Hotels In Halifax

Daytona tourism authority looks to regroup

Members of the Halifax Area Advertising Authority will gather in an emergency meeting Monday morning to regroup after a messy and public parting of the ways with their head tourism marketing executive last week.

The now deeply fractured board must decide how to go about replacing Janet Kersey, fired Wednesday as president and CEO of the Daytona Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau, and determine how to move forward with the business of promoting the area's assets to visitors.

Board Chair Ted Doran, an attorney in Daytona Beach, and board member Rich Larkin, general manager of the Hilton Daytona Beach Oceanfront Resort, hope to see a nationwide search for someone to replace Kersey, although rules require the position to be advertised in-house first.

The ideal candidate for the new president would be the head of a convention center in a midsized market like Daytona Beach, Larkin said, or a second-in-command in a large market like Orlando.

The candidate needs to be someone who can bring visitors in the slow season between August and December, be it leisure or convention business, Larkin said. He emphasized it's not an "either or" decision for him.

"This destination is going backwards at this point, and A1A looks terrible," he said, "and until we get some (tourist) business here, we can't open (new) businesses."

The desire to attract more tourists and a decades-old rift over marketing priorities -- leisure tourists versus conventioneers, for example -- are among the reasons why many insiders say the decision to fire Kersey took root long before a series of angry public email exchanges in recent weeks. The controversy began even before she was selected for the job in March 2010.

And though it played a part, the firing wasn't just about how some board members perceived the way Kersey and her staff handled a request to host the 2017 International Shriners Convention, board members and other key players said last week.

That was just "a little thing," County Chair Frank Bruno said. "That's what brought everything to a head."

That "everything" was more than two years of discussion over the roles of the advertising authority, convention bureau and Ocean Center, given the rapidly deteriorating beachside.

Many hotels are in foreclosure or disrepair, average daily room rates have plummeted, and businesses are departing the key business district along State Road A1A.

Hotels In Our Global World

Television was only invented mid-way through the twentieth century, but Marshal McLuhan foresaw immediately that such technology would shrink the world to the size of a village. When he wrote the Internet, Facebook and Twitter had not even seen the light of day yet he was correct. Modern hotels reflect just one aspect of what McLuhan foresaw.

Travellers and tourists will probably find a familiar hotel in whichever city of the world they find themselves. International chains have established nets that span the Globe so that whether one is in Beijing or New York there will be a familiar room with the sort of furniture and services that one expects.

The sameness that one finds in hotels across the world owes much to the Internet. Drafters of regulation and legislation use information that is shared globally in order to align their own country's tourist industry with world norms. Thus, the criteria applied in awarding stars to particular establishments will not vary much from one country to another. There may be individual differences between hotels in different parts of the village but they will conform to similar general standards.

General conformity does not necessarily imply sameness of character or ambiance. Many small decisions regarding furnishing, and many tiny sights, sounds and scents make up the individuality of any establishment, even one that belongs in a chain of conformity. A four star establishment in Muscat may equate with a similar establishment in Mumbai and attract a similar class of patronage. Yet fortunately, as in the case of individual human beings, there will always be infinite shades of singularity.

The tourist industry in most countries is self regulatory. Establishments comply with criteria set by an industry body, knowing that compliance is the best business policy. Usually national regulatory bodies take their cues from similar bodies in other countries knowing that tourists need to be able to recognize applicable standards.

Throughout the world hotels are public places, open twenty four hours of each day of the year. They have a public reception area, en suite rooms with bathing and toilet facilities and rooms are serviced. Although cheap places that specialize in budget sleeping facilities often have minimal dining facilities, more upmarket hotels have their own restaurants or allow private eateries within their complex of buildings. Other facilities such as gyms and saunas distinguish establishments that have more stars and higher tariffs.

Railway nationalization in Canada, the problem of the Canadian national railways

The Dominion of Canada, with Newfoundland, and an excursion to Alaska, handbook for travellers

Minutes of Evidence

Report, with minutes of evidence, of the Royal Commission on the liquor traffic in Canada

Report of the Royal commission on the liquor traffic in Canada, ... Minutes of evidence ...