Downtown Fort Myers Coming Into Focus

Firestone Restaurant

Strolling the River Basin - Firestone and Sky Bar

It's About Time!

Not so very long ago I would have said, This town was a total sleeper, but recently it has begun to stir. For years downtown Fort Myers, Florida had the right ingredients for a popular night spot but, for some indiscernible reason it remained a dud. Walking through the streets on any weekend night I'd think, "Where are all the people? This place has so much potential - art, shops, restaurants, parks and even a top notch theatre. So trajic!" Well, not anymore! Perhaps, it just needed an infusion of new life. 

Lush Bakery

Twisted Vine Bistro

The city of Ft. Myers recently finished a new Riverfront Basin along the Caloosahatchee River downtown. By replacing an ugly parking lot with a beautiful water feature it gave the area a face lift. The basins serves an important function - filtering waste water before it goes into the Caloosahatchee, but you'd never know it from the looks of it. Adorned with fountains and a strolling path it's actually quite attractive. But more important, I think, is Fort Myers is capitalizing more on its heritage and developed a very distinct identity. With wonderful additions like the Firestone and Ford's Garage (same owners), a uniqueness no other community can claim is being reemphasized. Besides their distinct characterization these restaurants are very worthy additions. The burgers and brew at Ford's Garage are delicious (delicious enough to make you forget about the antique car horn) and the Firestone offers more elegant dining and a river view bar on the rooftop called the Sky Bar. There are others equally deserving of mention like Twisted Vine Bistro and Spirits of Bacchus for great wine and Lush French Bakery and cafe for macaroons.
Perhaps all along, downtown Fort Myers just needed a personality adjustment.

Art Walk Night Out

Art and Culture

Now I'd say, It reminds me a little of Las Olas in Fort Lauderdale. The same charming character with great restaurants and shopping, with one added advantage - Florida Repertory Theatre.* Here you can have a night out that includes dinner, a stroll and a play. Which is exactly what we did last night. Unfortunately after the champagne at The Rep. and a truly delightful performance of "My Three Angels", the gourmet burger and wine at Ford's Garage, we had no room for Macaroons or desert of any kind. I guess we'll just have to go back! Judging by Art Walk last night, it seems an abundance of people have the same idea. It's about time!

*Florida Rep has been hailed as "Profoundly Satisfying" by The Wall Street Journal

River Basin

Overhauling Travel Marketing: To Tweet or Not to Tweet

So, you're tweeting. Dropping comments of up to 140 characters into the Twittesphere at warp speed (or so it seems) wondering, What the heck am I doing? Besides promoting your business with numbers (followers & following), what are the benefits? Well, the experts in social marketing told me tweeting was important, so I did it - like a sheep. On good days, especially early on, I was able to read about 1/2 of 1% of the tweets from those I followed if I stuck to my self allotted time frame of 15 to 30 minutes a day. And, like every good Twitter addict, I was watching my numbers. It seemed to be the point. Then I thought, OMG! Am I now participating in some sort of flash mob mentality; caught up in the fever pitch? Had I joined the Twitter cult? WOW! Am I that mindless? Where was the value in that! So, I asked myself is this good marketing or is it just a numbers craze? The answer is, yes.

In many aspects Internet marketing is a numbers game, that is to say, there are benefits to numbers both in ranking and number of followers, and Twitter can get you numbers in a hurry. But it has to go beyond the numbers game to be really beneficial. Often we use social media without first understanding it. Frankly, it's all just happening too fast. Who has time for it all? But, that's precisely why the simplicity of Twitter caught on.* 140 characters done reasonably well, for no more than 15 - 30 minutes a day is doable and can get you some decent recognition. However, it is NOT mindlessly following or tweeting that will get valuable results. Obviously what I did at first was wrong, so I had to rethink the possibilities and the purpose. I did my Twitter homework. It revealed that simple, concise, worthwhile information has marketing value on Twitter. Then, and only then, the good numbers will follow; tweet relevant, good information and consciously follow, respond to and retweet relevant, good information.

So what do YOU tweet? At first tweeting is a very foreign activity. Very much like trying to communicate in a foreign country with text book knowledge of the language; it takes practice to be fluent. I like the simple way Tech N' Marketing explained tweeting:
What to write—
“What are you thinking?”
Are you reading an interesting article? Share it!
Cool video? Link to it!
A funny picture? Tweet it!
Share share share!
Cause there to be dialog.
That is what it is all about.

If I could add just a couple additional things to their simple "how to" explanation (considering we're talking about social media marketing) they would be:
Tweet daily
ONLY tweet and retweet about things relevant to your business. 
Create a separate account for your personal interests. There you can talk politics, sports, fashion, religion or whatever, but not on your business Twitter page unless it's the business you are in.
 Proudly brag about your business or profession 
your facility, goals, accomplishments, products, offers, etc.

One last thought: you will inevitably miss a huge percentage of tweets and the opposite is true. Not to worry. No one is saying, good information can't be shared more than once and good tweets get retweeted. Within a short time you'll develop habits, then relevant patterns will emerge and it will begin to actually make some sense. Twitter is simply a networking tool. It is like dropping a rock in a pond - it will have a ripple effect. How far the ripple carries you is dependent on you. Tweet well and they will listen, follow and retweet.



*In all honesty it has gotten more complicated, but the simple premise is still there.

Overhauling Travel Marketing - Introduction

Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building. Carol M. Highsmith, 2007

My daughter Googled herself the other day and, shockingly, there she was in a photo taken by a reporter in front of The Library of Congress. That day welcoming visitors to “the world’s greatest storehouse of knowledge,” the Librarian of Congress said, “This is all here for you.” On the historic occasion of its grand re-openning and launch of the Library of Congress Experience he explained that the Library, the largest in the world, and its collections are now available “to everyone in the world,” who from their computers are able to “turn pages” of the Gutenberg Bible or examine Ben Franklin’s edits of the Declaration of Independence by way of a new Web presentation portal.

As amazing as the portal launch was nothing is quite like walking through doors of this historic treasure - seeing Thomas Jefferson's handwritten draft of the Declaration of Independence with notations by Ben Franklin and having the rare privilege of walking around the Main Reading Room (seldom open to the public). This place is not just a building housing accounts of history in books, its architecture envelops you and its artifacts speak to you. It was the best part of our trip but it was not at all planned. Lucky us!
We stayed at a great boutique hotel, the Palomar, got a private tour of the US Capitol Building, toured the Smithsonian Museums, found a tavern with the largest selection of beer in the world, Bier Baron Tavern - fka Brickskeller, and discovered a terrific Mexican cocina called Oyamel. There they serve the freshest homemade guacamole and an amazing margarita topped with a salt froth. All told it was a fantastic Washington D.C. experience and easily fell into the perfect trip category.
Reminiscing prompted me to now say what I've long thought, Why is it necessary to have such a category? Why shouldn't every trip be this rewarding? Why is it so hard for people to travel like this all the time? After all this is the age of information. Why is it that with all our technology we're still not getting the right information in front of the right people? We can find just about anything on the internet, can't we?
The problem is we're on information overload and the speed and ease of the internet comes with a price. Even with specificity most of our searches yield way more information than we could possibly sort through. Mountains of it! And these places - hotels, restaurants and attractions, are lost in the mountainous pile like a needle in a haystack; an internet size haystack. These places, destinations, want us to know, "This is all here for you," if you can find them. Unfortunately, it is most often left to us, travelers, to do just that. Lucky us?

It's time for a change. Instead of information overload we need information overhaul so that everyone gets to go on the perfect trip nearly every time. TravelVision is doing just that. We're building a website that makes it easier, way easier, to discover and explore the places of interest to you. We're starting a revolution in travel marketing!
Travelvision.com launched in BETA December 2011. Take the Tour and whether you're a user or a destination we'd love for you to join us now. For users it will be a tremendous search, explore and plan tool and for destinations we promise it will be the best marketing experience you will ever have - a destination showcase. Join us over the coming weeks as we evolve and grow adding more and more exciting destinations and features.
Travelvision.com - Know Before You Go

Spoiled Rotten

Orlando is a great place to spoil the kids. There are the world renowned attractions like Disney, Universal and Sea World and thousands of spinoffs. In fact from afar it may seem like it's all about kids. Almost every area hotel and every restaurant has an oversized animated theme. After a few park trips you may begin to wish it were possible to drop the kids off and pick them up on your way back from some tranquil retreat (if Hogwarts were real you could). Don't get me wrong, I'm a true thrill ride fan but, even I can reach theme park overload (not so for most kids). I'd be lying if I didn't state that kids are the main focus of the area but, there are some pretty impressive places for grown ups too.
I had the recent good fortune of visiting one such place. It just so happened that a friend had to attend a conference in Orlando and asked if I might like to tag along - to The Ritz Carlton - didn't have to ask me twice! Let me tell you, I got spoiled rotten here!
The Ritz Carlton and the JW Marriott Grande Lakes Orlando, are a destination all their own. Connected by a large conference and event center, the two luxury hotels comprise numerous restaurants, bars & coffee shops, large pools, a lazy river pool, a beach type volley ball court, Bocce Ball court, life size chess board, a golf course and they offer kayaking tours of the nearby Shingle Creek. Clearly there's plenty for the kids to enjoy here but, you won't find any costume clad characters running amuck nor will you be subjected to endless hours of themed music and I don't believe their waffles have ears. There's a time and a place for all that but, equally important is the necessity to take a break from it. Just don't let the kids know that this place is really about the grown ups! That will be our little secret.

I don't think I need tell you how beautiful the hotels or their rooms are or that they have great restaurants. I think we're all familiar with the brand so we'll skip that. I will say, in case you're not familiar with them, that lazy river pools are wonderful and their's looked very alluring. Who wouldn't enjoy floating around on a tube through a tropical setting! Alas I was here for but a short time so I toured the grounds, lounged and dined exquisitely.
A crown jewel of their restaurants is Primo. Their bread alone is to die for.

Before you indulge your taste buds however, to truly experience Primo you should start with a tour of their organic vegetable and herb garden. In Orlando fashion it's a kind of attraction all on its own - an edible one. How's that for unique! I really can't say anything more important about Primo than it is fresh, delicious and very memorable.
You know most kids will promise anything to go to Orlando. I completely understand. For this Orlando experience I promise to eat all my vegetables if someone will just take me back.