Florida tourism setting records

Florida’s tourism industry is off to a solid start this year with a record tally of 31.1 million tourists for the first quarter. But Gov. Rick Scott declared Monday that the trend may not last long if the state fails to spend more money on promotion.

The governor again denounced the Legislature’s recent decision to cut by 67 percent the annual budget of Visit Florida, the state’s tourism marketing agency.

“This historic number would not have been possible without the significant funding we have invested in Visit Florida over the past few years,” Scott said in a statement. “Now is not the time to take our foot off the gas . ... Instead of decimating funding to Visit Florida, we should be investing in tourism marketing so we can continue to bring record visitors to our state.”

Of the tourists who visited Florida between January and March, a record 27.1 million were domestic visi-

tors, up 3.2 percent from 2016, according to Visit Florida data. But the number of visitors from overseas and Canada came in at 2.7 million and 1.3 million respectively, which marked declines of 1.8 percent and 2.2 percent from a year ago.

Visit Florida predicted the budget cut will negatively impact its ability to market the state as a tourism destination and in so doing put the industry and the jobs it creates at risk.

“Because the Legislature decided to inadequately fund Visit Florida, our organization is going to have to make tough decisions in the coming weeks and will not be able to compete with destinations like California and Texas,” said Ken Lawson, the agency’s CEO. “We will strive every day so Florida does not become another case study like other states [that] lost billions of dollars in revenue due to cutting tourism marketing dollars.”

Scott