Hospitality and tourism professionals in Florida continue experiencing the detrimental effects of the Ron DeSantis hate campaign as conventions race to cancel or relocate their events scheduled to be held in the state, the Miami Herald reports.

Over the past month, half a dozen conferences have canceled contracts to hold events for thousands of attendees each in Broward County.  Others have given notice to sites around the state.  The latest:  the National Society of Black Engineers, which announced this week it was moving its 15,000-attendee from Orlndo to Atlanta.

“The very basis of our work is equity,” NSBE CEO Janeen Uzzell told the Tallahassee Democrat. “NSBE was formed almost 50 years ago in response to the sparsity of Black people enrolling and succeeding in engineering education programs. So, we stand firm in our decision to relocate, because, inherently, any efforts that seek to regress diversity, equity and inclusion directly impact us and are unaligned with the mission of NSBE.”

In a recent email, Visit Lauderdale told its members that the Masons conference canceled its Florida event, specifically citing DeSantis’s bigoted policies as the reason:  “We lost this program due to political climate.”  It then announced that  2024 National Family and Community Engagement and Community Schools Conference it was in the running for–which would’ve booked 2,000 hotel rooms–gave the county the kibosh due to the state’s newly enacted censorship laws:  “Group decided to pull out of Florida due to concerns about what the Governor is doing in the education/schools and that he will likely run in 2024. They do not want to lose attendees due to this.”

Attendees are rightfully scared of potential disruption and violence impacting attendees given DeSantis continues to stoke anger and hatred to various groups like educators, minorities and the LGBTQ community.  By most assessments, tourism is the state’s largest single industry, with more than $112 billion in direct spending from visitors.