Month: May 2008

New Preschool in Panama City Beach – PCB Academy

A much needed preschool will open in Panama City Beach this week. PCB Academy, catering to children from ages 2 to 5, features an Early Preschool program, Preschool and Pre-Kindergarten. Their website advertises that they beleive that children learn by doing and offer stimulating activities using challenging materials.

PCB Academy uses the High Scope curriculum that utilizes specific “centers” that promote active learning. The interest areas are broken into different categories: block area, house area, small tow area, book area, sand and water area and art area. By doing variations of the same thing each day, progressing throughout the year, the students are given a sense of routine, allowing them to grow to expect what happens next.

PCB Academy had an open house last Wednesday and I was told by some that attended that everything was quite impressive. Having children, I know there is a huge void in the area of quality child care in our area, so I’m excited to see this new school come online on the beach.

The school opens Monday June 2 with the hours from 7am to5:30pm Monday through Friday.

Panama City Beach Number 1 Place to Own a Summer Home

According to AOL Money and Finance, Panama City Beach is The Number 1 Place to Own a Summer Home.

In an article that came out Thursday May 29, 2008 Kelli B. Grant with SmartMoney.com wrote that amid the credit crunch “someone else’s misfortune could work in your favor.”  Home prices are down and according to the short article, if you are in for the long-term and plan to use your second home, now is a great time to buy.

Quoting the article for Panama City Beach:

There’s something for everyone in this Panhandle town where white “sugar sand” beaches along the Gulf of Mexico give way to inland attractions, including six championship golf courses and an active restaurant and nightlife scene. Prices for beachfront property run the gamut from $100,000 for a one-bedroom condo, to $2 million-plus for single-family homes of five bedrooms or more, according to vacation rental site HomeAway.com.

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PCB White Sale Campaign update – with stats

YPartnership’s PCBWhiteSale launched on May 5 2008 with PR and strategic ad placements hitting all the major feeder markets to our area. Besides the creative being weak at best on their “coupon” web site, the actual campaign numbers don’t look that bad.

Part of what I do at my day job is analyze web stats, so this is right up my alley.

The report, available for download below, defines “total hits” and “user sessions” and reports from May 4 to May 23. Based on what Peter Yesawich of YPartnership was saying at the strategy workshop I can only assume in the web stat world, “user sessions” would have to mean unique visitors. Seeing as total pageviews is defined, I would say this is correct.

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Lifeguards on Panama City Beach

The long and short of it is: Should we have lifeguards on our beaches in Panama City Beach? And, if so, why and how will we pay for it?

This comes up almost every year after drownings, and after the tragic deaths of two swimmers over the Memorial Day holiday weekend, it has come up again.

Do we need lifeguards? Could we have prevented the deaths over the weekend if a lifeguard system was in place?

I was listening to the Burnie Thompson Show the other morning and they were discussing that all the beach attendants/vendors are required to be lifeguard certified as part of the permitting process with them running a beach business. It was reported that many of them performed successful rescues over the weekend.

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Wild Heron Owners Offered Full Golf Membership at Shark's Tooth

Last August when St. Joe bought Shark’s Tooth Golf Course including a 10 acre practice facility, a 21,000 square foot clubhouse, a huge cart storage facility, a 4,000 square foot pro shop, four lighted HydroCourt Har-Tru tennis courts and the private 100? waterfront beach club property, golf memberships were no longer available to Wild Heron property owners.

This was a huge issue with existing owners because it no longer allowed they to purchase a private golf membership, including all future owners. So, if you purchased a homesite and built a home, you could not golf on the course that helps define your neighborhood. Stinks, right?

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Panama City Beach Seafood, Wine and Music Festival

When Jeffrey Wolfe’s Multi-Media and Beach Events both showed no interest in promoting this year’s Indian Summer Music Festival, a group headed by Marketing Committee member, Jack Bishop, stepped forward to take of the event. They are wanting to rebrand it as the Panama City Beach Seafood, Wine and Music Festival.

Wondering the history of the name “Indian Summer Music Festival” – I actually like the idea of rebranding it to the Panama City Beach Seafood, Wine and Music Festival.

The two things that keep my wife and I from these festivals is the food and the cost. We used to love going to these things, but every time we’d go we’d pay a fortune for crappy food. It sounds like with this, we may still pay a fortune to get in, but at least the food will be good (hopefully).

Check after the break for the full presentation document.

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2008 Bay County Tourist Development Council Strategic Plan

Today at 2pm at the Bay Point Marriott is a public workshop discussing the 2008 Bay County Tourist Development Council and Panama City Beach CVB Strategic Plan.

Below is a link to the rough draft outline.

Some of the key initiatives include:

  • Protect our key asset, the beach
    • Seek additional funding from state and federal sources
    • Develop additional beach maintenance, grooming, recycling and trash removal
    • Work to enhance the overall beach experience
  • Develop Panama City Beach in a year-round tourist destination
    • Look into an enhanced Sports Complex and convention center
    • Entice sports promoters to hold sporting events here
    • Work with Audubon Society to develop eco-tourism opportunities in Bay County
    • Attract new family friendly entertainment venues that operate year-round
    • Embrace a strong special events philosophy to assist existing events, foster new events, and attract additional events to the community

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Panama City Beach Needs more Branded Hotels

Kaoru Chikushi from HVS International wrote a piece on Panama City Beach that was published on HospitalityNet.org titled The Need for More Branded Hotels in Panama City Beach, Florida.

You should read it, but I’ll summarize it here.

Chikushi estimates that approximately 7 million visit Panama City Beach each year with around 250,000 spring breakers and 15,000 “snowbirds”. Again, not sure where the numbers came from, but 250,000 sounds much more realistic that the “millions” others in the media tout.

I was glad to see Chikushi references Panama City Beach as “once known as the Redneck Riviera” and describes our area as being in an “era of transformation.” Signaled by the new airport and Pier Park, she finds justification in Panama City being named the #1 place to own real estate in the next 5 years (the Business 2.0 article).

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Destinations around the country searching for tourists

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” has been swapped for “do Vegas right now.” According to the New York Times, the slogan was swapped for something that had a stronger call to action.

It is no secret that the cost of living is going up in real time. With gas prices here quickly approaching 4 bucks a gallon, the cost to travel is also quickly becoming a huge deciding factor on where people are going, if they are going at all.

In the New York Times article, Urgency Replaces Subtlety in Summer’s Struggle for Visitors, the second destination mentioned as making a change in their advertising direction was Panama City Beach. Peter Yesawich was quoted, “There is a palpable nervousness on the part of everybody in the industry.” “We’ve seen some of these conditions individually,” Mr. Yesawich said, referring to problems like high fuel prices and reduced capacity on airlines, “but never all of them at once.”

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Toll From Montgomery to Panama City to be public road

In the Moulton Advertiser it was reported that the toll road to travel between Montgomery and Panama City may revert to public ownership once the toll fees pay off the cost to construct. The road would be constructed and operated by a non-profit organization.

As reported, Luthor Strange, a Birmingham lawyer is pushing the project in hopes of seeing it come to fruition. He represents Focus 2000 of the Wiregrass, an organization that is made up of potential investors and local officials and businessmen in SE Alabama.

Strange beleives that there is a way to construct the highway by using public and private resources, although there is no federal or state funding available for this project.

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