Sunshine Matters

In addition to the highly-successful travel trade familiarization (FAM) tours VISIT FLORIDA and our local Partners hosted as part of Florida Huddle, our Public Relations team organized a post-Huddle FAM tour of Fort Lauderdale, the Florida Keys & Key West and Miami for a group of international travel media.  Nine journalists from around the globe took full advantage of the opportunity to experience unique Florida activities, such as feeding a shark, taking an airboat ride, visiting an outdoor street art museum and doing a little ghost hunting.

For most of the journalists – who represent publications based in China, India, Brazil, France, Austria and the U.K – the FAM trip was a true introduction to Florida.  Five of the nine had never been to the Sunshine State and only one had been to the Keys before this journey.

The FAM tour began in Florida Huddle’s host city of Fort Lauderdale where the group toured the animal exhibits, took an airboat ride and sampled alligator bites at the Sawgrass Recreation Park; took a shopping excursion to Sawgrass Mills; and toured the Museum of Art and the Bonnet House Museum & Gardens.

The group then moved on to the Florida Keys & Key West to tour the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park and the History of Diving Museum; took a guided kayak tour of Indian Key & Lignumvitae Key state parks;  and visited the Florida Keys Aquarium Encounters where they interacted with sharks and stingrays and snorkeled through a man-made replica of a patch coral reef.  The Keys FAM concluded with a stop at the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum and a ghost hunt using the equipment seen on TV to capture spirits.

The final leg of the FAM took the group to Miami to see the rock garden at Coral Castle, take guided walking tours of the Art Deco and Wynwood Arts districts, and visit the new Pérez Art Museum.

VISIT FLORIDA would like to thank all the Partners who participated in the media FAM trip for welcoming the journalists to a multitude of unique Florida experiences.  To see what one of the journalists has already written about her trip, click here.  For more information about VISIT FLORIDA’s international media relations efforts, contact me at pforrester@visitflorida.org.