Lauren Book Defends 'Visit Florida'

Tourism in Florida in recent years, has been one of the more bipartisan issues facing the Florida state government.  Now, State Senator Lauren Book (D-32) has spoken our regarding the State Senate's position on, "Visit Florida."

"The Senate has always taken a position that we need to fund and invest in Visit Florida to ensure we are driving people and visitors to our state," said Sen. Book.  The Senator elaborated, "It's one of the ways we drive revenue in our state, and very important to do so.  I know we talked about the recurring dollars for Visit Florida, the fact that it was reauthorized to 2028 is a big deal because there was a question whether Visit Florida was going to exist at all."

"Again, it has always been the position of the Senate to invest heavily in Visit Florida, and I know that we have space for it and we've done and come a long way.  But we need to continue to drive those things."  Senator Book then referenced State Rep. Chip Lamarca (R-93), "I think the House has sort of taken a different position and I think the representative can speak to that and the politics of the House, but I do believe its sort of boiled down to how advertising dollars were being spent, where they were being spent, then it became a, 'whose running Visit Florida, why is it being down this way?'"

LaMarca also praised Visit Florida, commenting how the agency was "well run" and looks forward to supporting more programs like Visit Florida during his time in the House of Representatives.

"Visit Florida is one of the most productive programs you have in the state of Florida.  We advertise 97% of those dollars outside of the state of Florida.  Only 3% of it here in the state of Florida.  The return on that, it's money well spent," said LaMarca.