Palm Beach County tourism officials, others have busy start to new year ahead in January

The new head of Palm Beach County's chief tourism marketing group said the county has a busy start planned for 2024.

Proposals to build a second hotel linked to the Palm Beach County Convention Center are due on Friday, Jan. 12. That same month, the agency, Discover the Palm Beaches, will meet with county commissioners to "move forward" on a broad, all-encompassing master plan for tourism development, said CEO and president Milton Segarra.

Segarra, who was Discover's chief marketing officer, replaced retiring CEO Jorge Pesquera this past fall.

In an interview in December, Segarra said the meeting with commissioners will launch what will be a vigorous campaign to meet with a broad array of stakeholders with an interest in tourism, including residents as well as with businesses and other entities not directly involved in the hospitality and leisure industry.

"This is a big county, so we are going to have meetings all over the county to make sure we reach out as much as possible," Segarra said, adding that a first step is to make sure the designated committees and applied resources embarking on the plan are properly targeted.

Previous story: Florida, PBC tourism rebound from pandemic by setting records

Segarra did not reveal details about the master plan. But Discover and county officials announced the plan at a tourism summit in early February.

At that gathering, Pesquera and Palm Beach County Administrator Verdenia Baker said teams, working through the auspices of the Tourism Development Board, were blueprinting a tourism master plan to keep the vital industry's post-pandemic momentum going forward. Among the goals was the desire for a second convention center hotel in West Palm Beach.

During that meeting, Kelly Cavers, Discover's chief sales officer, and Segarra spoke of their efforts to lure more business meetings to the county and invest significant amounts of dollars on digital and social-media advertising.

Some of that marketing muscle would be focused on events such as The Honda Classic, now known as the Cognizant Classic, and the March Madness college basketball tournament, they added. Other teams would focus on attractions as well as wellness and culinary programs.

In the December interview, Segarra said the master plan evaluation process has been completed and the goal is to make recommendations to the county commission on what he estimates will be a 15- to 18-month venture.

"It is fair to say that by the end of the next year, the master plan should be moving forward with us reaching out to community members," he said.

However, the second convention center project is now its own initiative, Segarra said, noting that the request for proposals was issued in October. It's not clear yet when that facility might become reality, but by the end of 2024, a timetable should be in place.

"I hope honestly by the end of next year we should be in the initial stages of ground breaking for the initial process," Segarra said.

Despite some initial 'softness,' officials bullish on tourism prospects in 2024

What is clear is that concerns about a recession this year — which would have undermined the tourism industry's comeback from the COVID pandemic shutdown and economic collapse more than three years ago — have not materialized.

Segarra noted that, in 2020, 70% of economists predicted that by now "we would be immersed in a difficult recession," a figure that still stood at 20% this past summer. An economic contraction has not happened, although he said the tourism numbers "are softer" for the fourth quarter of 2023 and expected to be a little off into the first month or so of 2024.

Nonetheless, projections for the height of this year's winter visitor season in the county remain "very promising for us," he added, based on advanced bookings and projected rates.

"We're seeing that our numbers should be good numbers for the winter season," Segarra said. "We should be collecting more room-tax dollars than last fiscal year. So it's very promising, especially under the current conditions."

Beyond that, the period from May until September "will depend heavily on picking up additional group business" and strong visitation during the summer from Florida residents, he said.

The bullishness was underscored last week when CareerSource Palm Beach County and the Florida Commerce Department released an employment report showing the jobless rate in Palm Beach County stood at just 3.1%. Hiring by the county's tourism businesses was particularly notable.

"The number of jobs in the leisure/hospitality and government sectors grew faster in the county than statewide over the year," the statement from CareerSource read.

In addition, Segarra said Discover is pushing ahead with artificial intelligence and other technologies.

That process, he said, is intended to provide "specific business intelligence" to Discover's marketing team with the goal of maximizing the dollars and energy invested in promoting Palm Beach County regionally, nationally and internationally. And it includes making sure the agency has adequate data banks and warehouses and complies with the myriad privacy rules and regulations.

"We're investing an important amount into all the marketing technologies that exist right now," Segarra said.

Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Tourism master plan, second convention center hotel await decisions