Florida tourism officials feeling all right

The recession, it turns out, didn't damper the mood of the annual Florida Governor's Conference on Tourism.

Attendees instead shared an abundance of good news at the confab, held Sept. 25-27 in Hollywood.

Sarasota County, for one, reported a 17% year-over-year increase in monthly Tourist Development Taxes collected, from $698,754 in July 2010 to $818,062 this past July, according to the Sarasota Convention & Visitors Bureau. Those figures are based on the first 4% collected in bed taxes because the county only recently raised the tax to 5%.