A few weeks ago, Visit Orlando — a tourism-promotion agency that receives nearly $100 million a year in public money — started running radio ads.
That might not sound unusual if the ads had run in some place like Milwaukee, encouraging folks to visit Central Florida. But that’s not where these radio spots ran nor what they were intended to do.
Instead, they ran on Orlando radio stations. And they were meant to convince local residents that tourism is great for the economy and that using hotel tax dollars to subsidize that industry is a spectacular investment.
In other words, they were propaganda. That’s not why this agency was created. Nor why it receives exorbitant amounts of tax dollars.
And it seems like further evidence that funding has ballooned to a point where Visit Orlando has more money than it knows how to reasonably spend. Especially when this community has so many other dire needs.
A few years ago, eyes popped and jaws dropped when county officials boosted Visit Orlando’s public subsidies to $50 million.
Last year, it was $96.1 million.
To put that number in perspective, Orange County invested only about half that, $54.6 million, in its public bus system that same year.
Lynx is one of the most under-funded bus systems in America, an agency so short on vehicles and routes that workday riders have to spend as much as three hours riding and waiting for transfers each way.
It takes her 3 hours to travel 15 miles by bus. Orlando’s public transit is failing tourism workers
So we have a Cadillac tourism-promotion machine and a beat up old Pinto serving the workers who make that machine run.
All while Visit Orlando spends $385,000 on radio ads that tell locals they should be grateful for the economy and should check out the new website, Thankyoutourists.com.
Thanks, indeed.
Really, though, this isn’t about the tourists. This is about local leaders. Budgets, after all, are moral documents. How we spend our money is a reflection of who we think we should serve. And generations of county commissioners have made it clear they serve the tourism lobby.
Visit Orlando is so flush with hotel-tax dollars that it gets more public money to promote Central Florida than Visit Florida gets to promote the entire state.
And let’s be clear: This is a taxpayer-funded subsidy that hardly any other industry gets. You know this. If you run a business and want to take out an ad, you have to reach into your own pocket to do so.
Taxpayer-funded tourism promotion is nothing more than corporate welfare for one single industry — and a notoriously low-paying industry at that.
But just for argument’s sake, let’s say we believe everything we see at thankyoutourists.com — that pouring billions of tax dollars into tourism promotion is a boffo economic investment.
Let’s ignore the fact that Orlando usually ranks dead last in median wages — 50th out of 50 for America’s major metros.
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Let’s also assume the rest of the world truly wouldn’t know about Central Florida’s tourist attractions unless Visit Orlando told them.
Well, if this public/private partnership is such a good idea, then why aren’t the businesses that benefit from this venture contributing anything more than pocket change to it?
In 2021, local tourism businesses paid only about $2.4 million in membership dues, according to Visit Orlando’s IRS records. Taxpayers contributed more than 25 times that much.
This is a partnership the same way a tick partners with a bloodhound.
Getting back to the radio ads, I give Visit Orlando CEO Casandra Matej genuine props for being transparent about how much her agency spent on those spots. Most of her predecessors reveled in financial secrecy. And she said in a statement that the ads helped fulfill the agency’s goal “to educate the community about the travel and tourism industry and its impact.”
That’s a fine goal for a chamber of commerce. Not for a taxpayer funded agency.
To that point, Matej’s office said the $385,000 spent on radio ads didn’t come from tax dollars, but rather from the tiny portion of the agency’s budget that comes from membership dues.
That argument is familiar. In fact, this is at least the third time I can recall that we’ve asked about questionable spending at Visit Orlando only to be told: Oh, that money? THAT wasn’t public money. That came from our tiny share of private donations.
There was the $9,271 that a former Visit Orlando CEO spent on a business-class plane ticket to Dubai — while resort magnate Harris Rosen flew coach in the back on the same plane. They said that was private money.
And the $103,000 retirement party for another former CEO. Again, private money.
Membership dues may account for only 4% of Visit Orlando’s budget — but boy, they come in handy when controversy pops up.
The Sentinel has quoted watchdogs before who say that agencies that receive the vast amount of their funding from tax dollars should treat their entire budgets like they’re accountable to taxpayers. I agree.
But the bigger question is whether this agency needs so many tax dollars to begin with. County commissioners are slated to address that question in the coming weeks as they consider Visit Orlando’s budget.
Some have started mumbling that spending has gotten out of hand. But mumbling is one thing. Action is another. We’ll see what happens.
I still think this community has more pressing needs. And even current law would allow the county to spend hotel taxes on buses that serve the hospitality corridor.
But if the argument is that this public-private partnership is a spectacular investment for the industry, then the industry should contribute at least 50% of its annual budget.
smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com
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