Conexión Florida – August

Here’s the Conexión Florida article for August:

I’m not only hooked on traveling, I’m hooked on watching travel programs on television.

I’m not talking about the shows that are trying to get you to book a vacation with the sponsor, but the real behind the scenes, genuine and authentic versions.

There’s been a great series over the past couple of years called ‘Amazing Hotels – behind the front desk’.  The concept behind the series is that a chef and a restaurant and hotel critic travel to various hotels around the world and actually work in them.  Well, I say work in then but really, it’s a case of shadowing various members of staff in their day-to-day tasks. While this is happening, they gain insights into not only how those hotels work, but what the front-line workers think about the industry and the effect that tourism has on their lives.

They’ve featured huge spectacular hotels in Singapore and Dubai, safari lodges in Africa, small and very expensive hotels in remote parts of South America and very remote lodges in Iceland. Over the past two years they’ve visited a wide variety of extremely different locations. Without exception they’ve found that working in the hospitality and tourist industry has had a profound effect on the local workers and……….

Read the rest of the article HERE

Conexión Florida – July

Here’s the Conexión Florida ‘Let’s Talk about Tourism’ article for July…

About 20 years ago, it was predicted that workplace automation, the rise of the internet, and the ability to work from nearly anywhere would lead to a massive increase in leisure time. And as a result, we would see an increase in tourism worldwide. This was predicted to be good for everyone: more travel, more vacations, and a better-funded tourism industry with well-paid jobs for all… Well, the result has happened, and world tourism is at an all time high. However, the reason for that increase was not really as predicted.

Certainly workplace automation, computerization, and the ‘always on’ mobile Internet have had an effect; but the boom has come from other areas. The rise of the Boomer generation was the first driver. Those born after WW2 through 1964 have come to retirement age across the world. They may not actually retire completely…….

Read the rest of the article HERE

Conexión Florida March 2018

Here’s our Conexión Florida article for March.

Don’t you just love tourists? Well, we probably should as not only do they provide income directly for many of us here along the northern Gulf Coast, but also contribute a huge amount in taxes to our areas. More than that, whenever we travel to a new area either on vacation or to visit friends and family, we take the role of tourists ourselves.

The first real tourists (as opposed to explorers, adventurers and other less desirable world wanderers!) were the children of wealthy families in Europe in the 1700s.  To keep them out of trouble and hopefully provide them with some classical education, they were sent off on what was termed The Grand Tour………….

CLICK HERE to read the whole article.

Pretentious?

I was flicking though a newspaper the other day, the UK’s Daily Telegraph, and article caught my eye – ‘Why it’s cool to be a tourist, not a pretentious traveler’ (Read it HERE). It got me thinking….

Tourist, Traveler or Visitor?

Firstly I have to confess I wasn’t physically flipping through a newspaper made out of crushed up trees, I was reading the on-line version. I suppose therefore I was simply bothering a bunch of electrons, but that added to pondering as to how our perceptions have changed.

For example, does reading an on-line newspaper make me less of a reader? When we were actually reading a ‘paper’ paper, our eyes would fall on stories that wouldn’t immediately be our target interest. That expanded our reading list and maybe we found opinions that we didn’t agree with, or subjects that weren’t initially in our wheelhouse. It did give us a wider knowledge and leave us open to new thoughts and opinions. It broadened our view. These days we tend to select our interests and have the electrons present us with just what we expect and with which we are comfortable. Maybe we sit in a little bubble of our own making? Only exposed to our own interests and views.

How does this relate to the traveler versus tourist issue? The article pointed out that some folks consider themselves to be more sophisticated than the average and therefore their wanderings were in some way superior to your run of the mill tourist. The ‘travelers’ (actually it was a British article, so they were ‘travellers’ with two Ls!) considered that their experience was somewhat superior to a tourist. Along with the author, I initially thought this attitude was pretentious in the extreme.

As an aside, a number of areas around Florida have names like The Forgotten Coast, The Space Coast, The Emerald Coast etc. There’s one area I’ve always called The Pretentious Coast. Any ideas where that may be?

While it’s true that someone who travels, is a traveler, and a tourist is by definition “A person who is visiting a place for pleasure and interest, especially when they are on vacation”, there do appear to be a whole bunch of different types of tourists.

There are those who visit an area to gain extra knowledge, cultural tourists, eco-tourists, adventure tourists, even health tourists traveling to seek medical attention they can’t get at home. One assumes these all gain something from their experience and hope that they also contribute to the local economy or culture. Certainly the hope is that they do not purposefully detract from the place they are visiting.

There is a type of tourist that actually does little or nothing for either the area that they visit or for themselves it would appear. I’d suggest that these are folks that travel to a destination but then behave just as they would at home or possibly even behave in a way that wouldn’t be accepted at home. These would be the ones that bring everything with them. They experience nothing of the local culture, and contribute little to the local economy. They may be the ones that just come to party uncontrollably, ending up in jail, hospital or worse.

Now, each to his own and I wouldn’t dare to suggest that what one person finds fun is the only way, but it does strike me that there are various levels of tourism. Some are more desirable to a destination than others. I’m sure The Machu Pichu Tourist Board wouldn’t target bachelor or bachelorette parties, but on the other hand would Panama City Beach expect to receive too many groups studying the works of da Vinci?

Without a doubt some travelers get more out of their experience than others but would we term them Travelers as opposed to Tourists? What’s wrong with being a tourist?

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

Have you thought this out?

It’s Fall and so we’ve begun our traveling season. We tend not to escape from the Gulf Coast during the summer months. Yes, it can be hot and humid (although that doesn’t worry us too much) it’s more as Jimmy Buffett would say “You can’t reason with hurricane season”. The tropical wind event season isn’t over yet, but we’ve passed the peak and with forecasting the way it is these days, you seem to have a week or so warning of any tropical unpleasantness.

My chief researcher and frustrated travel agent (Beth, the First Lady) suggested that we escape to the Northern Georgia Mountains, where her family once owned a mountain lodge. The Development chosen is Big Canoe, a huge property about an hour or so north west of Atlanta. A simple seven hour drive from the coast.

We’ve rented properties before and have gone through property management companies and have also become familiar with VRBO and HomeAway. This time Beth found an ideal property through Airbnb. I’ve written about Airbnb in the past and have followed their progress over the years, but we’ve never actually used them.

The search and booking process was simple and very efficient. We were looking for somewhere that was suitable for the two of us and our two Smooth (short haired) Collies. Airbnb matched us up with a great property and the booking was made. As things happened we subsequently received an offer from American Express (who appear to work closely with Airbnb) which resulted in our extending the stay to take advantage of the offer. Yes, advertising obviously works!

As part of the booking we were put in touch with the owners, a charming couple (Cindy & Joe) who also own a bed and breakfast in Gainsville, Florida. Obviously they’re immersed in the hospitality business and their B&B (The Magnolia Plantation – http://www.magnoliabnb.com/ ) looks like its certainly worth a visit. As things transpire, they also own a Collie, so a mutual bond was established. That’s certainly something that can happen easily with the Airbnb type system, and the personal owner/guest relationship is rather more difficult with more traditional ways of renting. It does seem like a beneficial thing.

Simply put, the property is exactly as described and so far the exercise has been great.

While sitting relaxing I was reading an article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution (thanks once again to the Researcher-in-Chief) about how vacation rentals are being challenged in the North Georgia Lakes area. It’s something that appears to be happening in other parts of the USA and the world in general.

In the Georgia Lakes area, the move is being driven by Georgia Power who own most of the land around the lakes. They are invoking clauses in the leases of properties that are offered by the power company. These are usually 15 year renewable contracts, although according to the AJC, some of these properties have been in the leaseholders families for generations. Families have rented out their homes through rental companies and realtors, and later through VRBO/HomeAway and now Airbnb. The no-subletting clauses have been largely ignored in the past, but now Georgia Power has decided to change their policy. Regrettably some leaseholders who may be second home owners in the lakes or who have inherited the properties feel that the only way they can keep them is if they fund their upkeep through short-term letting.

Certainly Georgia Power have done a huge amount to keep the area pristine and very attractive. Their aims appear to be to avoid the region becoming an overcrowded tourist ‘resort’ area. That’s a very laudable policy.

The move against short term rentals, particularly of the peer-to-peer variety like Airbnb is not restricted to the Georgia Lakes. Many cities, resort areas, states and cities across the world have taken against the growing trend. The reasons appear to be many and varied and range from worries of over-tourism, through to the disappearance of affordable accommodation for locals. Cities like Barcelona and Venice have become places where locals, who service the tourist industry, simply can’t afford to live. Even if they could, property owners can get a substantial income by ‘buying to let’ and therefore the stock of property for permanent residents dries up.

In other case, the move against short-term rentals is driven by competitors in the accommodation markets – hotels, property management companies etc., who don’t like the change in the way business is done. You can’t really blame them, but then it may be a case of adapt to changing fashions or die.

Lastly there are are the folks who having moved into an area, perhaps to retire or to buy a second home, rather like the idea of being ‘the last newcomer in the village’, and wish to call an end to further arrivals.

I’m not judging all of these motives as they’re valid reasons, and I can identify with the emotions. However, there are consequences to not thinking through the whole process.

Let’s start off with the Georgia Lakes. These properties have been in the area for many years. The building of the actual houses provided work for the locals in the construction and later maintenance industries. Subsequent expansion brought in stores to service the new residents and as short term visitation – tourism – developed, so did the need for restaurants and all the business that service the transients. If the current leaseholders can’t short-term rent their properties, they may be forced to sell them. That will probably drive down the real estate prices, and with no transient visitors, the jobs that cater to them will also dry up. Tax revenue (from both income and sales tax from visitors) will reduce putting pressure on local communities to fund services, which in turn will increase local taxes and the vicious circle moves on. This is sounding more like an economics class that tourism observations!

The same sort of thought process applies to the over-tourism scenario. Tourism was attracted by the, well, ‘attractiveness’ of the destination. Rather like over-fishing which destroys the habitat and eventually the livelihood of the fisherfolk, badly managed tourism eventually destroys both the destination and the very people who rely on tourism for their jobs.

The only scenarios that I can’t reconcile are the actions of competitors who would rather legislate against changes in process (For example the taxi drivers versus Uber and Lyft in may destinations around the world) and the ‘Last foreigner in the village’ scenario. I have little sympathy for either group.

The rest? Well, it relies on compromise and sensible management from both sides. Regrettably letting the market decide, isn’t really an option. Like any good farmer will tell you, land management and animal husbandry over a long period are the policies that will result in a sustainable model for all concerned. The same is true of tourism.

Enough of this. The dogs need walking and we need to go and spend some money in local stores to stimulate the local economy. It’s a tough old life eh?

 

August Newsletter

Welcome to August!

Here on the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico, the peak of the summer tourist season is drawing to a close as the schools begin to return for the new academic year. The majority of the summer tourists to the area that stretches from Apalachicola on the Forgotten Coast through to Orange Beach and Gulf Shores in Alabama (actually also further through Mississippi to Louisiana) relies heavily on the family market and draws from the whole of the South East and now up into the mid west. So, now comes the time to reflect on what we did well and what we can improve for 2018.

Of course, the best part of the year is yet to come, as the weather cools slightly and humidity drops, we start to attract both local tourists and the visitors who are not tied to school vacations. A time for festivals and events that draw in an audience that tend to spend more and have an emotional attachment to the Gulf Coast.

How do you reach out to these guests to your business? What’s the secret to getting under their skin? I recently wrote a blog post about the impact that the iPhone and other smart devices have had on the travel, tourism and hospitality industries. In many cases we don’t recognize how things have developed over the past ten years or the major impact changes have had. We’ve seen how the music industry moved through cassettes, CDs and into downloads (possibly back to vinyl too!) over a relatively short period of time but the changes brought about by smart devices have been more rapid and continue to evolve. Fingerprint recognition on phones is now commonplace for unlocking and payment systems but now it’s rumored that Apple will introduce facial recognition on their next iPhone. At the same time Delta Air Lines who have been using electronic boarding passes on flyers phones are now experimenting with identifying passengers with fingerprints and iris scanners.

Does this have an impact on you? If you’re involved in the accommodation industry, how long before the move to door locks that react to smartphones is common place. Major hotel groups are rolling those out and even cruise companies are fitting out their ships with them. This is at a time when many condo owners resist even installing free wi-if for their guests.

How about payment systems take Apple Pay and the Android equivalent? Is that becoming pervasive and does your restaurant/attraction/hotel (insert the appropriate business!) accept it? I was surprised at a fairly high end restaurant recently to be told they didn’t accept American Express cards for payment, let alone any phone based payment systems. That seems to me to be alienating a whole sector of high spending guests.

We are seeing grocery delivery to condos an beach homes taking off with companies like Destin Grocery Girls and now Whole Foods, Fresh Market and Publix offering similar services. This could well have an effect on how many times tourists visit restaurants during their stay. The delivery of very high quality food to your own vacation kitchen, means you don’t have to go out to fight traffic, find parking or restrict alcohol consumption. The tourist may then just go to restaurants for their ‘amazing’ experience.

These are all changes that are happening faster than we care to admit, and need fast reactions from those of us in the industry.

Traffic, tourists and tourism employees.

One of the things that agitates us locals about the summer season is traffic. Believe me it affects the tourists too. The great danger is that the visitors, particularly those coming for the first time may be put off returning if they spend a lot of time stuck in traffic jams. It’s a phenomenon that affects the whole of the Gulf Coast to a lesser or greater extent, although the actual manifestations vary from area to area.

For some destinations traffic issues are pure access. The Saturday snarl-ups at the mid-bay bridge for example, or the lines along 98 around the Navarre bridge. On 30A there are certainly some bottle-necks but the issue there appears to be where to find a parking space. Okaloosa Island and Fort Walton Beach suffer from the bridge with junctions at both ends, while Destin is in grid lock for various reasons from Destin Bridge all through to the county line in the east. The ‘season’ for this is of course from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The rest of the year there is not such an issue. This all stems from our infrastructure which was not planned to cope with the volume of traffic during the peak season. No person or entity could have foreseen such growth when the road system was planned (or happened!) years ago.

The apparently obvious solution is to build more roads, elevated highways or even ban traffic, but none of this makes sense in the short term. Roads take years to plan and authorize, and highways cost upwards of $1 million a mile to build. I’ve been looking at what tourists destinations worldwide are doing to solve such issues in the short term, making best use of the resources they have available, plus how they are planning for 5, 10 and 20 years ahead – giving the time it takes to plan and build infrastructure changes. It’s vital to factor the demographic and attitude changes we can foresee or guess. For example, fewer people are learning to drive and many are not considering car ownership. Ride sharing and acceptance of efficient and pleasant public transport is growing. Autonomous vehicles are coming faster than many are recognizing. Building infrastructure based on current attitudes and technology may be inefficient and frankly redundant. Added to that we need answers now, not in five or ten years time.

Walton County have a parking issue. Those visitors who visit 30A need somewhere to park, so the county has used bed tax to purchase a total of 12.66 acres of land to provide for beach access, parking and a future trolley hub. This seems, to this tourism guy, an eminently sensible move.

I mentioned that Walton County have recognized that parking is their major problem and they have taken steps to address this immediately. The County has spent $24.1 million of bed tax on 12.66 acres of land including 697-feet of beachfront. This will primarily be used for parking but critically also for a future trolley hub.

Visitors, who we should recognize are increasingly familiar with ride sharing (Uber and Lyft), and public transport in their urban home environments, are happy to use trolleys on vacation if those are comfortable, efficient an either free or cheap. They will give up their cars for a more stress free experience. Indeed with the drop in people learning to drive, and in car ownership particularly in urban environments (where most of our visitors originate) they may be attracted by the availability of trolleys. Subsidizing these services may prove cheaper than building roads (at a cost of upwards $1 million per mile) or maintaining them. It’s also something that can be done now, for next season, rather than in 5 or 10 years.

How about 98 through Destin? Well, much of this traffic is visitors driving through the area, and we need to encourage a lot of this to transit through and around the area on I-10. However, a great deal of the volume is getting from accommodations to the beach, the stores, events and restaurants. Not only does this traffic clog the roads but needs parking at either end. Many destinations are solving this issue by providing park-and-ride services. Acquiring parking areas is invariably cheaper than building roads and certainly more immediate. Subsidizing trolley services is again cheaper than building and maintaining roads. Importantly, the trolley service must be attractive, so it must be efficient, pleasant and crucially be a better experience than using your own vehicle.

This means the trolley must have priority over other road users, either by creating bus lanes (possibly only during peak traffic periods) and by making the ride cheaper. Free trolley travel, and charging for parking, except at the park-and-ride stop is a good start and is being used in many destinations across the country and around the world. Providing trolley transport and park-and-ride would also help workers in the tourism and hospitality industries get to their jobs too. They need all the help they can get!

Remember that these concepts can be implemented quickly not over many years. They’re also in use in many other places. They are measures that can be switched on only at peak times, either during particularly heavy traffic hours, days or certain months. They can be flexible in that we can adapt to changing demographics and fashions and we won’t end up covering the whole coast in tarmac!

Our solutions to these challenges need to be radical and inventive. We don’t need to reinvent solutions. Many others have already proved they work.

A further traffic issue we have in the area from Fort Walton Beach through to 30A is how the people who work in the tourism and hospitality industry get to and from work. Comparatively few industry folk actually live in Destin or on 30A. They travel in from Fort Walton Beach, Crestview, Niceville and further out. The cost of gas alone makes a dent in their income and their presence on the road increases congestion. Many travel across the Mid Bay Bridge and get no break in the tolls. It makes no sense if these workers have to work for an hour just to pay their Bridge tolls. Surely the Bridge Authority could engineer a 5 day pass for these vital workers as a starting point. Again, cheap or free park and ride using public transport to could not only make our strategic tourism worker’s lives better and more cost effective, but could reduce traffic congestion particularly during high traffic months.

These aren’t socialist ideas or anti-capitalist suggestions. These are sensible ways of maximizing our infrastructure, making the area both better to visit and to live in, and remarkably cost effective. Roads cost $1 million a mile to build and years to plan and implement. Bridges cost even more and take even longer. Public transport, even subsidized, costs less and can be put into place right away or at least by next summer.

We have to take into account as I’ve said before, the changing demographics. Just because people drive here now and have dome for years, doesn’t mean they will continue to do so in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In case you were wondering…..

….what happened to my weekly column in the Northwest Florida Daily News, here’s the scoop. Actually, I hear mutterings of “what column” and “what’s the Daily News?”, but I’ll ignore those for the moment!

Despite being asked to write the Talking Tourism column and being assured that both the newspaper and the readers enjoyed the piece and it was everything that had been asked for, it appears that I mentioned travel and tourism suppliers like Uber, Lyft, Trip Advisor, TripShock, Airbnb etc., but failed to give sufficient coverage to destin.com. destin.com is a website owned by the Daily News and is apparently the source of all tourism information in the area. Mea Culpa. I was referring to sites and companies who actually sold travel and tourism products, as opposed to just collecting tourism related stories.

No matter. The content of Talking Tourism will still be published on owenorganization.com/news, and there will also be a monthly Tourism Topics column in Coastlines, the publication brought to you by The Greater Fort Walton Beach Chamber of Commerce.

Keep your ears and eyes open for some other developments around the Talking Tourism subject over the next few months.

Until next month……

Please follow Owen Organization on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and 500px and on owenorganization.com.

How the iPhone transformed the tourism biz.

Sitting in tourism planning meetings you hear people say “let’s do what we did 10 years ago. It worked then.” Yes, it would be nice to do the same things. There’s something comforting in that, but a recent anniversary made me think that we just can’t roll back time.

The iPhone is 10 years old. It’s not the only smartphone, and wasn’t the first. But it has, like it or not, become the standard bearer for that kind of device. Not everyone has a smartphone, but enough tourists do that it has brought massive changes.

Just looking at the travel, tourism and hospitality businesses, what has the smartphone changed?

People still use printed airline boarding passes but a huge number use electronic passes. Flying into the US you can use a free app called ‘Mobile Passport’ authorized by Customs and Boarder Protection that allows you to pre-file your information and breeze through immigration and customs. I use it. It’s superb.

Where to stay, eat or what to do? TripAdvisor and similar sites offer peer reviews that people tend to trust over ads by hotels, restaurants or attractions. All in your hand, on your smartphone, now.

Book your accommodation? No problem. On your phone at the last minute to get the best deal. I’ve seen people sit outside hotels using their phone to negotiate and book. Same applies to tours and activities. These are usually booked within 48 hours of arrival and online sites like TripShock make booking easy, and the tickets are on your phone – no paper. All you have to do is guess that the weather will be OK. No guessing, DarkSky or a dozen other apps will give you accurate, hour by hour forecasts.

 

How do you get to where you’re going? Built in GPS with turn-by-turn directions, no matter if you’re driving, walking or on public transport. Traffic reports too – yeh, 98 is still blocked.

Don’t bother to carry a camera. Your phone has a camera that makes yesterday’s versions obsolete. Postcards too. You now share your travels to social media friends the world over and you can post your review of the restaurant you just experienced. In places like Jackaccuda’s you can scan a little flag in your meal and see where and when your fish was caught, and who by!

Don’t want to drive? Book an Uber, from your phone of course.

No transistor radios on the beach anymore. You carry your music library with you, and stream what you don’t own. Oh, movies and TV too.

That’s only scratching the surface. Virtual tours of museums and historic sites; payment from your phone; on line shopping; news, books. Oh, and it’s a phone too!

If those are the changes for tourists, think of the changes for hotels, rentals, airlines, car rentals, attractions, restaurants even, in our area, Charter Boat Captains.

Our tourism experience has changed massively in 10 years. But wait, coming soon, virtual and enhanced reality. I’m excited. How about you?

Tourism leader supports beach access for pups

This article appeared in the Northwest Florida Daily News on Tuesday, May 2, 2017.

Like other parts of Northwest Florida, Okaloosa County could attract a lot more economy-boosting visitors by opening a portion of its beaches to dogs.

That’s according to Martin Owen, a Shalimar-based tourism industry consultant who regularly attends Tourist Development Council meetings.

“It’s niche tourism we can attract, particularly out of season,” he said Thursday. “A lot of dog owners tend to like traveling with their dogs. Our neighboring counties are addressing this, and so is Okaloosa.”

County Marine Economic and Tourist Development Resource Coordinator Erika Zambello shared information with the TDC on Thursday about dog-friendly beaches in Walton County and Pensacola Beach in Escambia County. But she said she has not had any discussions with other Okaloosa County officials about establishing a dog-friendly section of beach.

With the exception of service animals and police dogs, dogs are prohibited on the publicly owned beaches of Okaloosa County, Destin and Santa Rosa County. In Walton County, property owners and permanent residents can bring their leashed dogs on the beach during certain hours and with a permit.

People who violate Okaloosa County’s law pertaining to dogs on the beach could be cited with a fine of at least $100. But such citations are rarely given, county officials said.

Usually, sheriff’s deputies will ask violators to remove their dogs from the beach and the dog owners do so without a problem, county spokesman Rob Brown said.

To read the rest of the article CLICK HERE

Two smooth Collies enjoy the beach on St. George Island, Florida
Two smooth Collies enjoy the beach on St. George Island, Florida

Changing tourist landscape – NWF Daily News

 

This article first appeared in the Northwest Florida Daily News on Sunday, April 16, 2017.

I’ve discussed recently the many changes that are coming to our local tourist business — generational changes, increases in fly-in visitors, a demand for better level of service and value, etc. I think we’re all surprised by the speed of these changes, thinking that it will take years for them to actually affect our daily lives. However, look how fast Uber, Airbnb and similar new products have altered the landscape.

Back at the end of March, British Airways started to fly non-stop to New Orleans from London, bringing four flights a week. Later in May, Condor, the German airline, will have two flights a week from Frankfurt. While British Airways is banking on a mix of business and leisure travelers, Condor is aimed squarely at the vacation market. These two new routes add to the already existent Toronto flights, routing vacationers into the northern Gulf of Mexico region. There may be no immediate effect on Northwest Florida, apparently giving plenty of planning time.

To read the rest of the article go to

Harbor Walk Village, Destin
Harbor Walk Village, Destin

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