Challenges abound as a new tourism director takes over

BRADENTON — Elliott Falcione stands inside Holmes Beach City Hall on a Wednesday afternoon.

Less than a mile away is the Gulf of Mexico — clean and clear. No oil sheen, no tar balls, no sludge. Just golden sand and clean water.

Falcione, the newly appointed interim director of the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, knows Manatee County’s beaches are clean.

His first order of business as a department leader is working with the local tourism industry to counteract the negative image that’s been cast on the Gulf Coast from the BP oil spill.

“We’ve got to work together,” Falcione tells a group of business owners the tourism industry meeting. “We can’t sit back and say the industry will take care of itself or the CVB will take care of it. We’ve got to work together.”

That’s why Falcione is hosting a series of bi-weekly tourism industry meetings. The meetings are aimed to help hoteliers, restaurateurs and retailers better market their businesses in the aftermath of the April 20 oil spill.

But the meetings also have served a dual purpose in a time of transition for the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. At the gatherings, Falcione has been able introduce himself to local tourism businesses as the bureau’s new leader and has indicated he’d like the industry meetings to become a regular gathering in which businesses can discuss more than the oil spill but issues, success stories and marketing strategies with social networking.

“Beyond the oil spill it’s important to have open communication in the industry,” Falcione said. “We want to make these meetings educational. We’re here to educate as well. It’s vital we build on the success we have had.”

The Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau is restructuring after its longtime executive director Larry White, whose annual salary was $101,600, retired June 30 after leading the department for 19 years.

Also in June, the bureau lost its marketing director Jessica Grace, who accepted a director of industry relations position with the U.S. Travel Association in Washington, D.C. Grace had an annual salary of $56,576.

Now as Falcione, who earns $90,000 annually, settles into the director’s position, he is also working with the county to fill the vacant marketing position and preparing Rachel Harrison, assistant operations manager of the Manatee Convention and Civic Center, to take over the facilities manager position that he held for the past 17 years.

The executive director position, however, is one Falcione has been ready to assume for some time.

Falcione came to the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau in 1993 after serving for five years as assistant director of operations for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Falcione knew early in his career he wanted to direct the bureau after White’s retirement.

During his tenure at the bureau, Falcione has overseen several renovation projects at the Manatee Convention and Civic Center, helped re-open the Powell Crosley Estate as a tourism attraction and wedding venue and during the end of White’s tenure was mentored to succeed him as executive director.