It happened again this month. A series of seemingly random stimuli coalesced into a concept for y’all to consider in this edition of the Z-News. WARNING: This is a longish rant. If you'd rather listen than read, click HERE.

Stimuli One: When a crisis befalls your community or the media impugns your destination, the DMO confidently steps in to respond, right? Except when you are a County Department DMO that is required to run all such responses through a couple attorneys, the purchasing agent, an oversight Board and some low level administrators. It happened to a DMO in Florida last summer when an Atlanta TV station erroneously reported that flesh eating bacteria were washing ashore in that destination. Because of the draconian restrictions the County had laid on the DMO, a response took over a month to be mounted; a tad late to have any effect on public opinion.

Stimuli Two: Sticking with Florida, the Legislature there has passed a State budget that slashes the funding of Visit Florida from $78 million to $25 million and has placed draconian (there’s that word again) restrictions on how the agency functions day-to-day that even the paired down effort is doomed to failure.

“You gotta be there before you gotta be there.” I don’t know if he coined the phrase, but I learned that from my friend Phil Craig (CEO of the Ohio Association of Convention & Visitors Bureaus). The insanity currently in play in the Florida Legislature (the House of Representatives has voted to radically cut its investment in Visit Florida) should certainly cause anyone in a leadership position within the Destination Marketing sector to take Phil’s words as serious as a heart attack. Because, they ARE coming for you, too.

To paraphrase the Persuaders (and the Pretenders' sensational cover), it’s a fine line between legal and not. And, sad to say, we’re seeing a lot more utilization of Hotel Occupancy Tax on pet projects and questionable investments than ever before. Despite being told once by a legislator, “I don’t give a damn about original intent,” let’s be clear here: The intent of Room Tax has always been to increase visitation to a destination. It’s why, in many cases, the hotel and lodging community supported (or, at least chose not to oppose) the imposition of the tax in the first place. If invested properly, it would serve to increase their business.

The light went off for me at that moment…and not just that our PR pitches could be better. At roughly the same time, I had watched an online video of a DMO CEO present their budget request to a City Council using the same high school report format. Who we are, why we do what we do, how many awards we have won for our work…etc. When that first slide should have been like a Steve Jobs presentation: $90 million in non-resident local taxes generated! Big, bold and in their face. We generate more tax revenue to your bottom line that any other contractor in which you invest, bar none. Would you like to see how?

It’s a Brand New Day, indeed. A few weeks ago, at the Annual Convention, Destination Marketing Association International introduced the new management team at the Mothership…and a renewed sense of purpose, professionalism and passion that was palpable. It’s something for which our industry had been missing for a while.