Bill Geist's Zeitgeist

The Other Side of Recovery

Terri and I work in the Destination Marketing space, advising DMOs on governance, management, strategy, funding and development. Thus, a lot of what we post on this blog focuses on this side of the hospitality business.

Spero Batistatos (President of the South Shore IN Convention & Visitors Authority) is one of the top DMO CEO minds in our sector. Unlike me, he actually started his career in the "back of the house" at a hotel/theatre complex (where I'm quite sure we met years before we became comrades in arms because I used to introduce a number of acts at the theatre during my turn in FM rock radio).

Over the weekend, my friend penned a fascinating piece on how hospitality businesses need to be planning to successfully emerge from quarantine...from a decidedly "back of the house" mentality.

It is definitely worth your read.

COVID-19 as a Convenient Excuse

Not like we didn't expect it...but some corporations are using COVID-19 as a convenient excuse for past bad business decisions. We saw it in the aftermath of 9/11...and last month, Playboy announced it was killing off the print edition of its iconic magazine.

Nevermind that it was reportedly losing $1 million an issue. This was an easy out for the once lofty brand.

Speaking of magazines, I've gotten three notices to renew my subscription to Men's Journal in the past three weeks. Didn't they lay off their entire staff last month?

Magazines...another casualty of the new reality.

Tone On

For Destination Marketing Organizations, whose job it is to aggressively promote their communities, these are otherworldy times. To do what we do during this stretch must change...or we appear tone-deaf. 

Most DMOs with the resources and video library to do so have produced messaging that is uplifting and stunningly beautiful. But VisitNorfolk has produced one even more beautiful...featuring the people of Norfolk, imagining what they'll do when they are free to roam their community once again.

So well played.

WTF Logic

After 9/11, Bill Marriott infamously suggested that hotel room taxes should be waived in order to jump-start the travel economy. Yeah, like saving a five-spot would make someone who didn't want to travel instantly say, "hey honey, let's spend the night at the Fairfield Inn."

And yet, it just happened in Prince Albert SK where the City Council last week suspended its Destination Marketing Levy for the rest of the year.

Let's get this straight. You have a tax that virtually no one is paying because virtually no one is staying in your hotels. Those who are staying (and paying the tax) likely have no choice. And so, you eliminate the chance of any revenue coming into the City from that source; revenue that will be critical to spur the hospitality industry's recovery? 

I mean, really. WTF?

The Pain Before the Dawn

Last week, I received a text from a DMO pro: "Can I just say (that) dismantling the team and organization I've built SUCKS."

And, after an amazing couple of weeks in which Destination Marketing Organizations jumped into the fray to assist and save local businesses, the reality has set in. The hotel room tax revenues that DMOs have relied upon to operate have shriveled to next to nothing. The revenue that powered the work of so many is simply no longer there.

This is the pain before the dawn. We must move beyond the agony of the moment to imagine the future of our organizations. This is the great reset. How many times have we considered how we would build the organization from scratch, if we had the opportunity?

We now have that opportunity, as painful as this moment may be.

Innovation in the Face of Crisis

Imagine you are the General Manager of a beachfront resort. You have no guests and the beach is closed. You have beach chairs with no one to enjoy them...or, do you?

Our friend Roger Amidon is the GM of the Palm Beach Marriot Singer Island Resort and Spa. He and his Team figured out a way that everyone can enjoy his beach chairs by arranging and re-arranging them to spell out rotating messages and then streaming them live from his rooftop cam.

So cool.

Handling Force Majeure

If Force Majeure was a person, besides having a pretty cool name, they'd likely have a pretty big chip on their shoulder for being ignored by virtually anybody but lawyers.

Force Majeure is a clause in many contracts that essentially allows one out of said contract in cases of natural or unavoidable catastrophes. Like a pandemic (you can hear more on the subject in our conversation with Bryan Grimaldi on the DMOU Podcast).

Leave it to Kevin Shanley and the Team at Kalahari Resorts to use Force Majeuer as a reason to book an event at one of their resorts.

Brilliant.

How Do You Like Me Now?

They say that crisis brings out the best in so many of us. And, the stories emerging from communities across the country about how Destination Marketing Organizations pivoted on a dime when they realized what was about to descend upon the hospitality community are as heartwarming as they are expected.

Most Americans are just now beginning to understand the importance and fragility of a sector of the economy they always took for granted.  To be sure, airlines and hotels were impacted briefly after 9/11. But, most other facets of the hospitality industry felt no more than a speed bump...because residents were there to continue eating out in restaurants, meeting co-workers after work at the local watering hole and seeing music, theatre and comedy with friends. Indeed, after the initial shock of 9/11 that had us all glued to our televisions, we needed to go out and be with others.

And, in this crisis, we can't.

Never one to say "I told you so," there is the slightest satisfaction that the recent flirtation some communities have had with shopping their DMO contract out to ad agencies should likely now come to an end.  In a recent interview, the Chairman of the Board of Visit Stillwater OK (which last year went through just such an RFP process) was asked what the DMO was doing during the pandemic:  

"We have transitioned our focus from marketing to visitors to communicating to residents to better support our local business partners. Our staff has called almost 200 local businesses to promote their hours of operation, delivery, pick-up or curb-side services, online shopping options and the availability of gift cards. They continue to update the information on our website and social media throughout each day since things are continually changing. Staff has also recently added a coloring contest for kids and adults online, as well as incorporated virtual tours featuring many of our local museums, attractions and restaurants. These 360-degree images will give our residents something to look forward to and visitors' incentive to visit when traveling again."

I'm pretty sure no ad agency could ever do that.

Well done, Visit Stillwater...and all the other DMOs that know that we are the only agency in our communities prepared for days like these for our destination partners.

The Legal Side of COVID-19

Our friend Bryan Grimaldi (formerly with NYC & Company and now with GreenbergTraurig) is intimately engaged with the firm’s Health Emergency Preparedness Task Force, administering matters for the firm on behalf of their hospitality, trade association, not-for-profit and destination clients. 

He reached out over the weekend to offer our readers a curated list of links to some of their Alerts, blog posts and articles from the past week, which may serve as a resource for navigating this rapidly changing crisis and its impact on the legal aspects of conducting business. These represent some of the key topics about which their clients are most concerned.  In addition to the content, there are links via which you can subscribe to additional content from GT, including webinars on hot topics, such as Force Majeure, Employment Matters, and soon, Government Relief Programs. 

Thanks for having our collective back, Bryan. And, stay safe during the NYC lockdown.

Staying Connected

As more and more of us are "sheltering in place," it can become debilitating to those that crave human interaction...not to mention embracing your team culture.

Destinations International is using an online platform to connect its employees at the end of the day for "Happy Hour." And, over the past week, we've seen a number of DMOs do the same.

If you have staff that is working from home...you should too.

Smart.