Orange County commissioners reached consensus Tuesday that Visit Orlando’s $100 million, hotel-tax-funded budget should get a “haircut” but they didn’t decide on a trim or a buzz for the region’s tourism-marketing agency.
That will come later after staff discussions, Orange County Administrator Byron W. Brooks said.
Commissioners said some of Visit Orlando’s 30% share of every tourist-tax dollar could be better spent addressing more pressing county needs like the scarcity of affordable housing or funding other worthwhile projects.
“What we’re talking about is balance,” said Commissioner Mayra Uribe, who first used the “haircut” term.
She suggested chopping as much as $30 million from the agency’s budget, much of which has been used for “global marketing” efforts in U.S. and international markets including Brazil, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
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The budget, which has grown from about $62 million in 2019 to an estimated $108 million next year, became a focus of debate for the board as it weighed requests for millions in future revenue from the tourist development tax.
The tax, also known as TDT or bed, hotel, resort or tourist tax, is a 6% levy on the cost of a hotel room, home-sharing rental or other short-term lodging in Orange County. Revenues in fiscal year 2022-23, which ended Sept. 30, topped $359 million, shattering the previous mark of $336.3 million set the year before.
Under a county agreement approved in 2019, Visit Orlando’s share of tourist-tax money grew over the past four years from 23% to a 30% cap in 2023, with funds promoting the region’s attractions and luring conventions to town.
Uribe suggested an annual budget between $70 million and $80 million.
Commissioner Emily Bonilla said $75 million a year or 25% of hotel-tax collections — whichever was less.
Casandra Matej, Visit Orlando’s president and CEO, said the agency is important, not only to theme park giants Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando, but to hundreds of smaller attractions, hotels and restaurants that employ 450,000 workers.
She said the agency’s work has helped make Orlando among the most-visited travel destinations in the world — a title it must fight to retain as competition for tourists heats up with old rivals like Las Vegas and new ones such as Dubai.
Matej said Orlando boasts 130,000 hotel rooms with an annual occupancy rate of 75% but still has room to grow.
“What we know is if we can grow the occupancy number even one or two percentage points that could be hundreds of millions of TDT dollars to use within the community,” she said.
After defending the agency’s work inside the chambers, Matej left sounding resigned to likely cuts.
“It is disheartening the fact they want to cut our budget because we are part of the tourism ecosystem and, I think, a very important part of that,” she said. “I think there’s going to be more conversations ahead to understand what their direction, their priorities are but hopefully we were able to share with the community the importance of Visit Orlando.”
Since the summer, commissioners have weighed requests for a $560 million expansion of the Orange County Convention Center, a $400 million upgrade of Camping World Stadium, a $90 million appeal for a sports tower at the University of Central Florida’s football stadium and other projects that are expected to draw tourists to Orlando.
Dozens of people signed up to plead with commissioners to support Visit Orlando, including hospitality workers, many of whom wore orange T-shirts distributed by the agency bearing the message: “When tourism works, so do I.”
Some hoteliers and International Drive executives spoke out against a budget cut for the nonprofit marketing group, citing growing domestic and global competition that threatens to take Central Florida’s title as tourism capital.
“There’s huge investment in tourism in foreign countries right now and they’re going after our visitors,” said Chris Jaskiewicz, president & CEO of ICON Park Orlando, which includes the 400-foot-tall Wheel and other attractions on I-Drive. “When I consider the billions being spent there, I think we should raise Visit Orlando’s marketing budget not cut it.”
But Michael Perkins, board president of the Christian Service Center for Central Florida which serves homeless people, said the county should do all it can “to prevent a crisis of homelessness from impacting our area more than it already is.”
“Let the theme park companies and hotel conglomerates market for themselves,” Perkins said.
shudak@orlandosentinel.com
