[As published in The Review +]
Every country has a gateway—a portal that welcomes visitors to the most popular tourist destinations in the world.
If you visit Paris, then you’ve experienced France. And if you’ve experienced France, then you’ve experienced Europe.
When travelers come to North America, there are many reasons why so many people enjoy visiting Florida. This southeastern state is a popular area, and the Palm Beaches is truly where the heart lies. As “America’s first resort destination,” it is a diverse place, and so rich in culture, architecture, food, and history. With such natural beauty, amazing climate, the best beaches in the country and a myriad of outdoor recreational activities such as swimming, boating, diving, as well as the world’s best golf courses, amazing attractions like Lion Country Safari, Palm Beach Zoo, Morikami Museum & Japanese Garden, and a number of other art museums, galleries and festivals, concerts, theaters, and so much more—people who really want to experience Florida, come to the Palm Beaches.
But this natural splendor is not just for fun and games. More and more entrepreneurs, especially Millennials, from all over the world are picking up their surf boards, golf clubs and suntan lotion and moving their companies and families to this hip and vibrant new mecca that for all its blows and whistles, hasn't lost its old Florida charm and southern's sense of hospitality.
Considered to be the gateway to Florida, the Palm Beaches consists of a cluster of cities from Boca Raton in the south to Jupiter in the north, and from Palm Beach in the east to Lake Okeechobee in the west.
Making tourists’ experience smarter and better is Discover The Palm Beaches, a private, non-profit corporation that has a contract with Palm Beach County’sgovernment. Discover the Palm Beaches has a broad responsibility to market everything about Palm Beach County’ great tourism masses to the world. And they do that through many channels, activities, and efforts that deliver the brand called, the Palm Beaches.
As The Review + is always seeking tremendous city stories, who better than Jorge Pesquera, president and CEO of Discover The Palm Beaches, to turn the great experiences he's seen firsthand into a compelling story. In this piece, we’ll be talking about his company and how their new brand is focused on making the Palm Beaches the best way to experience Florida.
Jorge Pesquera, president and CEO of Discover The Palm Beaches at their offices in West Palm Beach.
MC: Jorge, tell us about the new brand.
JP: In the last few years, we’ve changed our name from Palm Beach County, Floridato an invitation to come and discover the Palm Beaches.
MC: So what made you change the brand name?
JP: We learned through a process called brand assessmentthat that name did not resonate as well to the travelers and to the potential visitors. So, we moved from Palm Beach County to Discover The Palm Beaches.
MC: And through that brand assessment, did you discoveranything else about your business?
JP: Well, it also gave us a road map or what we call a number of key phrases that we use on a regular basis that really summarizes what the brand is all about.
MC: What are those key phrases?
JP: We have something we call the brand promise, which basically says that the Palm Beaches are the best way to experience Florida. It’s a place where genuine hospitality is a way of life.Breathtaking Beauty Occurs Naturally.It’s the place to enjoy the time of your life.
MC: So how and when do you use these four key phrases?
JP: The best way to experience Floridais the aspiration to be best in class—of being the place that has to be on your bucket list. When you are visiting Florida, you should not miss Palm Beach County or the Palm Beaches. Genuine hospitality has been a way of life because we’ve been hosting people here since the 1890s.
MC: So, 120 years of hospitality…
JP: That’s right. And in the grand style that Henry Flagler designed these massive hotels in the island of Palm Beach, and put in the first 18-hole golf course in between them, and by doing that he created America’s first resort destination.
MC: The place where the elite from Philadelphia, New York and Boston came to vacation in the winter time…and many stayed here.
JP: Yes, and Flagler built this massive house for his third wife. She must have been a very special person.
MC: [laughing] So true. Now, what have you been able to see after the brand shift?
JP: It has been very effective. Over the last six years, we have seen increased visitation to Palm Beach County by 50%. And with this last year of really good results, we have seen an added 6%, so we have now 56% increased visitation.
MC: What are some of the things that you do on a regular basis to increase that number?
JP: We have a structure here that has two core functions: 1. Marketing, and under it we have advertising, media, placement, public relations, and social media marketing. And then we have a leisure sales effort, where we go out to tour operators and travel agencies in a very systematic way—domestically and internationally—to bring attention to these influencers to recommend Palm Beach County as a place to vacation. And that’s on the marketing side. We recently integrated into marketing a department that we call Content & Community Engagement.
MC: And what services does that department provide?
JP: It’s what people used to think as membership programs. But here it is more broad than that because we try to rally the local community to understand the tourism agenda, and to support tourism through their own efforts by inviting friends, using social media and by participating as members or partners of Discover the Palm Beaches, which in turn adds additional content to what we serve to the world through our website, etc.
MC: Speaking about your website…it is a robust platform used to promote this new brand.
JP: I agree. There’s a digital team that does a great job. We recently won a big award as one of the “Top 25 Best Tourism Websites in the World.”
MC: That’s remarkable.
JP: We’re very proud of that.
MC: That’s the marketing core of the department. What’s the other function you mentioned?
JP: That would be Group Sales/Services. As the label implies, it has a very systematic approach to soliciting meeting planners and convention organizers to bring their events to Palm Beach County. And whether they go to a specific hotel like the PGA Resort, or they may use the Convention Center in West Palm Beach or the Boca Raton Resort in Boca Raton, we are trying to put people in what we call Group Houses—the hotels that have meeting facilities in the county.
MC: Aside from the facility, what other services do they provide to the meeting planners?
JP: Before the companies arrive, and right after we sell them on the booking, we provide a list of our local services, whether it is transportation, photography, decoration, or public relations, whatever it may be, to make their event more successful.
MC: Tell me a little bit about your new initiative called Destination Development.
JP: Basically, we are presenting to the investment and developer community all the great attributes that we have for them to come and build more hotels and attractions. This is a new initiative that we are doing in collaboration with the Tourism Development Council and other agencies, including the Sports Division, the Film Commission, and the Cultural Council, under the umbrella of The Tourism Development Council, which is the government entity that oversees the contract that we have with Palm Beach County.
MC: So, when a new hotel comes. How does your department work with them in terms of publicity, marketing, etc.
JP: That’s a good question. There are two tiers to what you are asking. Let’s say we just learned that the Canopy Hotel is coming or already coming out of the ground, on the corner of Lakewood and S. Dixie in West Palm Beach. It’s a new brand under The Hilton, so we contact the developers, who are actually based here in Palm Beach County, and we establish a relationship with them to let them know about all the great things that we can do for them to be successful when they open the hotel a year and a half from now when it gets finished.
MC: So, that’s after the deal has already been done. And the other scenario, before they come?
JP: What we are trying to do is to create relationships with all the city leadership, such as the City Redevelopment Agencies and the Downtown Development Authorities, as well as the city managers, etc. to identify what opportunities are there to grow the tourism in each of these cities. For instance, the City of Lake Worth has been struggling to get a hotel built in Downtown Lake Worth—the refurbishment of the Gulfstream Hotel, which is near the bridge that goes over to Palm Beach, so we meet with these folks who are potential investors and we try to provide them with all the data and statistics that showcase how successful we’ve been with our projections into the future, and how successful they can be if they invest in Palm Beach County.
MC: Therefore, your organization is collecting collateral and statistical material…
JP: That’s right. A sort of guidebook for investors, developers, and operators, and that’s so that they feel more comfortable when they invest say… $100 million in a hotel that they’re going to get their return on investment.
MC: So you create awareness for them and they receive a support system from the county.
JP: Correct. We will do a number of things in terms of their launch and their public relation announcements. Our reach is very far and wide, and we will put their name very prominently on our website, as a new thing that people should be aware of, through social media and through all kinds of channels that will highlight that there’s a new place to stay in Palm Beach County.
MC: How do you work with the existing entities?
JP: We work very closely with them. We have several of the hotels on our board of directors, including The Boca Resort, The Breakers, The Hilton West Palm Beach, The Hilton at the Airport, PGA Resort, The Hyatt…so we have a direct reporting line, if you will, to these hotels that are giving us their best thinking about how to best promote Palm Beach County. What we do, in answer to your question, is we create a marketing plan every year that is the road map for the current year on all the different activities and initiatives that we are going to deploy next. This detailed plan includes who they would be inviting, such as bloggers and travel writers with fan trips during the different times of the year.
In addition to that, when the plan is done, we invite the hotels and attractions to become co-op partners with us in co-operative advertising. So we give them a menu of let’s say, a million dollars in advertising that they can participate in with their message, whether it is digital or print. As a way to promote them, they can be featured in our website in many different ways. Every time a travel writer comes down here and kicks the tires, as I like to say, in different hotels and attractions, they generally go back and write a good story about what we’re all about, so that’s very positive.
MC: Do you attend trade shows in order to advertise our cities?
JP: Yes, we go to about 50 or 60 shows a year around the country, and in places like Brazil, the UK, and Colombia. And our partners can participate in those trade shows if they’re willing and would like to pay their way. There’s sometimes a small fee to participate in the booth. They get to see a lot of customers in these trade shows and so that’s another way that they collaborate and get a lot of exposure.
MC: With all of that in mind, what is your five-year tunnel vision for the Palm Beaches?
JP: Our vision is to position the Palm Beaches as Florida’s premier travel destination.
MC: Well, we are the largest county in the State of Florida.
JP: And offer more diversity, best in class, authentic experiences than any other singular county in the State of Florida.
MC: More than Dade County?
JP: Absolutely. When you look at authentic tourism experiences, we are never going to be as big as Orlando and we are not going to be a big city like Miami, which is the center of all international business activity with lots of corporate offices. But, we have a collection of 39 cities, of which about 10 of them have a significant product. None of our cities are much bigger than the other. Our largest city is West Palm Beach, which has 120,000 people.
MC: Yeah, that’s a village compared to Miami.
JP: [laughing] Yeah, but when you look at all the great experiences, we are best in golf…
MC: Well, we are Florida’s golf capital…
JP: That’s right! We have more golf courses here than anywhere else in the country! We are Florida’s cultural capital. There are more cultural centers here than anywhere else in the State of Florida. We are also the undisputed, equestrian and polo center of North America.
MC: And let’s not forget the proximity that we have to the island of Palm Beach, which attracts the affluent people who love polo…after all, it is the sport of kings.
JP: And the island has two of the most classic and historical resorts in the whole country: The Boca Raton Resort and The Breakers. One is from the 1920s and the other from the 1890s.
MC: What are about the shopping areas?
JP: We have 15 shopping areas that are stress free—you don’t need to fight for a parking spot when you go to The Gardens Mall or The Boca Raton Town Center Mall or Worth Avenue.
MC: Antique Row in West Palm Beach is one of my favorite shopping spots for quaint offerings…
JP: Well, that is one of the most unique antique centers anywhere in the country.
MC: We are also known for our sports like fishing and diving.
JP: And there’s a good reason for that. The gulf stream current that comes from the Gulf of Mexico comes closest to our Palm Beach shore, so the fish are closest to us than anywhere else in the State of Florida.
MC: And for the magic of the Everglades…
JP: You have the Loxahatchee Arthur Marshall National Wildlife Center, which is 20 minutes from West Palm Beach.
MC: You’re right, when you look at other places, they may have one or two of these things, but they don’t have ten of these things.
JP: And they are not all in such quantity and quality as we have here in Palm Beach County.
MC: As a person who has lived and experienced all three South Florida counties: Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, I feel like the lifestyle here is equal to none.
JP: Yes, we have a phrase that says, “We have the diversity without the density.” So you don’t have to struggle in a traffic jam for countless hours. I just went to Boca Raton Resort for lunch. From my office in West Palm Beach to the resort is actually 27 miles. I left here at 11:30am and got there at 12pm; I left there at 1:30pm and got here at 2:05pm…on a Friday, during season time.
MC: As a resident, I recognize how tourism plays a big role in the Palm Beaches, making a huge economic impact to our area, as it supports a recorded 70,000 jobs. And yet, the average resident may say, “I don’t understand how all these visitors help me,” but they do!
JP: Actually, our latest number is $7.1 billion of economic impact. So the quality of life of residents is improved because of the efforts of Discover the Palm Beaches, the hotels and attractions that promote themselves through advertising and their own marketing efforts. I know that Lion Country Safari, which is our biggest attraction, does tons of promotion down in Miami and in the Orlando area.
The Cultural Council has its own marketing efforts. The Sports Commission hosts many sports events from lacrosse to baseball, football, etc. to come here. We’re blessed by the fact that The Honda Classic decided to bring their event here. It brought over 200,000 participants to PGA, and it was broadcasted internationally. So, somebody in Colombia or Shanghai was watching golf playing in Palm Beach Gardens.
MC: And the same thing can be said for the Delray Open and the Astros…
JP: And did you know that we have the National Croquet Center in Palm Beach County, the largest facility of its kind in the world? Go figure!
MC: Not to mention, 47 miles of beautiful beaches…
JP: Which is the number one reason why people come to the State of Florida.
[caption id="attachment_3093" align="alignnone" width="1024"]📷Florida beaches attract millions of travelers to discover our cities.[/caption]
MC: And then many of them stay. Looking at the future, how do you envision the Palm Beaches?
JP: Well, we have these cool downtown areas in Boca Ratonand Delray Beach, which is a fantastic destination in its own right. We have Boynton Beach, Lake Worth, West Palm Beach, and other places where we believe that the urban vibe can accommodate further additional tourism products that help create a downtown feel. With the many changes that have taken place in the past two decades, people are enjoying a vibrant city atmosphere in these small cities.
MC: So, the future looks bright…
JP: Absolutely! Look at our location. We are strategically located between the number one international gateway, which is Miami. That big airport down there, as many people don’t like it because of its massive size, it is very good in bringing many people from all over the world. And on the other side we have Orlando, the number one domestic destination in the United States. They get more visitors there than any other place in the country. So, being right in the middle, and now connected by Brightline Express, our fast rail system, is a big blessing for us.
MC: And how do you think the Brightline Express is going to impact tourism in the Palm Beaches, and its connecting cities: Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Orlando?
JP: Very positively. We have a great relationship with Brightline, which is unique to North America.
MC: It’s the closest train to the “Ave,” the fast train in Spain, which I rode as a kid…
JP: Yes, I rode it too from Madrid to Sevilla. The Europeans are a bit more advanced in that regards, but like you said, this is as close as you can get to a European style rail experience in the United States.
MC: Anything else you’d like to add?
JP: Just that our vision and mission are very simple statements: The vision is to position the Palm Beaches as Florida’s premier travel destination—the bucket list travel destination in Florida. And our mission is even simpler: to grow the tourism economy.
MC: And what does that mean exactly?
JP: More economic activity, more jobs, giving people the first step into the American dream. You don’t need to have a PhD in Biophysics to be a bus boy or house maid, but you can grow your career with hard work and determination, and you can be a general manager of a hotel if you put your mind into it. So, I think tourism and hospitality provide those opportunities. We still have a lot of challenges in Palm Beach County that can be addressed with a robust tourism economy.