Can Panhandle beaches beat Mickey Mouse?

Branding is what gives Orlando the edge in attracting tourists over the Emerald Coast, ResortQuest’s Lino Maldonado says.
“We’re Florida’s number two destination next to Orlando, but we have more empty rooms,” Maldonado, a member of Okaloosa County’s Tourist Development Council, said at this week’s TDC meeting. The reason, he said, is that Orlando is identified with Disney and even non-Disney attractions benefit from that.

Wednesday, the TDC voted to spend $15,000 to become a member of Coastal Vision 3000, a Panhandle tourism group hoping to establish a similar brand for Northwest Florida, under the name “THE Beach.”

“This is the same concept,” Maldonado said. “We all come together under one halo-type brand that can attract business to this region ... If we all work together, we can all grab a piece of everything new that’s created.”

Some residents and elected officials have dismissed “THE Beach” as a generic name that would work less well than “Emerald Coast.” Maldonado said Coastal Vision 3000 doesn’t want to rename Emerald Coast or Beaches of South Walton; it wants to use THE Beach as an added marketing tool for Destin, South Walton and the rest of the Panhandle.

Maldonado said a regional brand is needed because airlines and other businesses considering expanding into Northwest Florida have no single tourism representative they can talk to.

“They aren’t interested in talking to 19 different groups of people,” Maldonado said. “They want a regional approach.”

The TDC’s Ken Paine said that VisitFlorida, the state’s tourism organization, operates on the same principle, but a group focused on Northwest Florida could produce added benefits.

Buying a $15,000 membership for the next year gives the TDC a board seat and a vote in the organization; a priority listing on the Coastal Vision Web site; and a listing in Coastal Vision’s direct-mail campaign, along with other benefits.

“Our TDC would get one vote out of 30,” Okaloosa Island resident Dave Sherry objected. He said the $15,000 could be better spent on beach restoration.

TDC member Mike Minich said the Coastal Vision membership would be bought with some of the TDC’s advertising money, so it wouldn’t have gone to beach restoration anyway.

Paine said the $15,000 is only one year’s membership, so the TDC can evaluate the benefits over the next 12 months and decide whether it’s worth renewing.

Maldonado said that boosting tourism would generate more of the bed tax revenue that pays for TDC operations, including beach restoration — a good thing when Florida is proposing heavy cuts in beach-restoration funding.
“If (restoration) takes two or three years, why not act now to get more people in?” Maldonado said. “If we can’t get more sand on the beach, we need more people through the gates.”