Visit Florida Is Planning Ways to Get Tourists Back After Hurricane Irma
Photo Credit: It's been a tough year for Florida's tourism industry. Pictured are boats littering the shoreline near Naval Air Station Key West on Sept. 15. Flickr / Coast Guard News
Skift Take
Florida's tourism industry was already having a turbulent year before one of the most active and destructive Atlantic hurricane seasons in years began playing out. Getting travelers to come back will require unified marketing efforts — and that's currently in jeopardy.
Florida's tourism industry is in full-on recovery mode after Hurricane Irma struck a paralyzing blow to much of the state last week.
The first hurricane to make landfall in Florida in nearly 12 years, Irma forced some destinations such as the Florida Keys to tell travelers to postpone trips because of damage to key tourism infrastructure. Other cities have already recovered, making the task of marketing to tourists from a statewide perspective complicated.
Executives at Visit Florida, the state's destination marketing organization, estimate that Florida received some $500 million worth of negative publicity Florida because of the storm and more than 5.5 trillion impressions on and offline – on top of the billions of dollars worth of damage the state received from the storm.
During a Visit Florida committee meeting call on Tuesday, tourism officials said they have a plan to overcome days of photos and video in the media.
The recovery campaign, described by interim chief
