destination marketing organizations that help the many small and medium-sized businesses that depend on visitors and tourism investment. Jacksonville isn’t made of world-famous attractions and experiences — it’s made of locally owned businesses that don’t have the budget to market themselves.
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The bill also eliminates local control over generated tourism development taxes by taking away from counties $75 million in locally generated taxes that the Tallahassee legislature has discretion to spend. Worse still, the bill would require a referendum every six years, ensuring that all local tourism promotion organizations, arts and culture organizations, museums, zoos and sporting events risk losing funding every six years.
Our country and our communities live from tourism.
Every dollar Visit Florida spends marketing our state delivers a $3.27 return on investment. There are an average of 22 million overnight and day trippers visiting the Jacksonville area during the year, with a total economic impact of $3.8 billion. That’s an impact of $10.4 million per day. Visitors like this are the reason Florida has no state income tax.
In addition, without visiting our state, Florida residents would have to pay an additional $1,500 in taxes annually. In addition, each Jacksonville household would have to pay an additional $700 in county taxes.
Visitors have hundreds of choices as to where to go, and we need Visit Florida and our local tourism promotion organizations to remind them that Florida remains one of the best places to live, work and play.
Investing in the tourism industry of our state is important. If our lawmakers want a new recession for the state and job losses in hotels, restaurants and attractions, then they should vote “yes” for HB 7053. But if you want Florida to remain a beacon for visitors and continue to experience record-breaking economic health, job creation and tourism growth, I encourage you to vote “No” to HB 7053 and help us transform tourism protect our state’s dependent economy.
Michael Corrigan is the President and CEO of Visit Jacksonville, former President of the Jacksonville City Council and former Duval County Constitutional Tax Collector.
This guest column represents the opinion of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of the Times-Union. We welcome diversity of opinion.
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