Large-scale County Destination Marketing Organizations:
SB 1110 creates a new section of Florida law governing “large-scale county destination marketing organizations,” defined as county destination marketing organizations with annual operating budgets of $5 million or more. The bill requires these organizations to register with the Department of State, and directs the department to maintain a public online directory of all such organizations operating in Florida.
The bill also imposes a funding rule: for every dollar of public contributions received, the organization must secure a one-to-one match in private contributions. It specifies four categories of qualifying private match funding: direct cash contributions, fees for services, cooperative advertising, and in-kind contributions. The bill excludes contributions from governmental entities, and from entities that received more than 50 percent of their prior-year revenue from public sources, from counting as private contributions.
If an organization fails to meet the matching requirement, it must return all unmatched public contributions to the relevant counties or municipalities by June 30 of each fiscal year. The bill is set to take effect July 1, 2025, and would therefore change how large destination marketing organizations document funding and account for public support under Florida law.
The available legislative history shows no recorded votes or committee transcript discussion, and the bill ultimately died in the Senate Commerce and Tourism committee. As a result, there is no documented floor debate or committee testimony to indicate broad support or opposition, but the committee outcome suggests the proposal did not advance through the chamber process.
The bill would add a new statutory framework in chapter 288 for large-scale county destination marketing organizations, increasing state oversight through registration and public reporting. It would also condition the use of public funds on a private-sector matching requirement and require repayment of unmatched public money to local governments, affecting counties, municipalities, and tourism marketing entities that receive substantial public appropriations.
There is no recorded committee transcript or vote history in the provided materials, so the public sentiment cannot be measured directly from debate or roll calls. The bill’s committee death in Commerce and Tourism suggests it did not secure enough support to advance, but the record provided does not show specific arguments for or against the proposal.
The main point of contention appears to be the bill’s strict one-to-one private match requirement for public funding, which could be viewed as a safeguard for taxpayer dollars but also as a significant administrative and financial burden on destination marketing organizations. Another likely issue is the exclusion of government-related revenue from the private match calculation, which narrows the pool of qualifying contributions and may make compliance harder for organizations that rely on public or quasi-public partners.