ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Members of the LGBTQ+ community are demanding answers. Florida's tourism department, VISIT FLORIDA, quietly removed its LGBTQ+ Travel tab from the website.
Now people are asking—why?
Equality Florida CEO Nadine Smith calls this yet another attack on the LGBTQ+ community.
"It's astonishing, the level of pettiness of Governor Ron Desantis. But I think the fact that they did it secretly, without a lot of fanfare is a reflection of the fact that he understands that Floridians are really kind of sick of his antics," Smith said.
VISIT FLORIDA is the state's official tourism marketing corporation. In 1996, the Florida Legislature created the not-for-profit public/private partnership.
Rachel Covello runs a similar travel website,OutCoast, focused on LGBTQ+-friendly travel throughout the Sunshine State.
She has worked with VISIT FLORIDA in the past.
"Back in 2021 we were actually creating content that was linked from their LGBT travel page to our page," she said.
She first noticed the missing content about a month ago.
"I was trying to show a friend, a colleague of mine, the landing page on visit Florida's website during a trade show four weeks ago, and it wasn't there anymore. And so it kind of made me question what was going on. I reached out to visit Florida, the contact I used to work with back in 2021 and had no response," she added.
ABC Action News is also awaiting a response from Visit Florida about why they removed the link. We have also reached out to VISIT TAMPA, VISIT ST. PETE/ CLEARWATER, and the Governor's Office. We're awaiting a response from them as well.
"It's still really important for that content to be on a statewide platform. And as an LGBT local that knows how diverse parts of the state can be, it hurts. It hurts to kind of be erased in that way," Covello said.
We used the Wayback Machine, an archive website, to pull up the page. It once boasted: “There’s a sense of freedom to Florida’s beaches, the warm weather and the myriad activities — a draw for people of all orientations, but especially appealing to a gay community looking for a sense of belonging and acceptance.”
Last year, 114 million people visited Florida. The tourists spent $102 billion according to VISIT FLORIDA.
"There's a lot of money in diverse tourism, not even just LGBT, but when you look at all minority demographics, there's money to bring to the state," Covello said.
St. Pete Pride alone brought in $60.7 million in 2023.
The LGBTQ community is now calling for larger support for business owners who could very well be impacted by this change.
"I think that this is a moment, certainly for the hospitality industry to speak up, but really everyone in the State of Florida needs to say, enough. Florida is open to all. It is a welcoming place," Smith said.
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