Tourism for Florida – going to get worse before it gets better?
Posted by Jackie Ewing on September 3, 2009
I just spent a couple of days in Miami Beach at the Florida Governor’s conference on Tourism. On my way there I was somewhat optimistic that perhaps we were looking at a slight rebound in travelers to the Sunshine State. Now, I’m not so optimistic!
With a 30% budget cut to the funds Visit Florida have to promote tourism to Florida, their efforts will be severely hampered. With a new concentration on social media and reconnecting with previous visitors, they are targeting the customers that they KNOW have already visited and will be an easier sell to get them to come back. Same idea should apply to all businesses in the hospitality industry – know your customers and keep in touch with them. When they are ready to buy, you should already be on their mind.
Entertaining speech
The opening night speaker was humorist and author, Dave Barry. He was very entertaining with his take on life in Miami-Dade County and in Florida in general! Other than take my mind off the issues at hand, I couldn’t really relate his speech too much to the current state of tourism – but he was still my favorite speaker of the conference!
The dinner that night was fantastic. The culinary staff at the Fontainebleau Hotel outdid themselves and earned a standing ovation from the entire conference for their fabulousness!
Governor Charlie Crist surprised the masses by showing up and saying a few words at the conference. According to those that have attended the conference in recent years, the Governor has NOT had time to show up for his own conference on tourism. Given that tourism provides so many jobs and so much tax revenue, perhaps Charlie has become more informed and realized that he might need to show a little support to the industry royalty…….”and the times, they are a changing!”
Overall, the message appeared to be – we are in for a continued bumpy ride in tourism. Hold on and do whatever you can to promote your niche to your existing customers. Social Media was touted as being a great source to communicate with your customers – Visit Florida has begun several initiatives to incorporate social media into it’s dwindling marketing budget.
A recent report from the Orlando Sentinel (apologies, the link is no longer working – they have removed the article) more or less confirms that Florida Tourism is suffering. Orlando as a top tourist destination is perhaps suffering more than most.
NEW – short video clip from the Governor’s Conference.
