PANIC: Florida takes huge economic hit as conventions reject anti-woke agenda
PANIC: Florida takes huge economic hit as conventions reject anti-woke agenda
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has scared off millions of dollars worth of business from his state with his extremist, bigoted agenda.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has scared off millions of dollars worth of business from his state with his extremist, bigoted agenda.
Fortunately for Ron and unfortunately for everyone else, he doesn't give a shit about Florida's economy as long as he can be the boss.
83The thing about dictators is that they want more. For themselves. If gutting 100m worth services or taxes gets them $10,000 that they themselves can personally use, they'll do it.
Everyone should read the dictator's handbook, or some other explanation of selectorate theory.
36Has he ever addressed these publications publicly? There’s been articles constantly written calling him out and how Florida is gonna hurt. But never see any follow up from him.
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Well if it isn't the consequences of my own actions.
51Who knew that going into a wood chipper feet first would suck?
8Actually I think it pulls
3Who knew electing fascists would have consequences for businesses?
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One: The 2024 National Family and Community Engagement and Community Schools Conference: 2,000 attendees with accompanying hotel rooms. The organizer worried attendees would refuse to come to Florida.
Two: Supreme Council of America Inc., Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite Masons: 855 hotel rooms.
Three: American Specialty Toy Retailing Association, 3,000 people, and hotel rooms now going to Milwaukee, citing the political climate in Florida.
37The original report this is citing sounds brutal
The list was compiled by Visit Lauderdale, formerly known as the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau.
Broward’s tourism arm said the lost conventions could have brought hotel stays to Fort Lauderdale and its surrounding cities, which also meant money spent on restaurants and attractions.
“We lost this program due to political climate,” according to a Visit Lauderdale spreadsheet listing the decision of the Supreme Council of America Inc., Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite Masons to cancel their convention — and 855 rooms — in August 2024.
“We were so close on this one,” reads the notes on the entry for the 2024 National Family and Community Engagement and Community Schools Conference, which needed more than 2,000 rooms and has bailed. “But, group decided to pull out of Florida due to concerns about what the Governor is doing in the education/schools and that he will likely run in 2024. They do not want to lose attendees due to this.”
I'm reading between the lines a little bit here, but I'm pretty sure that spreadsheet/list the Sun Sentinel is referencing was like an internal document they weren't planning to publish but handed over to the Sun because they're so pissed off about how their local economy has been trashed (like, I just spent some time searching around Visit Lauderdale's website and I couldn't find anything like what the Sun describes available for the public).
Can you imagine how pissed off an official tourism bureau has to be to leak bad news to a local newspaper? That just does not ever happen.
37You know you're a shit conservative when you lose the Masons.
10
Florida wasn't a good spot for conventions anyways, geographically speaking.
10It’s an attractive location during the winter because of the warm climate, that’s pretty much it, but in terms of being a accessible location, yeah it’s going to be out of the way for a lot of people considering it’s in one of the four corners of the country.
Historically, Florida is the 2nd most visited state in the US, and a surprisingly small percentage of those people are visiting for Disney World. Seems like this is rapidly changing because of how toxic the politics are there, but if we put all that aside, there are legit reasons why it’s such a hotbed for tourism, so it would make sense why conventions would be booked here despite being a poor choice geographically.
10That doesn't even make any sense. As long as you have airport access, geographics barely matter to a convention that is held indoors.
If you want warm weather, beaches & real theme parks within driving distance & cheaper than California & Hawaii, Florida is (was) the place to go.
7There aren't many Very Large Venues for hosting big conventions. Orlando has a bunch of big convention centers in the area that can accommodate 5k+ attendees. Other options for that scale of event are pretty much New Orleans, Las Vegas, New York, Chicago, San Diego, and maybe Atlanta, Boston and Seattle. I'm sure there are others, but not that many, which is my point.
If those reqlly big conventions book a lot of rooms, and bring in a lot of free tourism money. Plus, attendees stay over, bring family or party at those destinations. To have the big conventions pass on Florida, well, It's DeSantis cutting off his nose to spite his face. In the long run, he's really only hurting his own state for cheap points with the back-benchers.
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Honestly ever since Trump I make it a point to only vacation in blue states. I'm not spending my dollars in communities that promote violence and hate.
28It's really incredible to see a Republican launch his presidential campaign by attacking and hurting businesses both small and large...in his own state! It's like starting the Indy 500 by getting out and stabbing holes in all your tires and telling your pit crew to fuck off.
26This is not accounting for the bill also passed about migrants. Causing plenty of truckers and farmers to start to freak out as well.
But anything for the presidential seat eh pudding fingers?
Meanwhile Destanis' polling numbers keep stagnating or keep going down the more he opens his mouth.....
8Is this the fOrMiDaBlE iNtElLiGeNcE you referenced in your anti-LGBTQ+ ad, Ron? That lost you millions of dollars worth of business to pander to a bunch of internet trolls that probably aren't even old enough to vote? sigh
7PANIC!!
5Washington Press? I hate DeSantis, but this article is about a single 2,000 person conference canceling... Come on people, we can be better than this kind of shitposting here.
1Meh I am no fan of him or his policies at all, but I hate clickbaity titles that start with trigger words to envoke emotion like “PANIC”. This rag should do better IMO
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