{"id":159079,"date":"2026-02-17T23:56:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T23:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/159079\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T23:56:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T23:56:11","slug":"visit-orlando-makes-changes-after-audit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/159079\/","title":{"rendered":"Visit Orlando makes changes after audit"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Visit Orlando<\/a> will continue to receive Tourist Development Tax (TDT) money from Orange County, even after an audit released last summer raised concerns about how the organization spent public money.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

In response to the audit, Orange County and Visit Orlando have agreed on some changes to their contract this month.
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Visit Orlando<\/a> has agreed to reclassify $11 million as public TDT funds instead of private.
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Over the past few months, Visit Orlando updated its operating procedures and hired an internal auditor set to start in March.
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30 percent of all TDT collections go to Visit Orlando, the rest goes toward other Orange County organizations through an application process.\u00a0<\/p>\n

TDT funds are collected as a tax at hotels in Orange County and distributed for a number of tourism-related expenses, such as marketing with Visit Orlando.<\/p>\n

In response to the audit, Orange County and Visit Orlando have agreed on some changes to their contract this month. It\u2019s all about greater transparency for taxpayers and the way Visit Orlando reports its spending. Last year, TDT funds brought in $385 million in Orange County, and 30% of that went to Visit Orlando.<\/p>\n

The audit released in July revealed it wasn\u2019t fraud or illegal spending, but a misclassification of funds. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are new measures in place to make sure that Visit Orlando accounts for the money the way that we believe they should,\u201d said Phil Diamond, the Orange County comptroller.<\/p>\n

Visit Orlando has agreed to reclassify $11 million as public TDT funds instead of private. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere needed to be some clarity on what some of our responsibilities are, how the county would like us to report some of the non-TDT dollars but have some of them have the same restrictions as TDT,\u201d said Casandra Matej, the president and CEO of Visit Orlando.<\/p>\n

Visit Orlando updated its operating procedures and hired an internal auditor set to start in March. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think the clarity of our agreement really makes sure both parties that are parties to the agreement understand our roles and what are expected of us,\u201d Matej said.<\/p>\n

About $100 million go toward Visit Orlando every year, which is about 30% of the overall TDT funds. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the whole purposes of the exhibit is conservation,\u201d said JoAnne Newman, the president and CEO of the Orlando Science Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Orlando Science Center is one of several organizations to also benefit from TDT funds. After a rigorous process, the Science Center was awarded $10 million to help fund the Life exhibit. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is game changing for us, I feel so fortunate that we are here in Orange County and have this opportunity,\u201d Newman said.<\/p>\n

Up next, another $13 million in TDT funds will be spent to build a fully enclosed terrace. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe view is incredible, so we will keep some form of windows on the side, but we want to tie that into the design of the new exhibit hall. And what we are focused on is space, and it is going to be amazing,\u201d Newman said.<\/p>\n

The guidelines are very specific how the TDT funds can be spent, and that is why everyone who gets them has a lot of paperwork to do. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe more careful we are with the money we have, the further it will go and the better it can do,\u201d said Diamond.<\/p>\n

Orange County receives more money from tourist development tax than any other county in the state of Florida. The Orange County Comptroller tells Spectrum News that last year were record setting numbers. This year they could top that, on pace to bring in $400 million in TDT funds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Visit Orlando will continue to receive Tourist Development Tax (TDT) money from Orange County, even…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3140,274,115,1335,139,141,140,99,9429,278],"class_list":["post-159079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-politics","tag-sarah-winkelmann","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}