Oil skips most Florida beaches, but so do many tourists

The gulf spill has scared away visitors from areas far from any tainted coastline. One tourism official says it's all a matter of perception.

By Alana Semuels,
Los Angeles Times
July 21, 2010

Reporting from Apalachicola, Fla.

Here the fish are plentiful and oil-free, the white sand beaches are clean and the oysters are fresh, pulled right from the water by fishermen who have worked the sea most of their life.

The only thing that's missing this summer: tourists.

"We've got fish — grouper, snapper, mullet, oysters," said Don Porter, whose fishing business on the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico lost $6,000 in a month. "But we can't sell it because people are scared."

Only 23 of Florida's 1,200 miles of shoreline are closed to fishing, and 90% of the state's beaches remain untouched by the BP oil spill disaster. But that doesn't mean Florida's $60-billion tourism industry is likewise unscathed.

(More here.)