THE HOBNOB-DESTIN NEWS

1 October, 2010             Destin’s Hippest News Source

September 29, 2010 11:15 PM

Okaloosa County’s Tourist Development Council is working to restart its short-lived debit card program.

“We’re shooting for the middle of next week (to restart the program),” said Mark Bellinger, the TDC’s executive director. “We have to get the information out to all the lodging partners again who signed up for this, let them know exactly what’s going on again for instructions, let them know exactly how many cards we have left and what’s going on the website.”

The TDC’s Emerald Money Debit program is designed to provide tourists or locals a $200 debit card for purchases in Okaloosa County if they book at least a two-night stay at a lodging that collects local bed taxes.

The program was scheduled to run from Sept. 17 to Oct. 31, or until 5,000 available debit cards had been taken. But it was canceled after just two days when it was discovered that many businesses were trying to cheat the system.

Plans had called for participating hotels and condominiums to forward the qualifying reservations to the TDC for approval. Bellinger now is working with website developers to add a link to the TDC site where tourists or locals who make reservations can submit their date to the TDC themselves to reserve a debit card.

Bellinger hopes to have the website completed today so he can announce to the 189 participating lodging partners that the program is returning.

If the program is restarted next week, Bellinger said the deadline will likely be extended so people making reservations for early November could also qualify for a debit card if they make their reservation soon enough.

Of the 5,000 debit cards printed for the program, 576 already have been given out and about 645 have been reserved from the two days the promotion ran earlier this month. That leaves nearly 3,800 cards to give out.

“We’re still going to reserve all the cards, I think in a week, week-and-a-half,” Bellinger said. “It’s going to go really quick.”

The Emerald Money Debit program was funded through Okaloosa’s portion of a $7 million grant BP provided to the seven coastal counties in Northwest Florida to help bring tourists to the area after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Dusty Ricketts, Florida Freedom Newspapers

THE HOBNOB-DESTIN NEWS

15 August, 2010             Destin’s Hippest News Source

............SO WHAT’S THE STORY!!..............

THE BEACHES ARE GREAT...COME ON DOWN!!!

It didn’t take a Presidential visit,  or high resolution satellite imagery, a Papal Edict or a blessing from my Mother-in-law (although, heaven knows I asked), to know that the Beaches of Okaloosa, Walton and Santa Rosa Counties are open and continue to be oil free! Yes, that’s right Skippy, despite the penchant for normal (sic) news media to dwell on the negative, the message about our untarnished, oil free, sparkling white sand beaches remains grossly unreported.

So who wants to hear GOOD News reported? In truth, everyone! It’s just tough making a headline out of something that we take for granted everyday. Consider this: What if you didn’t know if the sun were going to rise each day. (Seattle residents don’t answer this one). The suspense and relief experienced each day would make headlines around the world!! “Gigantic Orange Ball Rises Again in the East...Warmth and light follow...Will this phenomenon continue? Video at Eight.” Compelling stuff.

Those of us that are old hands (I won’t admit how old) to the Emerald Coast Tourist Business used to refer to the 120 days of the season. Those were the number of days we expected to earn enough from tourism to carry us through the long off-season just surviving on the business from locals and snowbirds. While the general poor state of the economy and uncertainty of the marketplace might have put a dent in that business, it was the oft repeated and sensationalized bad news associated with the oil spill that almost dealt us a death blow. (You’d think with all of the resources of the major news media they could have found more than the one “famous” oil covered pelican? How about the thousands we saw daily without oil? There are, after all two sides to this story.)

The good news is that since returning to the Emerald Coast after a two year sabbatical living aboard our 35’ sailboat, cruising, writing and performing, I have witnessed the shocking downturn of tourism, I have also been overwhelmed by the incredible resilience and spirit of the residents and business people here. If Opal couldn’t do it to us, an oil company and their negligence surely can’t either! (Yeah, I know accidents happen, but as a former professional skydiver, I wouldn’t let them pack my parachute).

 At HobNob we are committed to bring you, our membership, visitors and business family, the good news of the day. We firmly believe that there are those that want to hear about funny stuff, feel good stuff and positive things. Kinda like a small town newspaper of olden-times. We’ll leave the sensationalism of the 15 second sound bite and yellow journalism to the mainstream media. Sure if there really is something bad you need to know about we’ll try to get the word out to you, but in the aftermath, we’ll tell the rest of the story as well. Invariably that story will contain positive messages of the triumph of the human spirit and of moving forward against the odds.

So the story today is COME TO THE BEAUTIFUL EMERALD COAST! The beaches are spotless and un-crowded, the myriad of shops have super sales, the hotels and resorts have huge discounts, attractions such as The Gulfarium, The Track and Big Kahuna’s all are having specials and the restaurants and nightspots are serving up deals as well.

Oh yeah, just in case you don’t believe me you can check out the beach report at: http://bswupdate.com/

HobNob Dave – Reporter-at-