I’ve watched as the process to find a successor to Nicki Grossman to lead the Greater Ft. Lauderdale CVB has wound down to 7 candidates…with only two currently working in the Destination Marketing space. This is what happens in a State with Sunshine Laws that don't protect candidates seeking a DMO job.
I mean, really. What DMO pro wouldn't want to succeed Nicki after the juggernaut she's built over the past two decades in a simply sensational destination? To inherit the keys to that Cadillac would be sweet, to say the least. But, upon her announcement that she would retire this spring, media reports swirled that a County Commissioner was positioning for the job.
Which is fine (let's not forget that Nicki was a Commissioner before taking the reigns at the CVB and that worked out pretty well). Because, if I wanted to take a shot (I didn't), a County Commissioner wouldn't scare me off. My resume is better and I'd have industry support on my side. Even if the deck was stacked and the fix was in...I wouldn't mind losing to someone that played politics better than I.
I'm just not gonna do it in full view of my current employer, my Mayor, my City Council and my industry partners. And, that's exactly what happens when anybody applies for any DMO job in Florida.
And, it isn't just the finalists. All 53 candidates have been outed. That only 53 people applied for one of the choicest gigs in Destination Marketing is telling in and of itself. But, a quick swing through the list of those that didn't make the cut shows very few DMO pros in the mix. I count 6 former large DMO pros (only 3 with CEO experience), 2 former small market DMO pros and 2 smaller market DMO CEOs currently working. There were lots of applications from hotel and hospitality consultants, GMs and Sales Managers...even a Director of Housekeeping and Laundry. People who generally don't know what they don't know.
But, names that would elicit a "oh, hell yeah," from anybody that knows Destination Marketing. Very few.
All because Florida's media thinks it has a "right to know" when, instead, Sunshine Laws gives it the "right to hurt" the State's economy by denying its DMOs access to some of the best and the brightest Destination Marketers on the planet.
Sad, really.
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