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DeSantis Wants To Boost Tourism, Ports By $300M

Photo: Ron DeSantis
Photo: Ron DeSantis

Florida’s ailing tourism industry could get a boost from President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan.

Gov. Ron DeSantis said he wants money from the American Rescue Plan to go towards Florida’s ailing cruise industry. DeSantis is recommending about $260 million dollars go to Florida’s ports.

“That is an amount equal to the losses they accrued during the pandemic through February of 2021," DeSantis said. "And obviously they still will be incurring potentially more losses, but we hope they will be able to get everything operating very soon.”

Cruise ships are still under a no-sail order from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and prevention. Separately, DeSantis wants to see another $50 million dollars going to Visit Florida to promote tourism in the state.

“There’s a lot of pent up demand, we believe, a lot of money on the sidelines from people who haven’t been doing some of the things they would normally be doing. We obviously want Florida to be the beneficiary of that when people get back in the mix.”

Florida is expecting to get between $9 and $10 billion dollars from the American Rescue Plan.