Around Town...

Belated congratulations to Christine Greenley (Student Chapter Liaison/BOD member) on her recent engagement…and belated best wishes to Joe McKinney for his birthday celebration. Joe is entering his last year at FIU and has been active in our HSMAI student chapter and volunteering at our monthly meetings. Speaking of the student chapter at FIU, they are gearing up for the new semester and will have their new officers elected by next week.

Speaking of elections – you will soon be getting the notification for our “call for nominations” to our Board of Directors. If you’d like to work for our Chapter, whether on a committee or on the Board, please let Stacie Faulds, our President-Elect know about it.

The Dania Beach Tourism Council has passed along several articles on the state of our South Florida tourism situation. Accordingly, they are saying that our summer tourism is “sluggish”. Several other articles indicate that although occupancy is down, our average room rates are up. As always, the collection of these statistics takes some time and their release comes a bit after the events. So South Florida how are you really doing?

Lion Country Safari in West Palm Beach is offering an employee special to those of us in the hotel and restaurant business. From September 8th through November 23rd there’s a special rate of only $8.99 per person. An employee may bring up to 4 guests in one vehicle for the same low price of $8.99 each. Make sure you bring a business card or valid id to prove you’re in the industry.

Great to hear at our August meeting last week a bit about the Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport and the progress to come on the runways, terminals, and other facilities. Over 60 people came to the Tropical Acres resort to eat, network, and learn. Wonderful too was the enthusiastic response to our cell phone collection drive for Women In Distress. We collected 87 phones. Way to go HSMAI!!

See you September 17th at our meeting planners panel at the Broward Convention Center. It starts at 4:30 pm with registration and networking; The program is at 5:30 pm followed by the reception (hors d’oeuvres and drinks) at 6:30 pm. Don’t miss out on this event held along with MPI and hosted by the GFLCVB. There’s limited seating available so get your reservations in early.