Orlando News
Governor Rick Scott announced that Florida set another record by welcoming the highest number of visitors of any six months in the state’s history with 60.7 million visitors, according to VISIT FLORIDA. This represents a 4.1 percent increase over the same period in 2016, and includes 53.2 million domestic visitors, 5.3 million overseas visitors and 2.2 million Canadian visitors.
With this legislation, we can promote public infrastructure projects and job training projects to continue to grow jobs for families in every community of our state. We know that for Florida to be competitive in domestic and international markets, we need as many tools as possible to attract growing businesses to our state. The $85 million Florida Job Growth Grant Fund is what Florida needs to bring major jobs wins home.
In early May, Florida lawmakers passed a state budget that cut Visit Florida's budget by 67% budget, to $25 million.
Gov. Rick Scott, an ardent supporter of Visit Florida, vetoed the cut, and called a special session last week to negotiate the budget, which resulted in restoring the group's $76 million budget, among other changes.
"We've fully funded Visit Florida so we can continue to break visitation records," Scott said in a statement. He called the result of the session "a major win for Florida families."
