ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – As Orange County continues to see record tourism tax revenues, Orlando lawmakers are looking to change how this money can be spent.
The county comptroller’s office released a report Tuesday which revealed that in January the county collected over $33 million from the tourism development tax — a 9.5% increase from 2024.
Recommended Videos
“This represents the highest January collections on record,” the report reads.
The taxes are from guests staying overnight at hotels or other vacation spots, and they can only be used to invest in tourism. It has funded projects such as upgrading the Orlando Science Center and improving the Winter Park Playhouse.
It also requires that at least 40% of the funds collected are used to promote and advertise tourism — which is what Rep. Anna Eskamani and Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith look to change.
“We have a really biased law in Florida that says in order for even a single penny of hotel taxes to be used for public transit, 40% of the total collections must first go towards tourism advertising. That is a tremendous amount of money right now in Orange County, approximately $100 million annually in hotel taxes, taxpayer funds are given to Visit Orlando for tourism promotion,” Guillermo-Smith said.
Smith filed SB1114 and Eskamani filed its companion HB6031 — if passed, it would remove the 40% requirement.
“Removing this restriction would allow Orange County and other county officials to spend hotel taxes on mass transit projects in its tourist areas – things like expanded LYNX bus service to Disney World or a SunRail connection to the airport – that could be of real help to front-line workers and residents,” Eskamani said in a prepared statement.
As News 6 previously reported, in its last fiscal year, Orange County raked in nearly $360 million in tourism tax dollars and $99 million went to Visit Orlando. This exceeds the budget for Visit Florida, the state’s tourism marketing agency, which received $80 million that year.
In August, the Orange County Comptroller’s Office conducted a preliminary audit of the advertising group’s budget and record-keeping practices.
The audit revealed several key issues such as the omission of information regarding how $6.3 million was spent.
According to the comptroller’s office, Visit Orlando had $35 million in an emergency reserve account despite a contract stating a reserve was unnecessary.
Additionally, the audit found that Visit Orlando failed to charge large advertising accounts for services that would have reimbursed taxpayer money. Specifically, the audit revealed that the organization did not bill more than $600,000 in 2022 and more than $700,000 in 2023.
Visit Orlando President and CEO, Cassandra Matej responded to the audit on Aug. 16 and said there was no misuse of any funds.
“Every dollar, whether public or private, goes to our mission to inspire, promote, and grow global travel to Orange County for economic and community benefit, which by all measures has been extremely successful,” Matej said in a memo sent to county commissioners.
The audit testing is currently being finalized, after which the report will be sent to Visit Orlando so it can provide a written response before said report is issued publicly, a spokesperson for the comptroller’s office told News 6. A timely response from Visit Orlando could see the report issued by the end of April, the spokesperson said.
All in all, removing this 40% requirement will not be an easy task — as sometimes it can take years for a bill to be signed into law. Lawmakers need to get their bills on committee schedules, convince other lawmakers to support them, and get the bills heard and voted on. However, Guillermo-Smith is hopeful that this legislative session lawmakers on both sides of the political spectrum will work together and get things done.
“The legislature is actually growing a backbone and speaking up for itself and saying that they are going to assert their prerogative as an independent branch of government to put forward the priorities they want to put forward,” Guillermo-Smith said.