As tar balls washed up on a Florida beach for the first time, Panhandle and state tourism officials began grappling with how to escape a disastrous summer season for the local economy. Angst was most acute in Pensacola Beach, where the mostly-pellet-size oil globs began to appear early Friday.

Meanwhile, Gov. Charlie Crist was making the rounds on the national news circuit, talking about the federal government’s oil spill response and visiting Louisiana with President Barack Obama.

Laura Lee, spokeswoman for the Pensacola Convention and Visitors Bureau, said hoteliers and restaurant owners are monitoring their shore properties to assess whether patrons could encounter tar balls within eyeshot. But for now the beaches are still open and the water is still clear and safe for swimmers, she said. “Right now we’re taking this one day at a time.”

Lee said the bureau has $700,000 of the $25 million emergency marketing money the state procured from British Petroleum, and it is expecting another $700,000. It has not started releasing its BP-funded ads yet, and Lee said she doesn't know how they would be tweaked -- or if they can be -- to accommodate the arrival of tar balls.

“We have not worked that out yet,” she said. “We’re still working with our creative marketing team."

Kathy Torian, spokesperson for Visit Florida, said the Florida Live Web site will be updated regularly with warnings of beach closures as they occur.  Visit Florida, the state’s public -private marketing corporation, has received $7.15 million of BP’s emergency marketing money so far. Another $4.4 million has gone to local tourism marketing campaigns

Carol Dover, president and CEO of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, said that the tourism industry is going to continue marketing Florida beaches as untouched by the spill, as those in Destin are.

“While we are respectful of any area that gets hit, we want to remind visitors that Florida has a lot to offer,” she said.

Dover said it’s too soon to determine whether the main oil slick will reach North Florida shores, but right now the beaches are safe to use.

Nonetheless, it’s becoming quite clear that the tourism industry might need more marketing money from BP.

“$25 million was a drop in the bucket,” she said.

Niceville Republican Sen. Don Gaetz, a vocal critic of the long time it took for Crist to get BP’s emergency marketing funds to the tourism industry, said that BP’s 11 cleanup teams, overseen by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, did a good job of cleaning up the gobs of goo Friday morning.

“I think the governor is doing now what he should have done earlier: put the heat on British Petroleum and its resources,” he said.

Joe Murphy, Florida program director for the Gulf Restoration Network, an environmental advocacy group serving five Gulf Coast states, said that Florida needs to press for more involvement from the federal government in fighting the spill. The tar balls washing onto Pensacola Beach pose a threat to birds, sea turtles and larval fish, but it’s nothing compared to the main plume in the Gulf. And it needs to be stemmed soon, he said.

“There’s some frustration. We’re very hopeful that when the governor talks to the president, he’ll convey a very strong message,” Murphy said.

By early Friday afternoon the edge of the oil spill was estimated at less than 4 miles off the coast.