Aside from the environmental devastation of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, one of the other obvious casualties is the tourism industry, with many people’s livelihood on the line. Florida is one area that has been such affected, although not as you might imagine.
Visit Florida, the state’s official tourism planning source, has already been granted a $25 million advertising grant from BP’s $20 billion claims fund, and they are now asking for a further $50 million. The money isn’t being used to compensate for the fact that their beaches have been affected, as you might expect, but to inform the public that the vast majority of their beaches have been completely unaffected.
At the time of writing, nearly 90% of Florida’s 1,260 miles of coastline is unaffected by the oil spill. This information doesn’t help the Florida tourism industry as the damage to the public perception has already been done. While the extent of their loses isn’t yet known, it is likely that many people have chosen to take their holiday elsewhere.
To combat this, Visit Florida now has 40 webcams across the state, showing the state of their beaches, along with Twitter feeds and recent pictures, all done in part of their campaign to keep their tourism industry alive. You can check them out here (on the Google Map, you need to click “View local webcams”), and you can also check out Florida webcams in Camscape’s webcam directory.
The situation is changing constantly, and more of Florida’s coastline may be affected in the future. For more detailed information, you can check The Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s website. You can also check webcams concerning the clean up effort.
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