Is there a doctor in the house?

We just spent a long weekend in New Orleans. We can’t get enough of the place. This time we went to see a show, Jimmy Buffett’s musical ‘Return to Margaritaville’ at the amazingly restored Saenger Theatre. The theatre is a tourist destination in its own right having benefitted from a multi million dollar restoration following the devastation of flooding after Katrina. The Saenger has been returned to better than original, as it incorporates updates to the stage and its public amenities. Well worth a visit.

New Orleans’ tourism is surging. The city has done a lot to encourage visitors with not only great marketing, but ensuring the various tourism and hospitality stakeholders work together to attract both new and old visitors alike. This has paid off with not only increased domestic tourists but attracted new overseas visitors via the new air services that have started over the past year.

While we were in the city we got to experience a service that you don’t immediately think of as being tourist oriented, but is probably essential. Beth my Lady Wife, Chief Researcher and personal travel agent, hurt her foot. Nothing too serious but very painful. We needed to get medical treatment and started to look for a walk-in clinic or something similar. Surprisingly, she found something called NOLA Doc.

This service is run by Dr Mark Berenson, a board certified Family Physician and a native of New Orleans.  He earned a medical degree from Tulane University in 2003 and completed residency in 2006 at the UCSF Family Medicine Residency in Santa Rosa, California.  Immediately after residency, he took on the role as hospitalist and an emergency physician at several hospitals around the bay area and has also become a member of the UCSF Clinical Faculty as an instructor of Inpatient Medicine at San Francisco General Hospital.  In 2010, he joined Care Practice of San Francisco, providing acute and primary care in both the office and in-home setting.  Having worked for years in both the hospital and in-home setting, Dr. Berenson has learned to clearly distinguish the role for a hospital visit and the importance of staying in one’s home for medical care.

The majority of his time during the week is spent visiting home bound patients, but he is available to make visits to hotels and tourists who find themselves in need of help. This can range from the unexpected illness to cases of, shall we say, over indulgence! The latter is obviously not uncommon in The Crescent City being as it is, the center for all sorts of parties.

Cycling round the French Quarter on his bike, Dr Mark makes calls equipped with everything he needs to cope with the anticipated illness. He doesn’t deal with insurance companies but does take credit cards and supplies an emailed receipt that can obviously submitted to your insurance provider.

His ministrations to Beth allowed her to carry on with the vacation virtually uninterrupted. So, not a ‘normal’ tourist service, but one that works well and if you’re planning a trip to New Orleans his number is worth keeping handy. Check out http://www.noladoc.com.

As for Jimmy Buffett’s musical (which opens in New York in early 2018) it’s a nice feel-good show particularly if you’re a fan of Trop Rock music. We were lucky being there for the last night of the run which featured a surprise appearance by Jimmy Buffett himself

Lodging Leaders Podcast.

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a podcast called Lodging Leaders with Jonathan Albano.

Lodging Leaders brings together the best and brightest minds of the hotel industry to share their stories, insights and actionable advice. Each week, LodgingMetrics.com founder and entrepreneur Jon Albano interviews inspiring hoteliers and leading industry professionals that have produced amazing results.

You can hear the full interview HERE

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes HERE   or on Stitcher HERE.

Lodging Leaders

Daily News Column: Social media can’t be downplayed as an influence on tourism

This article was published in the Northwest Florida Daily News on Sunday, March 11, 2017.Tourism advice

When you go on vacation, how do you get advice on where to go, stay and what to do? Do you visit a travel agent or look at ads in magazines or on television? It appears (surprise, surprise!) that the way we get that information is changing.

I’m a picture taker. I hesitate to say photographer, but I’ve been taking photos since I was 7. I’m not sure if I travel to take photos, or take photos because I’m a traveler. Instead of joining a photography club, I’m on a number of online forums that seem to have taken their place, and I’m amazed at the number of posts that start off “I’m going on vacation, can anyone tell me where to go and what to see?” They’re not just asking about photographic opportunities, but looking for wider suggestions, and from people who are neither friends nor, apparently, experts.

To read the rest of the article Click Here

 

Daily News ‘Talking Tourism’ column. Digital is essential, but tourists still want human interaction.

Did you know that just 14 percent of Snapchat users are over 35 years old, where as half of Facebook users are over 35? If you asked what Snapchat is, then I guess you must be nearly as old as I am. The thing is that in tourism the digital world is where everything is happening. It’s been that way for a while and digital, particularly mobile devices, are leading the way. Google has seen a 50 percent increase in travel-related searches over the past year on smartphones — not tablets and laptops, but smartphones.

The younger travelers, millennials and centennials are committed to their phones and their influence on old travelers is very strong. Parents and grandparents are going to the youngsters for advice and research. These groups also love images and video. Instagram is the favorite social media channel for 33 percent of U.S. teenagers compared with only 14 percent for Facebook. YouTube reaches more people between the ages of 18 to 49 than any network TV or cable provider. YouTube reports that interest in travel-related video is up 60 percent in the last couple of years.
What does this mean for tourism?……

To read the rest of the article, click HERE