Visit Florida Gets Grant to Photograph Florida Beaches for Google Maps

Visit Florida received a $500,000 grant on Monday from BP's Gulf Seafood and Tourism Promotional Fund to assist with expenses related to Visit Florida'sGoogle Street View Trekker project. The BP grant funding will help cover expenses related to the project, including the cost for the trekkers to travel the state, production of the captured images and promotion of the final product on Google Maps.

Through an ongoing partnership with Google, Visit Florida was given the opportunity to become the first in the nation to capture and incorporate images of Florida's 825 miles of beaches into Google Maps. According to Visit Florida, the project will "allow Florida beach images to live in perpetuity on the worlds largest and most used search engine, providing potential visitors around the globe with an incredibly visual and interactive way to help plan their next Sunshine State vacation."

The trekker teams have already completed covering 400 miles of North and Central Florida beaches. The image-capturing will conclude in November in South Florida, marked by a crossing the finish line event. Google will then set to work creating the final product, which is expected to appear online in spring 2014.