Efforts by Florida lawmakers to expand the uses for tourism taxes threaten to handcuff Visit Jacksonville’s efforts to promote and market Northeast Florida as a tourist destination, the president and CEO of the organization says.
During a Sept. 4 appearance at the Cuppa Jax speaker series, Michael Corrigan said that if he could enact any public policy change to benefit Visit Jacksonville’s work, it would be for state government “to get out of the way” and leave tourism taxes alone.
Florida lawmakers have made numerous attempts to allow diversions of tourism taxes, most of which are collected on hotel rooms and are also known as bed taxes, to public infrastructure projects and other needs.
An example from the 2024 legislative session was Senate Bill 872, which would have allowed bed tax revenue to be used to incentivize production of films and television series. That bill failed.
To illustrate how the diversion of tourism taxes would affect Jacksonville, Corrigan noted that Jacksonville and Louisville, Kentucky, both draw about $30 million annually in revenue from bed taxes but Visit Jacksonville receives $7 million from that pool while Louisville gets the entire $30 million to market and promote itself to tourists.
“The state is talking about allowing those dollars to be used for other things – sidewalk construction is an example of it,” he said. “If that happens in Louisville, they may lose $5 million of their $30 million. But in Jacksonville, we could lose $2 million of our $7 million, which would hurt us worse. Legislation that reduces the ability for us to tell our story is by far our biggest threat.”
Of Duval County’s $30 million, $10 million goes toward improving EverBank Stadium, $10 million currently goes toward maintaining the stadium and other city-owned facilities, and the remaining $10 million is devoted to tourism marketing and promotion, with Visit Jacksonville getting the majority of it.
Under the city’s stadium deal with the Jacksonville Jaguars, the $10 million for maintenance would all go to the football stadium and maintenance for the other facilities would be financed as part of the Capital Improvement Plan.
The revenue comes from a 6% tax on hotel rooms.
Speaking in the atrium of Riverplace Tower, where heavy rainfall cascaded onto the glass-paneled ceiling, Corrigan also said completion of the Four Seasons Hotel & Residences near the stadium would elevate the city as a tourist destination by providing a luxury-rated lodging option. Currently, the city’s highest-rated lodging are full-service hotels like the Downtown Hyatt, which offer such on-site amenities as restaurants, exercise spaces, spas and meeting spaces.
The vast majority of lodging in Northeast Florida lies in the select and limited-service range, which offer fewer amenities and are marketed to travelers looking for basic, economical accommodations.
Corrigan, a former Jacksonville City Council president and member, said Visit Jacksonville was working with local decision-makers to incentivize hotel projects on the higher end of the scale and discourage giving public funding to lower-rated options.
“Right now the Hyatt and the Marriott Downtown and One Ocean down at Atlantic Beach, those are probably the best, highest-rated hotels we have. The Four Seasons creates a whole other level that is probably two to three steps above. There’s going to be economic opportunity to fill the void between those hotels at those levels in the next five to 10 years.”
Corrigan said Northeast Florida draws about 20 million visitors per year, divided equally between day tourists and those who stay overnight. Visit Jacksonville markets the community as an affordable, family-friendly and pet-friendly travel destination that is different from other locations in Florida.
Needs for attracting more residents include better wayfinding signage in the community along highways, he said, listing two Downtown-adjacent historic districts as examples where more signs are needed.
“I’m frustrated, and mostly it’s with the Department of Transportation,” he said. “When you drive to Orlando, there are 80 signs that tell you how to go to Sanford’s historic district. But yet you come to Jacksonville on Interstate 95, you’re passing the Riverside-Avondale historic district and the Springfield historic district, and you’ve got nothing. We have over 100,000 people who travel across the Fuller Warren Bridge every day, and we don’t ask them to stop.”