Florida tourism industry is pretty have with the off shore drilling ban. Florida tourism believes that drilling ban is important to save $65 Billion tourism industry in the state.
Last week Obama administration decided to let the drilling ban stand along Florida's coastline. The decision has come under severe criticism from some sections but so far tourism industry is very happy.
In April BP’s Deepwater Horizon exploded which poured nearly 175 million gallons of oil in the sea which ended up on the beautiful beaches of Florida. Tourism industry took a big hit because of the oil spill as negative media coverage turned tourists to other destinations.
There were no takers for many of the florida villas and rentals which made Hotels, restaurants and tour operators in Florida suffered massive losses because of drop in tourist arrivals. Apart from tourism, fishing industry also took huge losses because of oil spill.
Hotels owners says that Florida tourism is $65 billion industry which can't be risked for $700 million of oil drilling revenues. They believe that tourism plays a major role is state's economy as more such incidents could dent the industry further.
Its a miracle that Florida tourism has managed to come out of the incident pretty good in shape but it doesn't mean that government take such risk again to Jeopardize tourism industry. Its not just tourism industry but also the environmentalist who also supports the ban on off shore drilling because of the damage caused by the oil spill to marine life.
However the opposition of drilling ban cites that this will increase United States' dependence of the oil from hostile countries therefore drilling should be continue in the region. Luckily for tourism industry, drilling has been banned until 2017 which gives them time to recover from the current losses caused by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
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