Pinellas Tourism Tax Pours Record $3.37 Million Into 47 Events, With Eyes on 2027 Ocean Race

Pinellas County commissioners voted unanimously on Aug. 25 to hand out more tourist-tax money for local events, pushing Visit St. Pete-Clearwater's Elite Event Funding Program to a record $3.37 million behind 47 events this year. Both numbers are the highest the decade-old program has ever reached, and the spending comes straight out of the 6% tax visitors pay on hotel rooms and short-term rentals across the county.

The latest award sends up to $125,000 to the Xinsurance Clearwater Offshore Nationals, a powerboat race set for Sept. 25-27. Organizers project it will draw 14,375 attendees, including 11,136 people from outside the area. Commissioners approved the request without objection.

What the program actually pays for

The money isn't a simple grant handed to event organizers to spend however they like. Visit St. Pete-Clearwater President and CEO Brian Lowack said it's earmarked for advertising and marketing that helps an event grow, whether that means a small organizer affording ads it couldn't otherwise buy or a bigger event expanding a campaign it already has running.

"This is not just the grant," Lowack said, according to local media reports. "This is money to go towards advertising and marketing your event and growing it."

The program started more than ten years ago with a handful of established draws, including the Grand Prix and the Valspar Championship. Tourism officials have since rewritten its rules three times, according to Lowack, each time trying to steer the money toward events that deliver the biggest return on the tax dollars spent.

Eligibility now leans heavily on attendance and the number of visitors an event pulls in, though larger events can also qualify through national television or streaming reach. The program counts anyone living more than 20 miles away as a tourist, and individual awards can run as high as $250,000. Events that miss their attendance projections can be cut from the program the following year.

Why officials say it's working

Tourism officials point to visitor surveys as their evidence. Festivals and events have grown from roughly 5% of visitors' stated reasons for coming to Pinellas to about 12% over the past two years, Lowack said. That shift shows up beyond the turnstile, too: those same visitors book hotel rooms, eat out and spend money elsewhere in the county, generating tax revenue the program's attendance figures don't even capture.

Red Bull Cliff Diving's stop at the St. Pete Pier earlier this year is the example Lowack points to most often. The competition brought spectators downtown while putting the waterfront in front of a broadcast audience far larger than anyone standing at the Pier that day.

The bigger test: 2027

The next event on the horizon dwarfs a weekend powerboat race. The Ocean Race, the around-the-world sailing competition, will make St. Petersburg its stop in 2027, its only North American port on the route. Lowack said the Elite Event program was a major factor in landing it.

For county officials, the goal isn't just a single successful weekend. It's whether a first-time event turns into a recurring one, the way the Grand Prix and Valspar have stuck around for years. Whether the Offshore Nationals hits its attendance projections this month, and whether The Ocean Race delivers the kind of exposure county officials are counting on in 2027, will shape how much tourist-tax money keeps flowing into the program in the years ahead.

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Header photo: Ebyabe / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)