Sunshine Matters

VISIT FLORIDA recently hosted its annual Florida Governor’s Conference on Tourism at the Tampa Bay Convention Center in Tampa, Fla.  The event is VISIT FLORIDA’s premier annual educational forum for the Florida tourism industry.  We are proud to announce that this year’s conference had the highest attendance since 2002, with more than 1,100 attendees.

Highlights of the Conference include keynote speakers, such as Salim Ismail, Executive Director of Singularity University, Jeff Vinik, Owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning, and Mike Walsh, Authority on Consumer Innovation and the Digital Future.  VISIT FLORIDA’s own Chief Marketing Officer, Paul Phipps, and Vice President of Global Brand, Susannah Costello, also gave a presentation that has become known as the “Paul and Susannah Show.”  Other presentations included breakout sessions covering topics from The China Revolution to Tourism Industry Research.  For those who may have missed out or would like to watch the sessions again, links to many of them can be found here.

During the conference, VISIT FLORIDA announced the 2015 Florida Tourism Hall of Fame inductee, as well as the winners of the Flagler Awards, Iris Larson Awards and Film Florida Legends Tourism Ambassador Award.  Coverage of the awards was picked up by local and national media, such as Broadway World and the Sarasota Herald Tribune, garnering more than 27.9 million impressions.

VISIT FLORIDA also unveiled our transformational 2020 Strategic Plan and announced a partnership with Pitbull.  The 2020 Strategic Plan includes a brand new organization Purpose, Vision, Mission, Goal, Objective and Values.  You can read more about the plan here.  But our biggest announcement, teaming up with global music superstar Pitbull to showcase the Sunshine State, has already caught the attention of influential media outlets such as the Bloomberg Press and Yahoo! Noticias, earning VISIT FLORIDA more than 118 million impressions.  In addition to the earned media from these announcements, more than a dozen local and travel industry media, such as the Tampa Bay Times and Travel Agent Central, attended and covered the conference, adding an additional 9 million impressions.

The success of this year’s Florida Governor’s Conference on Tourism is largely due to our terrific conference sponsors and host destination, Visit Tampa Bay.  Without them, the conference would not have been possible.  We look forward to seeing everyone again at next year’s Florida Governor’s Conference on Tourism, being held September 7-9, 2016 at the Hilton Orlando.  For more information, please contact me at sbonda@VISITFLORIDA.org or visit FloridaTourismConference.com.