Thursday, January 22, 2009

Roundtable – January 2009 HSMAI Lunch Meeting

How wonderful to have Nicki Grossman, President, Greater Fort Lauderdale CVB recognize our outgoing 2008 Board of Directors and to install our new 2009 leaders. We so appreciate Nicki’s kind words and support of our goals and our organization. Alfredo Gonzalez’s presentation on international travel was exceptionally well received – it was a wealth of information regarding our past history v.v. this market segment and lots of areas to tap into for potential South Florida travelers. There was so much “good stuff” to absorb, that we will be posting the presentation on our website. It should be up and running, we hope, sometime next week.

We had over 100 people registered to attend our January lunch meeting with lots of walk-ins. Thank you’s to Alice Land and staff at the Renaissance Plantation for adapting to our larger than expected group and for their wonderful hospitality.

We think we’ll have a large crowd, as well, for our February 18th meeting (the speaker is Will Seccombe, Marketing Director, Visit Florida) so do get your reservations in early. The BEST way to guarantee attendance is via advanced pre-paid registration through our website. Just a reminder – our registration is sponsored by national HSMAI and you are directed to a secure paypal website. No problem giving your credit card information plus pre-paying makes the check-in process so much faster. Look for online registration details to come in a couple weeks.

In other news – Congratulations to Doug Carillo, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Tecton Hospitality and Desires Hotels who has been selected as one of the “Top 25 Extraordinary Minds in Sales and Marketing” for 2008. The sixth annual list, given by The Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI), recognizes the “best of the best” in the hospitality, travel and tourism industries and the recipients will be honored at HSMAI’s annual Adrian Awards on Jan. 26, 2009. Doug is a member of our South Florida Chapter, by the way. Way to go Doug!

The gay travel website Pink Choice has awarded five Fort Lauderdale hotels with 2008 Pink Choice Awards. These gay-friendly hotels earned the highest travel ratings in their price range for 2008. Along with Provincetown (they received 7 of the total 15 awards), Fort Lauderdale was cited as standing out because of “their progressive views, wide range in lodging choices, and quality of service.” The local hotel winners are: La Casa del Mar, Fort Lauderdale; Liberty Suites, Dania; New Zealand House, Fort Lauderdale; Pineapple Point, Fort Lauderdale; and the Villa Venice Men’s Resort, Fort Lauderdale. Good job!

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