Miami Nice
I think they had me at the baby kangaroo. Or maybe it was the flock of bikini-clad amazons who greeted us as we arrived for brunch at the harbor venue along Biscayne Boulevard. Could have been the dazzling sunshine, or the Astor Piazzolla music tinkling from the bandstand; whatever it was, Miami knows how to grab your attention.
If there’s any location in the United States that spells glitz, glamour and easy living, it’s Miami, Florida. You’ve seen it in TV shows (Miami Vice, CSI: Miami), movies (Bad Boys, The Birdcage, Analyze This, Meet the Fockers and of course, Scarface) and heard about its fashion culture and Art Deco architecture. This year’s International Pow Wow travel event took place there, and some 4,600 delegates from all 50 US states, along with journalists from around the world, got a chance to see why Miami is still growing strong, despite the recession and despite initial fears that swine flu cases (elsewhere) would sway people from attending.
True, attendance was down from last year’s Pow Wow in Las Vegas (down by 16 percent, according to the Miami Herald). But the prevailing mood in Miami was “Yes, we can,” not “We’ll think about it and get back to you.”
Credit some of this to President Barack Obama’s federal stimulus package (worth some $787 billion), which may not directly aid tourism efforts in the United States, but has had the effect of lifting people’s ennui.
“This president gets it,” enthused Roger Dow, president and CEO of US Travel Association during a welcome lunch at Miami Beach’s Convention Center. “There’s been a new energy around the world since the election of President Obama.” Dow was particularly happy about Obama’s sit-down with 13 travel industry executives last March, underscoring the importance of travel to economic recovery. “That was the first time a sitting president has done something like this,” he beamed.
Miami has reasons to be cheerful, too, including a growing tourism industry under Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez (international arrivals were up about 5.4 percent in 2008; crime rates are way down). Hotel renovations and new construction projects dot the sunny, palm tree-lined city, and a huge, 3.5-million-square-foot North Terminal expansion (“the largest airport construction project in the country”) is set to open in 2011. Despite recessionary blips, Miami is steaming ahead.
Thanks to Delta-Northwest Airlines, foreign press guests were allowed to arrive in Miami in style, with hotel accommodations at the Marriott Biscayne Bay. On the first day of Pow Wow, guests joined one of 18 local tours, encompassing Art Deco sites of Miami Beach, a South Beach biking tour, a racecar driving experience at the Homestead-Miami Speedway, aquatic cruises around Key Biscayne, high-speed powerboat trips to Jungle Island for a nature excursion, a day of golfing at the Fairmont Turnberry Isle Resort & Club, and a trip to the Everglades, among others.
We chose to experience Miami’s heritage tour, which took us through the historic city of Coral Gables as well as a walking tour of Calle Ocho, Miami’s “Little Havana” of 1.4 million Cuban-Americans.
It’s interesting to consider that Miami City itself — at a mere 143 square kilometers and with only 400,000 residents — wasn’t always prime real estate. Swampland is more like it, before a housing boom in the early 1900s began one of many transformations of this blue-sky oceanfront paradise. It was “The Magic City,” attracting Jewish buyers who developed the waterfront, fashion designers, artists and musicians, enclaves of the rich and famous, ethnic waves (Cuban, Haitian, among others) and entertainers (Frank Sinatra, Jackie Gleason, Lucille Ball, etc.).
One of Miami’s most visible hotspots is South Beach, a 23-block strip of Art Deco hotels and restaurants along Ocean Drive fronting the waterfront. Versace’s former mansion is here; it’s now been turned into a restaurant, with tours of the slain Italian designer’s pad offered at $40 a pop. On our first night, Pow Wow organizers commandeered the beachfront (no easy feat) for an all-white DJ party, with acrobats, stilt-walkers and contortionists flanking the main stage as vendors offered carnie games and ethnic cuisine. (I slipped off to a bar across the street to watch Game 7 of the NBA semifinals, Boston vs. Orlando, and couldn’t help but overhear local patrons wondering what Pow Wow was about and why it had the muscle to take over South Beach.)
At night, neon hits the Miami air; the deco facade of The Carlyle hotel reminds you of The Birdcage (it was shot here), while the rest conjures up images of Crocket and Tubbs. We pass buildings used for the opening shots of CSI: Miami, but no tours are available. (None for Scarface locales either; apparently Miami residents don’t like to play up the gangsta image.) In daylight, South Beach is a circus all its own, with skateboarders, Rollerbladers, muscle flexers and bikini brigades everywhere. Cops patrol the beach area on high-tech titanium bicycles.
Back at the booths inside the Miami Beach Convention Center, we tried to get a fix on this year’s travel mood. Sure, there’s a recession going on, but the last word these people want to hear is “staycation.” “I think people are tired of having backyard barbecues,” quipped one vendor from CityPass, which offers travel discounts to multiple destinations in key US cities, including Boston, Atlanta, and most recently, Houston. The key word at this Pow Wow was “value.” Everyone was offering discounts and incentives to travel. Even The Big Apple held a press conference to launch “NYC ’09,” a promotion highlighting “the unprecedented value” of visiting the city: two-for-one and “buy one, get 50 percent off” deals were being offered at Manhattan hotels, restaurants, even Broadway. “There’s a misconception that New York is an expensive city,” said George Fertitta, CEO of NYC & Company, brushing aside questions from the international media about swine flu (“It’s important to note that, every year, 1,000 people pass away from seasonal flu in New York City, and 36,000 people nationwide.”).
Meanwhile, Brooklyn situates itself as a bargain borough with cheaper rents than downtown, home to famous writers like Paul Auster, Walter Mosley and Jonathan Lethem; and a developer called the Impulsive Group offers “economical hotels in Times Square” and “service hostels” for as low as $18 per night. How can that be in NYC? Value is the name of the game.
For Orlando and Hollywood, two prime theme park destinations, bigger and better was the theme, and to hell with the recession. Universal Studio heads from each coast highlighted coming attractions: a massive, “360-degree, 3D” King Kong attraction (based on the Peter Jackson movie) set to open at Universal Studios Hollywood; while Universal Orlando will open its interactive “Wizarding World of Harry Potter” attraction in 2010.
Texas stood tall at this year’s Pow Wow, staging a lunch with Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders and Asleep at the Wheel honky-tonking onstage. The Lone Star State’s message? “It’s not all cowboy,” according to Julie Chase, chief marketing officer at the Texas Governor’s office of Economic Development and Tourism. Translation: Texas needs to broaden its branding to attract the world. (A video shown of golf courses and spa resorts underscored that this is not your granddaddy’s Texas anymore.)
Dow himself spelled out the facts at the opening lunch: the global travel pie is still growing, but travel to the US, for a variety of reasons, has dropped since 2001, dipping another 10 percent last year. “We need to find ways to increase our fair share,” he noted. Some improvements in the works under Obama: 1) 400 US customs agents were added to facilitate entry to the country; 2) a $32-million Global Entry Program for advanced passport screening is in place; 3) the US Visa Waiver Program was expanded from 27 to 35 countries (and no, the Philippines is not among them); 4) Congressional passage of the Travel Promotion Act will pump $250 million into promoting US destinations abroad; 5) a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed with China will help increase group travel to approved US destinations.
These announcements drew plenty of cheers and whoops from attendees, and it’s easy to see the industry is panting for a more “open” attitude to travel, rather than the sideways Cheney sneer about “security” they’ve come to expect.
Still, I wondered how the US plans to balance the need for security with the equally crucial need to boost tourism. Some of the answers came at the Homeland Security table and its next-door neighbor, US Customs and Border Protection.
“We’ve upgraded our biometric technology at major US ports of entry from two digits to 10 digits” to increase visitor ID accuracy, explained a rep from Homeland Security. That would explain the long lines I encountered while passing through Detroit Customs; but I was assured this is a “one-time” biometric data gathering; once the non-resident’s digital fingerprinting and photo are obtained, they’re in the system, speeding up future travel time. “Biometrics offers a very unique record,” the Homeland rep added. “Through this, we’re trying to build integrity into the system.” The 10-digit info is shared with the FBI, US Department of Defense and other agencies to screen for known — or unknown — terrorists.
On the H1N1 front, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is maintaining a stance of guarded openness, urging visitors to monitor themselves for “flu-like symptoms,” handing out CDC Traveler’s Health Alert notices on flights to the US, and “watching for individuals exhibiting flu-like symptoms and taking appropriate measures,” as Health Secretary Janet Napolitano said in an April 30 press conference. But nothing as stringent as Japan, which gives out H1N1 questionnaires to incoming passengers, pulls aside those who flunk, and conducts spot temperature tests. The official CBP position reads: “At this time all US ports of entry are open and operating as normal with officers using risk-based border screening.”
That’s the difficult tightrope the US hopes to walk: patrolling its borders with ever-tighter scrutiny while still trying to welcome the world with open arms. Jonathan Tisch, chairman of Loews, one of the country’s biggest hotel groups, summed up the optimistic view best: “We believe in secure borders and open doors.” Yes, we can have both, was the prevailing hope.
Travel, after all, is what brings the world closer. Eric Danzinger, president and CEO of Wyndham Hotel Group and the chair of International Pow Wow 2009, quoted Mark Twain in his speech (“Travel is fatal to bigotry and narrow-mindedness”) and championed “a spirit of renewed respect and integrity in this country,” an obvious nod to Obama, or perhaps the difficult years preceding his watch. Even the creation of the US Travel Association last January — a merger between the Travel Industry Association and the Travel Business Roundtable — signals an “empowering” shift, a higher profile for tourism, now that the association feels it has this president’s ear. But while the spirit of change surrounding Obama’s election seems to have energized delegates at this year’s Pow Wow, it remains to be seen how much this will actually boost travel and tourism.
This year’s Pow Wow ended with a multicultural extravaganza at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Miami: opera singers, hip-hop dance routines, Afro-Cuban ballet and a flamenco performance by José Feliciano brought the conference to a fittingly global finale. Miami is one of America’s outposts that has opened its arms to different cultures, understanding that a rich mix can keep a destination vibrant. Other American destinations, understandably, are contemplating the same. And just what do America’s tour operators hope to gain through such efforts?
To quote Scarface’s infamous Tony Montana: “The world, and everything in it.”
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