UPDATE : Florida Seeks to Warm Bleak Winter Tourism

Travel agent Annemarie Diaz just returned from a sales trip to Germany, where, she said, her colleagues are warning clients not even to think about a Florida vacation this year. “And if people decide to come anyway, then their friends ask, ‘Are you crazy? do you want to get killed?’ ”

Germany poses particular problems for the Sunshine State’s beleaguered travel industry. Not only were two German visitors brutally murdered in South Florida in 1993, but earlier this month the flames of controversy were fanned again when a Tampa rock band called Dead German Tourist was scheduled to play at a Miami bar.

After considerable civic outrage, the plug was pulled on Dead German Tourist. But in the critical winter tourist season, the image problems remain.

“The concern today is travel safety, and that is not just in Florida,” said Gary Stogner, public relations director of the state’s Tourism Division. But, he added: “Florida has illuminated the problem.”

Since October, 1992, nine foreign visitors have been slain in a random crime wave that has rocked the state’s $31-billion-a-year tourism industry.

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State and local officials have been scrambling to control the damage with sunny advertising campaigns, beefed-up police patrols and statistics which show that crime in Florida may not be as rampant as would-be visitors think. Miami police, for example, last week announced that robberies of tourists had dropped by 57% from April through October as compared to the same period last year.

Still, the damage has been done, at least to the winter season, traditionally the busiest in Florida tourism. Some tour operators, especially those who bring Europeans to Florida, have reported advance bookings down by as much as 50%.

Although Florida attracts 40 million visitors a year, and although one of the most sensational tourist killings--that of Gary Colley of Britain--took place about 400 miles north of Miami, the city’s image has suffered the most.

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Bill Anderson, director of visitor services for the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau, said a survey of area hotels shows that those catering to conventions and domestic travelers “are doing OK, but those geared to Europeans are having problems.”

For Miami and its $7.2-billion industry, European visitors are critical. Sixty percent of South Florida visitors come from outside the United States, and 27% of that number are European, chiefly Germans and Britons.

Last week the visitors bureau launched an advertising campaign emphasizing sun, beaches and night life. Diaz thinks it may be too late. She has laid off staff as winter bookings at her Sun Beach Travel have fallen up to 80%.

Diaz blames the news media. “We need positive press,” she says. “New York is more dangerous than Miami. And Venezuela, even L.A. But Miami suffers.”

Many in the tourism business are counting on the nationally televised King Orange Jamboree Parade on Dec. 31 and the Jan. 1 Orange Bowl Classic football game to help restore Miami’s image. About 30,000 visitors will be in town for those two events, and another 20,000 out-of-town fans are expected at the Carquest Bowl, also on New Year’s Day.

Police will be out in force. But at least some fans of Nebraska and Florida State, the Orange Bowl opponents, are taking no chances. Many FSU supporters are reportedly flying in for the game, and flying home immediately afterward.