Sunshine Matters

VISIT FLORIDA is proud to announce an exciting opportunity to highlight Florida destinations through a new television show hosted by celebrity chef and new Sunshine State resident Emeril Lagasse.  We all know Emeril knows food, but did you know he’s quickly becoming a Florida lifestyle and travel expert as well? The show, “Emeril’s Florida” will feature its high-energy host exploring dining, entertainment and travel opportunities all over the Sunshine State.  The show will air on the Cooking Channel, with the first episode in January slated to be about Orlando.

Emeril was on hand in person for the big announcement, which was made during the 45th Annual Florida Governor’s Conference on Tourism held last week in Orlando.  VISIT FLORIDA’s newest Florida travel ambassador and his family have recently moved to Northwest Florida and he is excited to share his passion for the state with his legion of fans around the world.

“The show is about what this great state offers,” Lagasse said. “So it’s not just about cooking, it’s not just restaurants, although that’s a nice chunk of it.  But it’s about the beaches, it’s about fishing, it’s about farming, it’s about the agriculture.

“When people think about Florida, of course, they think about sunshine and how beautiful it is.  They don’t really know the variety, the extent of what is really here.  There’s so much here it’s incredible.”

For VISIT FLORIDA, this opportunity highlights our commitment to creating partnerships that match Florida’s brand strength and consumer focus.  By assembling a team of best-in-class partners that now includes Emeril, VISIT FLORIDA is able to implement strategic co-op marketing programs that significantly leverage combined budgets and provide tourism businesses with access to promotions on a scale not otherwise possible.

This project also spotlights VISIT FLORIDA’s commitment to providing content that allows us to serve as the trusted source of travel information that informs and inspires travel to and within Florida.  “Emeril’s Florida” is not just a Florida lifestyle television show – what makes this a unique branding opportunity are the multiple forms of content that our Partners can utilize on different media platforms, including 2-3 minute vignettes from each episode that can be used on websites, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube channels.

Look for 13 different 30-minute episodes of “Emeril’s Florida” to begin airing weekend mornings on the Cooking Channel in January 2013.  For more information about how you can become a part of this exciting project, please contact Christina Salvatore at csalvatore@VISITFLORIDA.org.