FLORIDA KEYS — The Florida Keys & Key West tourism council launched a new Web and social media–based feature Monday designed to communicate an accurate status of Keys tourism offerings during the Transocean/BP oil spill crisis.

Each weekend, videographers are to tape visitors enjoying water-related and other vacation offerings in the Keys.

The one-minute-long video is to be edited and posted to the official Keys tourism council’s website at www.fla-keys.com well as social media venues by about 4 p.m. on Mondays. The videos are to be date stamped with no archival footage used in their production.

The debut video is now webcasting at www.fla-keys.com as the tourism council’s Video of the Week, as well as in a special Gulf oil spill section at www.fla-keys.com/oilspill. It has also been uploaded to the tourism council’s You Tube channel at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAdM56LP5bY.

“The Keys have received so much news coverage during the past month and many travel consumers mistakenly think our islands are suffering the same horrific and tragic impacts being seen on some northern Gulf coast shorelines,” said tourism council director Harold Wheeler. “We fortunately are not and need to make the travel consumer understand that.”

The tourism council is also adding live webcams throughout the region. The latest is a webcam installed at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park beach in Key West.

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