Sunshine Matters

In order to capitalize on the success of last year’s award-winning marketing campaign, VISIT FLORIDA announces the year-two launch of “Your Florida Side Is Calling” in key markets throughout the U.S.  The fully-integrated campaign generated more than $147 in tourism spending and $9 in new sales tax collections for every $1 spent on marketing during its first year in 2010.  This return on investment is three times higher than in 2009. Continue reading »

VISIT FLORIDA has released our preliminary estimates of visitors to Florida for the third quarter of 2010 (July-September) which show an estimated 18.9 million travelers visited the Sunshine State. This represents an increase of 0.6 percent from the same period in 2009. Continue reading »

This year’s 43rd Florida Governor’s Conference on Tourism, held September 26-28 at the Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate, was a success with more than 800 attendees, nearly 100 exhibitors and sponsors, and more than 30 expert speakers.

For those attendees who could not get to all the sessions or for industry members who were unable to attend the conference, I am pleased to announce that VISIT FLORIDA has collected video and audio recordings of most of the sessions, as well as the PowerPoint presentations many of the speakers used.   In addition, the speech given by Ed Fouche, Chairman of the VISIT FLORIDA Board of Directors, during the opening dinner which was a perfect example of how “Teamwork” triumphs in the end and the VISIT FLORIDA presentation by Chris Thompson and Will Seccombe, are also available for you to see.  These materials have been stored in one easy-to-access location on the VISITFLORIDA.org website.  Continue reading »

Preliminary estimates* of visitors to Florida for the second quarter of 2010 (April – June) show an estimated 20.8 million travelers visited the Sunshine State.  This represents an increase of 3.4 percent from the same period in 2009.

While Florida as a whole showed an increase in visitors for the second quarter, we know that tourism businesses in oil-impacted parts of the state have suffered economically.  There can be little doubt that without Governor Crist’s intense focus and our aggressive tourism marketing efforts during May and June the Sunshine State could easily have been looking at a very different outcome.  Continue reading »

I am very proud to share with you that VISIT FLORIDA has been awarded accreditation from the Destination Marketing Accreditation Program (DMAP).  DMAP is an international accreditation program developed by Destination Marketing Association International (DMAI).  As a global leader in destination marketing standards, DMAI affirmed VISIT FLORIDA as a leadership organization among statewide destination marketing organizations (DMOs).  In addition to obtaining accreditation status, DMAP distinguished VISIT FLORIDA as the first statewide DMO to receive DMAI’s recognition of excellence in best practices.   Continue reading »