Visit Orlando, the region’s tourism marketing agency, has gotten millions of hotel tax dollars to promote theme parks to Taylor Swift fans, run television ads during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and court international visitors from Canada to Chile.

A pair of Orlando state lawmakers say some of those funds should be spent on more pressing needs  — from expanding mass transit to building affordable housing.

Democrats Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith and Rep. Anna Eskamani argue Visit Orlando has “gobbled up” too much public money under current state law. That law has made the agency one of the country’s best-funded tourism-marketing organizations with an annual budget of more than $100 million.

To succeed, the lawmakers will need to make inroads with a Republican-dominated Legislature that has shown little appetite to shake up the tourist development tax. Visitors pay that tax when they stay in hotels and short-term rentals.

The Democrats have filed several bills to scale back a requirement that at least 40% of hotel tax revenue be used to promote and advertise tourism. Their approach could potentially free up more than $50 million for other public projects.

Diego Bufquin, a professor of hospitality management at Tulane University, said such a change would make sense. Spending so much on Visit Orlando seems questionable when Disney, Universal Studios and SeaWorld — the region’s three major theme parks — already have substantial marketing budgets and global reach, he said.

“Orlando has become a very expensive city to live in,” said Bufquin, a former professor at the University of Central Florida. “The employees who work in the tourism sector … need help. They need help with affordable housing. They need help with transportation.”

Smith agreed, saying the spending mandate bolsters corporate marketing budgets with public money but does little to address the problems the Orlando area faces as a mega-tourism destination.

“We cannot afford things like connecting SunRail to the airport. … We cannot afford workforce housing infrastructure,” he said. “We can’t afford public safety improvements related to tourism, in part, because all of our resources are being gobbled up by Visit Orlando, and that’s why we’ve introduced these reforms.”

Visit Orlando’s leaders argue they deliver an economic return that benefits the community and extends to all parts of the tourism industry. In addition to promoting Orlando’s brand globally, the organization works to attract conventions, gather economic data and forge community partnerships. About 40% of the group’s members are small businesses, according to Visit Orlando.

“We elevate everything our region has to offer — small and large attractions, hotels and meeting spaces, dining, neighborhoods, arts and culture, festivals and entertainment and sporting events,” said Casandra Matej, Visit Orlando’s president and CEO.

Rep. Doug Bankson, R-Apopka, said he views marketing as key to keeping the vital tourism industry thriving in Central Florida.

“We need to use taxes for the purpose the tax was created,” he said. “Robbing Peter to pay Paul is inconsistent with transparency and the purpose of taxation.”

But reformers say mass transit and affordable housing are linked to tourism, and clearing up congested roads near attractions or providing low-paid service workers with a place to live would benefit the industry.

Visit Orlando’s marketing efforts have included television ads that aired during the Summer Olympics, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and other big events.

The organization spent $600,000 to air a commercial during Taylor Swift’s on-demand concert movie of her “Eras” tour that was featured on the Disney+ streaming platform. The ad titled “Unbelievably Real” opened with a family in matching shirts at the Magic Kingdom, followed by theme park scenes at SeaWorld and Universal Studios. It finished with a couple kayaking.

Generated by a 6-percent tax on hotel stays and other short-term rentals, the tourist development tax produced about $360 million in revenue during the 2023-24 budget year. In addition to tourism promotion, the money is used for the Orange County Convention Center, sporting venues, and the arts and museums.

One of Smith’s bills softens the mandatory spending requirement for tourism promotion to no more than $50 million, or about half of what is spent currently.

He also wants to broaden how tourist tax revenue could be spent, adding affordable housing projects to the list of eligible uses.

Another Smith bill would require the private sector to match public contributions to Visit Orlando dollar for dollar. Membership dues contributed about $2.7 million to the Visit Orlando, a fraction of the agency’s $109 million budget, according to the latest tax filings.

“They are totally reliant on taxpayer funding in order exist,” Smith said of the organization. “That is not a public-private partnership. They rely on government and taxpayers to do all of their work, and we are not really seeing the benefits.”

Eskamani has been pushing for years to reform the tourist tax. She backs Smith’s proposals and has filed her own bill that would eliminate the mandatory spending requirement for tourism marketing entirely, giving county commissioners authority over the money.

“It unties their hands,” said Eskamani, a candidate for Orlando mayor in 2027. “It allows them to decide what the allocation should be for the promotion of tourism.”

Orange County Commissioner Kelly Semrad said she would embrace having more discretion in how tourist tax dollars are spent.

“We are consistently pushing for more money from the taxpayers but not really looking at all of the existing tax money that comes in and recognizing that tourists do use our infrastructure,” she said.

Orange County officials pitched a sales tax increase to voters that was soundly defeated in 2022. That 1% tax hike would have generated about $600 million a year for transportation needs.

State and local officials are working this year to raise $6 million to study a proposed extension of SunRail called the “Sunshine Corridor.” That plan, which would cost an estimated $4.4 billion, would connect the Orlando International Airport to the Orange County Convention Center, International Drive and Disney Springs.

Semrad, a UCF professor who studies tourism, said Orlando’s inadequate transit system hurts residents and tourists, who are forced to rent cars and battle traffic during their trips, so tapping into hotel taxes seems logical.

“It’s a great opportunity to have a community impact project that makes a difference in our quality of life, while also improving the tourist experience while they are here in Orlando,” she said.