MMGY's Global Vice Chairman, DR. PETER YESAWICH, Ph.D.. told VCB at WGV May 14th that enactment of the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore will have, “no question, a positive effect”on our local economy. www.staugustgreen.com
Ph.D. Peter Yesawich is an international travel expert working for the local Visitor and Convention Bureau, MMDY Global Executive Vice Chairman told 100 local tourism experts May 7th that the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore will have, “no question, a positive effect”on our local economy.
Although the St. Augustine Record (SAR) had an editorial (below) about the gathering where Yesawich spoke, it omitted certain facts – such as Dr. Yesawich's candid support for the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore.
SAR is no longer informing the public. Government meetings and agencies are left uncovered for weeks at a time. Reader letters are unpublished. Scandals are not uncovered. Questions are not asked.
Thus, SAR readers who were not in the room did not learn that the VCB's consultants support the National Historical Park and National Seashore.
They also did not learn that VCB's consultant may lack commitment current knowledge and interest in marketing St. Augustine for what it is rapidly becoming – as a diverse, cool, hip, place. VCB's longtime consultants are focused on older rich white guys who play golf – and advising motels and tourist attractions to raise their prices, which could run afoul of federal antitrust laws.
In a surprising admission last week, MMDY Global consultant Cindy Muretta, working for the county's Visitor and Convention Bureau (VCB) publicly admitted May 14th that there is no St. Augustine tourism advertising in Miami – even though our City of St. Augustine's strategic plan for our 450th anniversary commemoration places a high priority on recruiting Hispanic tourists from Miami.
MMGY's website shows no persons of color among its 18-person leadership. MMGY is the largest travel consulting group in the world, headquartered in Missouri and Florida.
MMGY failing to include African-American and Civil Rights tourism, in its $300,000 draft 2009 Destination Master Plan.
MMGY works for Disney and 200 other large travel organizations throughout the world.
Is it a conflict of interest for St. Augustine's visitor recruitment to be run by the firm that advises Walt Disney? Is that what St. Augustine should aspire to become – more Disney-fied than now? MMGY's initial tourism master plan had visions of a waterslide, as if history and nature were not enough of “product.”
Enough.
This overlapping marketing advice is not in the best interest of our “brand,” which hopelessly provincial, MMGY has repeatedly lacked understanding and appreciation. Plainly MMDY does not have St. Augustine's cultural diversity at heart. Its “leaders” are secretive, and avoid questions.
MMGY Global's Cyndy Murrieta (MMGY's Media Group Director) told the assembled tourism “industry” personnel that advertising is a question of “who do you want to invite to your party.” MMGY's Media Group Director Cyndy Murieta lauded spending tax money on recruiting “affluent” tourists from Atlanta, Georgia; Orlando, The Villages in Florida and Augusta and Savannah in Georgia – but not Miami.
Instead, VCB is actually spending bed tax money advertising for St. Augustine in bankrupt Reader's Digest, in Better Homes and Gardens! I could not believe my ears (and eyes). Who knew!
So I asked MMGY Media Group Director Cyndy Murrieta why VCB was not advertising in Miami. MMGY's Murietta condescendingly told me to ask her after the meeting. I requested a public answer, then and there. Instead, MMGY's Murrietta, VCB's consultant then said “I'm being heckled.” How gauche. We paid for her microphone, but she refused to emit an answer.
Who are these lugubrious goobers? The Visitor and Convention Bureau for St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra and the Beaches receives some $4.6 million annually from bed tax revenue on people staying at hotels, motels, Bed and Breakfasts and guest houses. In turn, they hire MMDY and spend millions on advertising.
Not one New York Times Travel Section article focused on St. Augustine has appeared since September 5, 2003 (see it on the bulletin board at the Bunnery cafe downtown – it is yellow).
Meanwhile, MMGY brags of getting TV news stories on Lee County, Florida, but can't seem to bring about a New York Times Travel Section after years of working for us.
Not one penny of that $4.6 million annual VCB bed tax budget money is being used for advertising in Miami, our City's core market for the 450th and 500th commemorations. “That's crazy,” opined one City official, who was unaware that VCB is not advertising in Miami.
It's our money – VCB has a contract with our County Commissioners. I have asked for a copy, along with a copy of VCB's antitrust and civil rights compliance policies. It appears VCB may be in material breach of its contract. See correspondence, above.
It was appalling to hear the Vice Chairman of MMGY, Dr. Peter Yesawich, write off the lower 50% of American income earners while urging business owners to raise their prices – inviting possible antitrust violations while speaking in a government building – St. Johns County's $16.9 million World Golf County Convention Center, in the presence of city and county officials, hearing the invitation to raise prices without anyone offering any dissenting view (or antitrust law advice)
MMGY and VCB potentially run afoul of civil rights laws by publishing expensive Apartheid-style travel guides, with 199 identifiable white people and four (4) identifiable Hispanic people (one is Ponce de Leon on the cover). There are zero Native American Indians, There are only eleven (11) African-Americans, most of whom appear to be happy slaves. Fair Housing and Civil Rights cases forbid marketing materials that don't show African-Americans and other minorities. Yet local developers in St. Johns County were guilty of that for years. So is our VCB. This is Jim Crow 1950s marketing, and it is not working. Despite always-rosy projections, VCB is not with the program. St. Augustine's future lies in historic and environmental tourism – VCB is still caught up in past mistakes
That was shown by the lack of interest in GLBT tourism; during Q&A, Peter Yesawich told me it was 5% of the national tourism market (and “more of the spend',” using a verb as a noun) But Yesawich wondered if GLBT marketing might turn off other tourists. He offered no data. Unknown to MMGY, we have made great strides in local GLBT-friendly housing and employment nondiscrimination laws in St. Augustine and St. Augustine Beach (and Sheriff David Shoar, and Anastasia Mosquito Control District of St. Johns County, the first in our county, in 2009). GLBT tourism marketing would differentiate our “product” from our bigoted northern neighbor, Jacksonville, formerly known as Cowford. This is why Mumford & Sons chose St. Augustine over bigoted Jacksonville or other places.
MMGY is not selling our strengths because it does not appreciate them. In fact, entirely left out are the fact that this is the first cultural melting pot in American, one that had on Day One (September 8, 1565) the first freed and African-American, Catholic and Jewish Americans, 42 years before Jamestown. Left out are the courage of the Minor can people, fleeing British oppression in New Smyrna Beach indigo plantations. Not even Minorcans get respect from MMDY.
It's time for a change. VCB needs to listen to the City of St. Augustine, and stop messing around with our City's 450th ad 50th celebration. Leaving Miami out of advertising and advising people to raise their prices is unseemly. Enough.
St. Augustine is not "an industry" and not "a product." It is about authentic history and real nature -- which the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore will help us showcase to the world!
www.staugustgreen.com
Yes we can!
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