Orlando News
Governor Scott said, “Florida’s tourism industry and our entire economy continue to flourish. After having record-breaking tourism in 2017, Florida started off the first half of 2018 by welcoming back-to-back record quarters of visitors. These record-breaking achievements allow our economy to create more jobs and adds to our success of having nearly 1.6 million private-sector jobs created in seven and a half years while our state’s unemployment rate is the lowest in over a decade.”
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."
