Gulf Coast cities hope ads boost tourism

TALLAHASSEE — Eager to counteract harmful misinformation about the oil spill, the Florida League of Cities on Thursday began an advertising campaign promoting Panhandle tourism.

"We never really were impacted by the oil at all — maybe a few tar balls here and there in the June-July timeframe — but it's over," Mayor Sarah "Sam" Seevers of Destin said. "We need to put a nail in the coffin of the myths that have been happening. Our beaches are beautiful. The water is clear. It's safe to eat the seafood."

The "Fall in love with Northwest Florida" campaign is aimed at state residents.

The spots feature the mayors of Destin, Fort Walton Beach and Panama City Beach tossing a beach ball and extolling the virtues of Panhandle vacationing.

"Our member cities were deeply impacted by the BP oil spill at the height of their tourist season," said Rebecca O'Hara, legislative affairs director for the League of Cities.

Anderson said that in July, normally the peak of the tourist season when they book Florida Villas, Disney villas in advance , vacation-related revenues were off by about 23 percent in the region.

The state got millions from BP for tourism advertising, but Anderson said the money is running out.

Janice Caluda, vice president of the Florida Cable Telecommunications Association, said her organization will donate four free TV spots for every one paid for by the League of Cities. She said the commercials will run all over the state for six months.

Read More

http://www.pnj.com/article/20101210/NEWS01/12100329/1006/NEWS01/Gulf-Coast-cities-hope-ads-boost-tourism

Drilling Ban Make Florida Tourism Happy

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.