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 toward Florida’s ailing cruise industry. DeSantis is recommending about $260 million 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 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," DeSantis said. "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 from the American Rescue Plan.
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