“Table of Eight” – February 2009

An Occasional Column about our HSMAI-South Florida Chapter’s Monthly Events

Our HSMAI-South Florida monthly meeting was held on Wednesday, February 18th at the Grill Room in the Riverside Hotel. A sell-out crowd had the pleasure of hearing Will Secombe, head of marketing for VISIT FLORIDA. The facts and figures of his presentation are posted on our website, so I won’t go into the details of that information. It was sobering to learn that for the first time in seven years, visitor numbers are down for our state. We had the chance to hear about plans to keep our destination competitive and had the opportunity to ask concerning questions of our speaker. One item that Will pointed out was disconcerting and requires immediate action. The tourist industry has become too complacent in that we assume that everyone (including our representatives in the state legislature) realizes the economic value of our number one industry to the state and its residents. Otherwise, our legislators would not have contemplated, without hesitation, drastically reducing the tourism marketing budget.

For our other monthly event we want to thank Robyn Melvin, Sales and Marketing Manager and Scott Jacobs, General Manager, of the Hard Rock Café in Hollywood. As you know, on Tuesday, February 24th (Mardi Gras), we had the pleasure of being invited to an exclusive breakfast event wholly hosted by the Hard Rock Café as an appreciation of our members and guests. We were also joined by some members of the local chapter of MPI. What a lovely and special morning – good food (those made-to-order omelets and a buffet including yummy biscuits and gravy), souvenirs (you can never have too many beads), a jazz combo to get our toes tapping, the fun of posing for photographs, and the traditions of painting coconuts and eating king cake. A good time was had by all – new and old friends chatting away, networking, being introduced to the Café facilities -- all topped off with goodie gift bags on our departure. Some of us (who shall be nameless) had a very hard time going back to our offices!

Looking ahead: So looking forward to our March dinner event at the “new” Fontainebleau resort in Miami Beach on March 18th. Sal Dickinson will be offering a timely presentation on “Selling in an Uncertain Economy.” Please don’t wait to register so you won’t be shut out. See you there. Best, Julie