by Calculated Risk on 6/03/2010 08:34:00 PM

Earlier I posted: Oil Gusher impacting Gulf Coast Hotels

William Spain at MarketWatch has more: Spill could mean dark times for Sunshine State

At stake [in Florida] alone are hundreds of thousands of jobs and perhaps billions of dollars in revenue, depending on when and where the oil from BP PLC's runaway well makes landfall.

Although the beaches were still in the clear as of Thursday afternoon, widespread reports of vacation cancellations are already coming in ...

"It is already ugly," said John Fareed, a partner at Fareed Zapala Koepke, an Orlando-based hospitality-industry consultancy. "When it hits, it will be real and will position itself in the psyche of consumers who are getting ready to make vacation plans. It is going to have a huge impact in terms of future bookings and cancellations.

"Every indication from the people we work with is that bookings have slowed to a trickle".

Of course the loss of tourism pales in comparison to the ecological damage from the oil gusher.