Sunshine Matters

I am pleased to announce that today VISIT FLORIDA rolled out a new initiative that offers all Florida tourism businesses the opportunity to take advantage of a Free Web Listing on VISITFLORIDA.com.  As a public/private partnership, VISIT FLORIDA previously limited listings on the website to our more than 3,400 co-operative marketing Partners.  

This is a win-win for our visitors and the Florida tourism industry.  By opening up our website to all tourism businesses across the state, consumers will benefit from having access to significantly more information to help them better plan their next Florida vacation.  We know that the best way to support Florida tourism businesses is to put their information in front of travelers interested in the Sunshine State, and this free marketing opportunity does just that.

VISITFLORIDA.com – already the number one trafficked destination marketing organization website in the country – experienced record traffic in June, with 719,070 visits, which represented a 46 percent increase over the same time last year.  In the markets where VISIT FLORIDA has been targeting its oil spill response advertising, traffic to the website is averaging 90 percent higher than in June 2009.  Two web pages activated since the oil spill have had a significant following – Florida Live generated 132,992 page views in June, and the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Update page attracted an additional 165,772 page views for the month.

In addition, since the start of 2010, individual business listings on VISITFLORIDA.com have been viewed by more than 156,000 potential visitors every month.

With the addition of even more business listings on our site for potential visitors to choose from, VISITFLORIDA.com will be able to expand our role as the trusted source for travel planning to and within the Sunshine State.  The more information we have on the site, the easier it will be for visitors to choose Florida, so we encourage any and all Florida tourism businesses to take advantage of this new marketing opportunity.

For those businesses interested in finding out more about the Free Web Listing opportunity, visit www.VISITFLORIDA.org/free or call the VISIT FLORIDA industry hotline toll-free at (877) 435-2872.