Over A Dozen Conferences Pull Out Of Florida, Citing Political Climate

The political atmosphere in Florida is causing an exodus of conferences and conventions from the state.

At least 10 conferences in Fort Lauderdale, one in Miami and five in Orlando have been moved or canceled in recent months, with event organizers citing the political climate and concerns over the state’s laws related to LGBTQIA+ rights, gun control, abortion, schools and other hot-button issues as the reason they are avoiding the state.

The decline in conference bookings could have long-term impacts in the hotel and hospitality sectors. With many events booked a year or more in advance, the recent cancellations could be a harbinger of a further decline in event activity across the state, said Stacy Ritter, the president and CEO of Visit Lauderdale, Broward County’s tourism and marketing agency.

"Some of this is completely out of our control, and it's unlike a hurricane, which comes and goes, you build, you repair and you move on," Ritter told Bisnow Tuesday. "We don't see an end to this in the near future."

The 10 conferences that were called off in Broward County will cost the region at least $20M in revenue from attendees booking hotels, traveling in the state, visiting restaurants and more, Ritter said. Hotel operators will also lose an estimated 13,000 room nights. 

The organizations avoiding Florida range from religious groups to organizations tied to historically Black colleges and universities, from groups supporting single parents to freemasons.

The Tom Joyner Foundation, which supports HBCUs with scholarships and endowments, canceled an event planned for Aug. 31 that would have taken 1,700 hotel rooms and brought in an estimated $1.9M to the county, according to a Visit Lauderdale document tracking the cancellations shared with Bisnow. 

In an email to the tourism agency, a representative for the foundation wrote that the political climate in Florida had made some attendees, corporate partners and vendors reluctant to travel to the state. 

“If this were about economics, that would be one thing, but what is at the core of the issue from the above, is fear for the safety of African-American, LGBTQ+ and a smaller portion of even Latino students and others traveling into Florida to participate in what is a national event,” the representative wrote, according to the Visit Lauderdale document.

The email cited the travel advisories issued by the NAACP, League of United Latin American Citizens and Equality Florida that said recent laws passed by the Florida legislature and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis had created increased risks for minorities traveling to the state. 

"Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals,” the NAACP advisory issued on May 20 said. “Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color." 

The NAACP issued the advisory after DeSantis, who has made the culture wars a cornerstone of his campaign for president, objected in January to the College Board’s planned curriculum for an advanced placement course in African American Studies. 

The criticism from the governor’s mansion made national headlines and led the College Board to remove references to Black Lives Matter, critical race theory and feminism from its formal curriculum.

DeSantis and the legislature have also passed laws that ban people from entering public bathrooms other than ones designated for their assigned sex at birth, banned gender-affirming medical care and banned abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. The state also loosened gun laws this year, allowing gun owners to carry a concealed weapon without a permit.

Jeremy Redfern, DeSantis' press secretary, said in a statement to the South Florida Sun Sentinel that "Florida is experiencing record tourism, with the Q1 2023 having the largest volume of visitors during a single quarter in recorded history." The Wall Street Journal quoted a DeSantis spokesperson dismissing the cancellations as “nothing more than a stunt.”

“Regardless of whether or not it's a political stunt, it's still business lost, it’s business that we can't even go after because we're not getting requests for proposals,” Ritter said. “I can tell you that there are planners who have told us flat out that Florida is off the table.”

The trade group American Specialty Toy Retailing Association had the largest planned event to be called off in Fort Lauderdale, a 2026 conference that would have had attendees occupying as many as 4,492 hotel rooms and would have brought in an estimated $13.4M in revenue for local businesses. 

In an email to the tourism agency, a representative for the group cited “the unfriendly political environment in Florida as it relates to many ASTRA members” as its reason for moving its largest annual event away from Fort Lauderdale.

Other organizations that opted not to come to Broward County include the Church of God and Saints of Christ, a Jewish organization; the Institute for Educational Leadership, which is focused on racial healing and justice, disability inclusion and economic equity; the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, which works with training migrant workers; The University of Southern Mississippi; 100 Black Men of America, a mentoring nonprofit; aParent Miracles Foundation, which works with single parents; and the Supreme Council of America, Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite Masons, a Masonic group.

Some of the conferences were still in the planning stages and were years away. But with no signs of a change in Florida policies, the economic impact of cancellations could compound in the years ahead. 

“Twenty-five percent of our hotel business is conferences,” Ritter said. “We are overwhelmingly a leisure destination, but the conference business is significant in that hotels can bank that revenue years before the actual event takes place. The conference business is the bread and butter of the destination and that's the concern, that it is the bread and butter of the destination and hotels rely on that future revenue to keep their businesses going.”

Fort Lauderdale is far from the only state convention destination dealing with cancellations. 

The Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, a trade group promoting educational outreach, announced on June 30 that it would relocate its annual conference from the Hyatt Regency Miami to Chicago.

The ACSP's board shared members' concerns about “the erosion of academic freedom and commitment to DEI principles, and about the many injustices that have been heaped on our vulnerable populations,” ACSP President Laxmi Ramasubramanian wrote in a letter to its members.

Five organizations have canceled planned events in Orlando, the Orlando Sentinel reports, including the National Society of Black Engineers’ 50th conference — which was expected to bring 15,000 people to the Orange County Convention Center — and a conference for fans of the book and TV series Game of Thrones, which typically draws up to 4,000 attendees. 

Even with the wave of organizations opting not to host events in the state, there are some signs of resilience in Florida’s conference industry. The Tampa Bay area has not seen any cancellations, local officials told the Florida Phoenix, and IBM announced last week that it would move the annual technology summit for its software company Red Hat from San Francisco to Orlando in 2025.

Local officials are working to separate their cities from state policies, highlighting their regions’ diversity and openness in an attempt to quell concerns among event organizers. 

Visit Lauderdale launched a campaign in October called “Everyone Under the Sun” to promote Broward County’s welcoming environment after the organization “saw some storm clouds out there on the horizon,” Ritter said. But the effort has done little to stem the flow of conferences and events out of the city.

“For a lot of these groups, it is about the values conversation,” Ritter said. “While the business aspect is very important to us — millions of dollars in revenue lost and we cannot cannot ignore that — the bottom line is not [conference organizers’] bottom line. It’s the larger conversation and it's the message that they want to send.”