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Tuesday's Afternoon Update
What you need to know about Florida today
Florida theme parks continue growth despite waning attendance
Even though theme park attendance is down this year, the companies are investing more than ever. According to the International Association of Amusement Park and Attractions, which is the global association for the theme park industry, American theme parks are expected to invest $1.5 billion in attractions this year alone. Parks are creating rides less focused on being the biggest and fastest. Instead, companies like Disney, Universal and SeaWorld are honing in on new technologies and intellectual property. More from Click Orlando.
Trucking company bankruptcy costs state 524 jobs
The shuttering and subsequent bankruptcy of the national transportation company Yellow Corp. led to 524 lost jobs in the state of Florida, a sliver of the 30,000 jobs cut nationwide. The Nashville-based company outlined the number of positions eliminated in a letter posted on Florida’s Worker Adjustment Retraining and Notification’s database Monday afternoon. More from the Business Observer.
Local tax, task force among suggestions to help Jacksonville's homeless
At a tight six pages, the recommendations compiled for Mayor Donna Deegan aimed at reducing the number of people experiencing homelessness in Jacksonville offered a seemingly direct message: fund the groups already doing the work. “It's short, it's sweet,” Dawn Gilman, chair of the homelessness subcommittee and CEO of Changing Homelessness, said. “We know what needs to happen. We don't have the funding to do it, right, like bottom line, the agencies that do this work in the community know what they are doing.…They don't have funding to do more.” More from the Florida Times-Union.
DeSantis’ tourism district takes aim at Disney ‘perks’ but offers $1,000 stipend
Officials with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ tourism oversight district are asking Florida’s inspector general to investigate theme park passes, discounts and other Disney “perks” they say were given to employees and board members for years. The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District is moving to eliminate those benefits offered to employees of the district that provides government services to Disney World, according to a news release. More from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
Florida researchers are developing a new app in Pinellas County to determine localized climate risks
Pinellas County residents will soon get an app to identify their climate risks. The National Science Foundation awarded researchers at the University of South Florida and Georgia Tech $1.5 million to create the web-based system. Pinellas residents will be able to upload photos and videos of things like local flooding, and the app will use each image’s geotag to log the location. More from WUSF.
Sports Business
‘The Messi Effect’: FIU soccer program benefits from superstar’s South Florida presence
Call it “The Messi Effect.” The FIU Panthers’ men’s soccer team, which last year reached the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA Tournament – their furthest advance since 2003 – is on a roll. This summer, FIU signed several top-level players, and coach Kyle Russell is convinced that some of that has to do with Lionel Messi joining forces with Inter Miami in July. “Messi has made recruiting easier for us,” Russell said. “If the best player in the world thinks this is a good soccer market, then the players we are recruiting can come here, too.
» More from the Miami Herald.
Florida Trend Exclusive
Open season
For Paul Cross — a scalloping boat captain and the director of operations at the Plantation on Crystal River Resort — scallop season is like an Easter egg hunt, except he’s swimming 6 feet under the surface of the Gulf of Mexico and looking for bay scallops instead of hardboiled eggs. Scallop harvesting is done along the Gulf Coast, including parts of Citrus, Hernando, Pasco, Levy, Franklin and Taylor counties. The 2023 bay scallop season ends in late September.
» Read more from Florida Trend.
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