Quick FACVB Member Briefing

Here is a quick update on a number of issues. Rather than schedule a call I thought I'd write it in a brief format for you. If you have any questions or want more information, let me know.

BP Tourist Development Tax Loss Claims

A number of counties have filed claims for lost Tourist Development Taxes. If your county hasn't, contact your tax collector and discuss the process.

Just because your numbers are above last year's doesn't preclude you from filing a claim. I've heard of at least 3 different approaches to calculating the TDT loss.

1. Compare tax collections with last year, if they are down, file a claim for the difference.
2. Create an average of the last 3 years of tax collections, if 2010 is down compared to the average of 2007, 2008 and 2009, file a claim for the difference.
3. Look at the percentage you were up against 2009 in the first four months of 2010. Then, project that if that trend had continued for the Summer of 2010 what your collections would have been. If there is a deficit in your estimate versus actual then file a claim.

Choose the best method for calculating the tax loss for your county. The playment from BP will be a result of discussions between the BP claims adjusters and your team.

From what I understand BP has reached out to tax collectors to let them know how to file claims. The government claims are processed in Atlanta. The email address is governmentclaims@worleyco.com. Once your tax collector submits the paperwork you will be assigned a representative and a claim number.

As of today, your tax collector must file a claim to receive any consideration for tax loss payments.

Tourist Development Tax Holiday

A couple of legislators have discussed allowing hotels to keep a portion of sales tax and/or Tourist Development Tax as a way of giving them assistance in a difficult time.

Together with the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association we are educating legislators about the number of things these Tourist Development Taxes fund and the importance of those funds for your community. No official bills have been filed but there is concern this issue may come up if the Legislature holds a Special Session in early September after the mid-term election primaries.

Immigration Reform

Several lawmakers are using "Arizona-type" immigration reform as a plank in their platform to win election in the primaries and/or general elections.

I've reached out to business groups, foreign trade associations, large employers and key tourism industry members to build an informal coalition around immigration reform. While there appears to be widespread support for reform among some voter segments there is not a large call for reform within Tallahassee insiders. Most agree that Arizona's problems are very different than the situation here in Florida.

Together we've reached out the leadership in the House and Senate to educate them on what happened to Arizona's tourism industry in the wake of their legislation. Also, we've contacted the individual legislators who are promoting reform.

There is little indication that this will come up in any Special Session before the November elections. Therefore, we will need to continue to education lawmakers on the potential impacts from pursuing Arizona-style immigration reform.

New DMO Community Website

Thanks to the generous support of Miles Media Group, Collinson Media and Events and Phase V of Southwest Florida sponsoring the new FACVB website and member contact system. We've been busy working on the back-end programming and loading content for the last 6 weeks. I look forward to hearing what you think about this new platform. It's a great tool to gather and report research, maintain communications and networking within our community. Stay tuned...

Annual Meeting

We've got the agenda pulled together for the FACVB Annual Meeting. We are waiting on a couple program descriptions from our speakers and we'll be able to get everything out to you. It'll be a terrific program and it's in a wonderful location, Hog town, I mean Gainesville, Florida.

The Annual Meeting is held in conjunction with the University of Florida Tourism Crisis Management Institute's Tourism Crisis Management Leadership Workshop, October 19-20, 2010.

Block out October 19-20 and October 20-22 your calendar. You'll definitely want to be in Gainesville for both of these events.