A
recent headline from the Sunshine State News read: “House Appropriations Dooms
Enterprise Florida, Guts Visit Florida, as Expected.” The lead in this story went on to state: “The
House Appropriations Committee voted 18-12 Tuesday to advance a measure that 1)
eliminated Florida’s 21-year-old economic agency and 2) emasculates its tourism
marketing arm.”
Why
should we be concerned about this?
According to Carolyn Johnson with the Florida Chamber, the bill would
end economic diversification efforts on Florida, including eliminating the economic
development toolkit, international programs, marketing, and small business
assistance. Additionally, the bill cuts
tourism marketing funding by 67 percent.
Again,
I ask the question why should we be worried about this? Is this something the State should be
involved with or should they just stay out of the way? Is this nothing more than a corporate welfare
program that just benefits the few?
My
opinion is yes, this is something that we need to be concerned about. Forever, we have talked about trying to
diversify the economy in Florida, and we are in a dog-eat-dog fight with other
states, such as Texas, Alabama, Georgia, California, and New York to attract
those new businesses to diversify our economy.
If we eliminate Enterprise Florida, we deny ourselves the use of an
effective tool to compete on the national and international stage to recruit
new industry to our State.
Likewise,
the cuts to Visit Florida will have a negative impact on our economy. The local tourist development agencies don’t
have the same marketing power as Visit Florida, and it is imperative in the
competitive vacation market to be able to use that marketing power to reach
potential visitors to Florida.
Some
may argue that Visit Florida and Enterprise Florida made mistakes, and they
should be defunded. Okay, if they did,
let’s fix those mistakes, but it would be better to use a scalpel to carve them
out rather than using an axe to chop them off.
Let
your legislators know what you think, and I hope you will encourage them to
support Visit Florida and Enterprise Florida.
Lockwood Wernet
Destin Water Users, Inc.
2017 Destin Chamber Chairman of the Board
Destin Water Users, Inc.
2017 Destin Chamber Chairman of the Board
Thanks Lockwood, appreciate your service as the Destin Chamber Chairman. Contacting my legislators to support Vist Florida & Enterprise Florida.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely prefer a Scalpel over an Axe ... sharp analogy.