Category: Tourism

Take 3 Question Survey = $1,000 in Giveaways!!

That’s right, you read correctly, all you have to do is answer three questions (multiple choice – no wrong answers) and you have a chance to win $1,000 worth of stuff.  We are putting something big together, and we need you to tell us your favorite seafood place, burger and sandwich place and your favorite resort or condo. The survey won’t take you more than 4 minutes.

For taking the time to answer these quick questions, you’ll have a chance to win:

  • A 2 night, 2 bedroom FREE vacation at Laketown Wharf in Panama City Beach.
  • 2 seats in Mike’s cooking class at Liza’s Kitchen (gourmet food, paired with perfect wine, so delish)
  • 4 tickets to the PCB Seafood Wine and Music Fest (Lynyrd Skynyrd is playing!!!)
  • Another set of 4 tickets to the PCB Seafood Wine and Music Fest

So, what are we up to, you ask?  I can’t tell you, it’s top secret.  But, you’re gonna love it.  You can tell we are all about knowing what you think is best in Panama City Beach with these ultra sweet prizes we’re putting up for you to win for taking the survey.

There are a total of three survey questions, each one has all the options we could find for that category, listed in alphabetical order.  If you have trouble picking just one, in each category, you can pick up to three of your favs.  If some how we missed your favorite, just list it in the “other” field.

Here is how it’s going to all work.

  1. You take the survey – click here to take now.
  2. The survey ends on October 7th at noon cst.
  3. We’ll pick the winners of the prizes – there are 4 winners total
  4. The winners will be notified by end of business on October 7th.
  5. The winners will be able to pick up the Seafood Festival tickets on Friday October 8th
  6. The winners of the other prizes can pick them up at the PCBDaily offices, or we can mail them to you.

Here is some general information about the prizes.

  • Laketown Wharf – Facebook page, website, blog.
  • Liza’s Kitchen – website, Facebook page, cooking class info
    • I’ve personally attended this cooking class twice, both times it’s been nothing short of amazing.
  • Panama City Beach Seafood Wine and Music Festival – website – Lynyrd Skynrd was just announced to be playing, along with REO Speedwagon and Little River Band.  This year’s lineup is the best it has ever been.

Rules:

  • Each entrant can enter once and only once (we can verify this by ip AND cookies) and must use a valid first name and email address.
  • Contest begins when this post is published and ends on Thursday October 7th, 2010 at 12 noon CST.  We’ll choose the winners later that day.
  • There will be 4 winners total.
  • By entering you are opting in to receive future newsletters and emails from PCBDaily and CYber SYtes and you are opening yourself up to the greatest resource for news and information Panama City Beach has to offer.
  • If you are selected and you do not respond to our email notifying you of winning within 7 calendar days of the close of the contest, then we reserve the right to award the prize to another entrant.
  • This giveaway is open to anyone in the continental United States.  If you win, you will be solely responsible for making arrangements with CYber SYtes to redeem your prize.  Or depending on the prize, we may be willing to mail your prize to you, so long as you say please, nicely.
  • Read full rules here.

The Secret of Marketing Panama City Beach – Susan Estler

This is an interview with Susan Estler, the Vice President of Marketing for the Panama City Beach Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.  Keeping consistent with our Optimism in PCB article series, we wanted to share with you some of the marketing genius that is behind putting Panama City Beach on the map.  Susan has been with the PCB CVB almost as long as we’ve been blogging about Panama City Beach.  We at PCBDaily have seen her help develop the marketing efforts from a tattered, inherited mess, to a decisive, calculated masterpiece.  She’s done a great job with the CVB team and we’d like to offer her a warm welcome to the pages of PCBDaily.com.

Continue reading “The Secret of Marketing Panama City Beach – Susan Estler” →

July Tourism Devastated in Panama City Beach

In what was supposed to be the best July we’ve ever experienced in Panama City Beach, threat of oil-covered sand and fear of ruined vacations kept visitor’s away.  This summer was supposed to be the beginning of a new era in Panama City Beach tourism growth with high expectations from the performance of the new airport and the millions of dollars of extra marketing money that was being pumped into the awareness of our area.  Local officials, organizations and industry leaders had literally been working up to this summer for years in anticipation of record breaking numbers; and it was all crushed by what some would call a series of blatant mistakes that could have easily been avoided.

Continue reading “July Tourism Devastated in Panama City Beach” →

5 Reasons Spring Break 2011 Will Be Better Than Before

Co-op Year 2

Last year, Panama City Beach business owners took Spring Break matters into their own hands creating a cooperative after the TDC decided to no longer fund advertising for Spring Break. The co-op turned out to be a great success, creating trackable information on Spring Break students, as well as new avenues through which to communicate with, market to and eventually drive spring breakers to our shores. In year two, the co-op is already on the ball, buzzing Spring Breakers via the nearly 15,000 fans on their facebook page about deals, information and dates.

Continue reading “5 Reasons Spring Break 2011 Will Be Better Than Before” →

5 Ideas for Your Labor Day at the Beach

After a dismal summer tourism season from the BP oil spill disaster, tourism officials are very optimistic for this Labor Day weekend to end the summer season with a bang.  Many local resorts are reporting full occupancy this weekend and with great weather projected for all three days of this extended weekend, locals and tourists alike are sure to have a blast.

Continue reading “5 Ideas for Your Labor Day at the Beach” →

Beach Conditions Improve

Since the oil spill interest has waned, we’ve been overwhelmed by interest in knowing what the beaches are like.  What is the algae situation like?  Is there any June Grass?  Is it bad?  Is the surf up?  These seem to resound continually on our Facebook page, so we’re responding by shooting some quick video every week to show you.

This week we’re at the city pier across from Pier Park.  If it seems like we’re here a lot, it’s because we are.  Our office is on the west end, I live out here, so the beach out here is very accessible.

The beach conditions weren’t bad this week, the algae was hardly present, but you could see indication of June Grass some distance out.  Here’s the video.

Oil Spill Barely Hurts June Bed Tax Collections

Despite a very dismal looking outlook at the beginning of the summer, the actual numbers for June are showing nearly even bed tax collections this year, compared to last year.  In June, a total of $1,88,269.21 was collected.  This compares to $1,946,037.92 in tax revenue that was collected in June of 2009.  The actual variance is just over $61,000, or -3.17%.

This was an interesting summer, we had tons of things lined up to all but guarantee the best summer tourist season we’ve had in years.  Ironically, right before the season began, there was what some may call a monstrous accident just a few short hundred miles away.  After a summer of weekly and even daily threats, the damaged perception left our local industry practically starving for business and pleading with their customers to keep their reservations.  The rental climate changed from one of knowing how the numbers were going to be all summer before Memorial Day, to guessing what the next week would hold for rental revenue.  Shops and restaurants had no idea what to expect, but were bracing for the worst.  Talking to retailers and resorts, numbers were way off this year.  Obviously some fared better than others, but overall most suffered to some degree.

But lets get back to the bed tax numbers.  The numbers were only down 3.17% this year.  That doesn’t seem all bad, right?  Well, you have to consider that a deficit of any amount is going to spread hurt across the board.  You have to consider that with any new additions to the rental or retail inventory, plus some businesses ability to reach their customers over other businesses, that 3.17% can mean quite a different story for different people.

All in all, I think we are blessed to have done as well as we did, in Panama City Beach, despite the looming threat that impaled the perception of our beach this summer.  Hopefully next year no outside forces will impede all the work that has been put into increasing our local tourism business.

July’s numbers should be out within the week, which will be the real test to see how the summer really fared.  Stay tuned!

Seafood Fest May Get Another $150k from CVB

The oil spill threat this summer took it’s toll on the opportunity for us to have a slammin’, jammin’ summer, but it wasn’t all bad.  Our image was certainly tarnished, our tourism numbers were down a bit, but on the plus side, the Panama City Beach Convention and Visitor’s Bureau received $2 million from BP to be used for marketing the beaches of Panama City Beach.  This influx of marketing money has saved our CVB $750,000 from their regular marketing budget this year so far and has freed up some cash to use in other arenas.

Continue reading “Seafood Fest May Get Another $150k from CVB” →

Southwest Airlines Marketing Working

One of the cool things about bringing in Southwest Airlines to the new Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport was that we get to take advantage of SWA’s amazing marketing success. This proven track record of creating an immense brand awareness so far has proven invaluable so far in marketing Panama City Beach, and it couldn’t come at a better time.

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PCB TDC to Meet, Discuss Summer Marketing Updates, Bed Tax Numbers

Tuesday, August 24, the Panama City Beach Tourist Development Council (known around these parts as the TDC) will meet to discuss various invoices to be paid, the possible build of a new Monument Sign, this summer’s bed tax numbers from June and July and a few other things that we’ll report on in greater detail tomorrow.

It’s been a couple of months since they’ve held a TDC meeting, but they’re usually pretty fun.  And, we’re always on top of covering them and providing the latest as to what’s happening, live, during the meeting.  Instead of cluttering up your Facebook feed with status updates on our page, we’ll hop over to our Twitter feed and post regular updates on what’s happening during the meeting.

For reference, here are the links.

The meeting will be at 9 am and will be held in the Council Room at the City Buildings in Panama City Beach.

Read on for the full agenda.

Or, you can just click here to download it.

Continue reading “PCB TDC to Meet, Discuss Summer Marketing Updates, Bed Tax Numbers” →