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NY Tourism Site Forced To Take Down "Visit Keys" Message

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MIAMI (CBSMiami) - Stop, look around and enjoy are relatively mild temps compared to the rest of the country.

Just how bad is it up North? Earlier this week the tourism office of Ithaca, New York put on its website that would-be visitors should visit the Florida Keys instead.

Who can blame them. Ithaca has received 71 inches of snow this season and its average temperature is 27.9-degrees.

VisitIthaca.com's home page displayed sunny photos and provided links to Florida Keys information.

The top of the page read: "That's it. We surrender. Winter, you win. Key West anyone?"

As of Wednesday, the "Go to Florida" message was gone.

Why?

"It was crashing our website, so we took it down," Rachael Walpole, assistant visitor services manager for the Ithaca/Tompkins County Visitors Bureau, told Syracuse.com. "It was crashing because of all the people trying to view it."

The site reportedly received 80,000 page views since the "Go To Florida" display went up on Sunday or about 18 times more views than it would normally get.

The tourism office reportedly put up the Florida display to draw attention to the website where could visitors could find out what to do in the area when things started to warm up.

While most appreciated the humor of the Keys' display, it didn't sit well with one group. Apparently New York's ski operators didn't appreciate it very much.

"Yeah, we get cold and snow, but it's all part of living in a four-season environment," said Scott Brandi, president of Ski Areas of New York Inc., told syracuse.com. "To do this all for the sake of website hits is misguided. Just because it's cold out doesn't mean you have to go to Florida."

Brandi added that he didn't think it was appropriate for the tourism bureau, which is taxpayer funded, to promote other areas.

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