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There is not at all arguing with the webcams set up along Florida’s 825 miles of beaches, or the hundreds of photographs instructed on the state’s tourism website. The captions announce “No oil in the present state” and “Pristine” below images of waves lapping at pure, white sand.

But on one short — and ecologically valuable — sprain of coast, BP’s oil began washing ashore yesterday, providing a able-bodied counter-image. The sight of clean-up crews in protective suits scooping oil from a isolated Florida beach will deal a devastating blow to the Sunshine State’s $60 billion traveller industry.

“All along we’ve been battling this similitude of oil pouring out from a well under the Gulf of Mexico,” reported Kathy Torian, of Visit Florida, the state’s tourism supervision. “But you can’t throw a blanket over the totality of Florida.”

In addition to being Florida’s No 1 assiduity, tourism accounts for 21 per cent of the state’s sales charge revenue. Snorkelling is a $239 million industry here. Scuba diving is virtue $45 million and recreational saltwater fishing $5 billion.

Britons lead the unite table of overseas visitors, numbering 913,000 between January and September endure year. Most head not for the Florida Panhandle — the person given to the northwestern stretch now in the immediate zone of affect — but to areas such as Clearwater, St Petersburg and the Florida Keys, every one of still several hundred miles from the oil.

Florida is now expenditure $7 million of a $25 million handout from BP on each aggressive marketing push to make clear that the only thing that’s gluey about Florida is the weather.

But the message has struggled to subsist heard above pessimistic noises from government. The state attorney-general has warned: “This material is going to come.” The advertising campaign’s manifesto that the “coast is clear” is being subtly reworded.

“Florida has 825 miles of beaches, 165 of them right here in the Panhandle,” it states. “165 miles — that’s a doom of beach to choose from.”