Sunshine Matters

Today marks 100 days since the April 20 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion.  For Florida’s tourism industry, it’s been a difficult time – attempting to combat misperceptions that our beaches are covered in oil and working diligently to provide open, transparent information to visitors so they could make truly informed travel planning decisions.  Although the well has been capped, there remains a very real and constantly expanding impact to Florida’s economy – of which our $60 billion tourism industry is the driving force.

While the oil spill situation and its ensuing fallout have been challenging for VISIT FLORIDA, I am extremely proud of the success of our marketing response efforts to date.  Perhaps the best thing to come from this tragedy so far is the addition of Florida Live as a permanent feature on our website.  First introduced on May 11, Florida Live was created to be a real-time resource for visitors to see for themselves what’s happening in Florida.  In the beginning, it consisted of live webcam images from various locations around the state, Twitter feeds from local tourism organizations and date-stamped photos by fans sharing their favorite Florida experiences.  Since then, we have added a host of additional content, including videos of the day, blog posts, vacation deals, worry-free reservation information, daily travel updates and – new this week, daily fishing reports.

The new feature became the call to action for an aggressive advertising and public relations campaign focused on driving consumers to Florida Live at VISITFLORIDA.com.  Given that the website had nearly 720,000 visitors in June – up 46 percent from the same month a year ago, we know the information we’re providing to potential visitors has proven to be a valuable resource to them.

I’m pleased to say that there has been a significant amount of positive media coverage about the Florida Live concept and that the tourism industry has embraced the idea wholeheartedly.  In fact, many tourism organizations throughout the state have since developed a similar feature on their own sites.   Just a few examples include the Franklin County TDC, the Daytona Beach Area CVB and the Greater Miami CVB.

We also recently created a ‘widget’ that allows approved tourism-related organizations to display Florida Live – either in it’s entirety or just certain aspects of it – directly on their websites.   Two great examples are the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association and the Palm Beach Post.  For more information about how you can link to Florida Live, visit our Linking to Florida Live page or send an e-mail to FloridaLive@VISITFLORIDA.org requesting assistance.

Despite the recent great news that oil is no longer leaking in the Gulf, based on research, we know consumers continue to believe incorrectly that beaches all across the state have been impacted and are potentially changing their travel plans based on that misperception.  For this reason, VISIT FLORIDA is committed to maintaining our position as the trusted source for travel planning information before, during and after this crisis; to providing credible and transparent information enabling visitors to make informed travel plans to Florida; continue to drive visitation to the Sunshine State through aggressive, proactive marketing efforts; and communicate with the tourism industry to create a unified and stronger Florida voice.

Thank you for your continued partnership and support.  Working together, we will make Florida the No. 1 travel destination in the world.