Calling the recent move by some US civil rights groups to issue a “travel advisory” for visitors to Florida a “stunt,” members of the state’s tourism trade are taking exception to the claim that the destination is “openly hostile toward African Americans, people of colour, and LGBTQ+ individuals.”
As last week’s IPW travel trade event got underway in San Antonio, Texas, delegates were buzzing that the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) had issued its warning against Florida, joining two other civil rights groups in calling out recent “hostile” laws and policies championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida lawmakers.
The NAACP, long an advocate for Black Americans, joined the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), a Latino civil rights organization, and Equality Florida, a gay rights advocacy group, in issuing travel advisories for the Sunshine State, where tourism is one of the state’s largest job sectors.
The warning by the NAACP tells tourists that, before travelling to Florida, they should understand the state of Florida “devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of colour.”
Visit Florida president and CEO Dana Young quickly refuted the warning, stating, “We pride ourselves on welcoming every visitor with the same warmth and friendliness, no matter where they are from, what they believe, whom they love or what their abilities are.”
She added, “It is disappointing when partisan organizations attempt to weaponize travel in pursuit of political ends.”
At IPW, Visit Florida VP of Marketing Brett Laiken told Travel Industry Today in an interview, “We feel it’s a little bit of a political stunt,” and suggested that the advisories were directed at the state level, adding, “We’re not a state entity in that fashion and I can tell you that Florida and Visit Florida stands for welcoming people regardless of who they are.”
As for the NAACP ban, Laiken wonders who it is helping.
“Everyone is entitled to their own opinion… (but) we have significant black-owned businesses in the state of Florida – small businesses, more than any other state; and we have a significant visitation from the black traveller,” he said. “We just feel that some of the people who are going to be hurt are the exact people (the advisory) is not targeted to hurt, but to support, so we just want people to step back and think about what’s being said and look at it from that lens.”
Laiken added that LGBT travellers are “extremely important to Florida… Our stand as the tourism marketing corporation for Florida is we are very welcoming to a diverse people and accepting of all – as are our destination partners… Tampa, Miami, Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville, you name it… Look at what our destinations are, and who they are: It speaks volumes for the state.”
Several of Florida’s Democratic mayors and tourism leaders were also quick to say that their cities welcomed diversity and inclusion.
“EVERYONE is always welcome and will be treated with dignity and respect,” tweeted Mayor Ken Welch of St. Petersburg in a message echoed by the mayor across the bay in Tampa.
“That will never change, regardless of what happens in Tallahassee,” tweeted Mayor Jane Castor of Tampa.
At the same time, Santiago C. Corrada, President & CEO of Visit Tampa Bay, wrote in an email to Travel Industry Today: “Tampa Bay is a destination for all! Our core mission is to inspire travellers to love Tampa Bay. Our community is a melting pot of thriving cultures that laid the foundation of our beautiful destination and are represented in many ways throughout Tampa Bay like festivals, events and more.”
And Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said in a statement, “Please be assured our community values diversity and embraces inclusion. Hate is never welcome here. We look forward to working with the NAACP to reassure them and others that Orange County is a caring, compassionate, and welcoming community.”
Casandra Matej, President and CEO of Visit Orlando, said the organization has been receiving inquiries and concerned calls from groups and travellers primarily around the safety of the city and is responding by “reinforcing our safe and welcoming destination.”
Stacy Ritter, president and CEO of Visit Fort Lauderdale, whose tourism brand is “Everyone Under the Sun,” told Travel Industry Today she is respectful of the opinions that led to the travel advisories, but added, “we understand, but disagree with it,” and echoed Laiken’s sentiment that “travel advisories tend to hurt the people you want to hurt least – small businesses, minority-owned business, women owned businesses that actually represent the values of the NAACP. So, you would want to reward those people for having those values and embracing diversity and inclusion, as opposed to telling people not to come…”
“It’s painful, because it’s my hometown,” she admitted. “I’ve lived in Broward City since 1974… (it’s) two million people: we’re a majority minority county. We are a community of 170 nations, representing 147 languages spoken. We are, in fact, more diverse than the island of Manhattan. And we embrace it and welcome it. We celebrate people’s differences, and we feel that cultural diversity, and not caring who you love or who you worship, if you worship at all, or how you identify, makes us a very strong community.”
At the same time, Ritter said she doesn’t take the advisory personally, acknowledging the ban “is definitely not aimed at us… Nadine Smith at Equality Florida will tell you that we are the most welcoming destination in the state of Florida, and there are others who are almost as welcoming and who reject those messages of hate…”
Nevertheless, the ban is bad for business, and Ritter said Broward County lost three minority-centric conferences in 24 hours after the announcement by the NAACP, plus millions more dollars of business due to state policies in the past year.
(Ed. note – Those policies included: pushing measures to ban state colleges from having programs on diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as critical race theory; passing the Stop WOKE Act that restricts certain race-based conversations and analysis in schools and businesses; the so-called Don’t Say Gay act in schools; restricting access to abortions.)
“I do understand that they have a constituency, and I would imagine it must be hard for the NAACP to say, ‘we don’t mean these people and we don’t mean these people. It (the advisory) doesn’t have as big an impact that way and they wanted to have an impact. And I don’t blame them. And it has had an impact,” said Ritter.
“I get that people who look at us from the outside are like, ‘What’s going on?’ But I also know that the United States itself, is, you know, there are red counties in blue states and blue counties in red states. There are 20 million Floridians, we are not monolithic. We don’t speak with one voice; we don’t look like one people… And travel has always transcended the politics…
“But we’ll continue to do what we do and we’ll continue to push the message that we have, which is who we are,” she concluded. “We represent the world in Broward Country, which is why we rebranded ‘Everyone Under the Sun,’ because not only does everyone under the sun come to visit, but everyone under the sun lives in Broward County.”
And she urged visitors: “Don’t give up on Florida!”