Glad-hander Reporting: Daytona Beach News-Journal tourism PR story laughable & predictable drivel

News-Journal PR on tourism / Headline Surfer®DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- All one has to do before even reading the Daytona Beach News-Journal opus headlined, "Tourism rebounds: Hotel-tax revenue rises, and experts predict more next year," is look at the display photo: It shows the ferris wheel with nobody on it, an outdoor eatery barren of customers and maybe two dozen people on the boardwalk itself.

They say every picture tells a story. This one is no different, especially when the reporting is typical PR drivel.

It is yet another glorified press release written for and quoted by insiders who feast off the tourism bed taxes; the quid pro quo return for the News-Journal in advertising, directly or indirectly through merchant groups.

Insiders like Evelyn Fine, for example.

Here is the premise or hook for justifying this as a write=-up on the front page of today's newspaper as written: Volusia County tourism-tax collections in October hit their highest levels for the month since at least 2003. Flagler County also saw its tourism-tax revenues jump in May by the largest year-over-year percentage in more than two years.

And then comes Fine, quoted as, "We had new highs on a regular basis,” identified as president of Daytona Beach-based Mid-Florida Marketing & Research, which conducts tourism studies for the area. She said 2014 is on track to be the strongest year since the start of the 2007-2009 Great Recession. However, she’s predicting 2015 will top it, according to the story.

Here's the problem with Fine.

She's about as credible as the fox guarding the henhouse. Her quotes and her very being in this story are self-serving, never mind that makes six figures annually with metrics that don't prove the millions spent on tourism bed taxes for the three tourism entities in Volusia County put even one head in a bed, aside from the long-standing staples of tourism events that draw overnight visitors:

• Speedweeks with the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway in February;

• Bike Week in March;

• July 4 weekend NASCAR races at the Speedway, featuring the Coke Zero 400 under the lights followed by a spectacular fireworks show;

• Biketoberfest three-day weekend biker rally in October ;

• Thanksgiving holiday weekend Turkey Run, featuring classic and muscle cars.

And none of these five special events require any significant tourism dollars, if any at all, especially now in the digital age where one can literally find thousands of videos. Headline Surfer® itself has several hundred videos of these events over the past half dozen years.

Oh, and every one of these events has declined considerably year over year over the last decade, just the opposite of what the News-Journal fluff piece claims. 

Consider:

• The Speedway saw its last real sellout in the 2001 Daytona 500, the race that saw Dale Earnhardt lose his life in a last-lap crash coming off turn 4 when he was sent into the outside concrete retaining wall nearly head-on, killing him instantly. 

• The Rossmeyer Family moved its Harley-Davidson dealership half a decade ago from Beach Street where it was in the shadow of the colossal albatross known as the News-Journal Center, to a brand new sprawling complex in Ormond Beach aptly named, "Destination Daytona."

• Biketoberfest did rebound this year, with about 75,000 motorcyclists, but again, many of them were either on Main Street in Daytona or up at Rossmeyers' and the Iron Horse up the road in Ormond Beach.

• The Daytona 500 in recent years has proven to be a stinker with jobbers like Ward Burton, Jamie McMurray, Trevor Bayne, Ryan Newman, Matt Kenseth (twice), and Jimmie Johnson. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. gave NASCAR fans something to cheer about in winning the 500 three years after his father's death, and again this year, with a six-hour lightning and thunderstorm causing a six-hour delay. 

• The Coke Zero race was abysmal and far from a sellout with rain causing the race to be halted from its Saturday night stet and was delayed on Sunday before being called on lap 112 of the scheduled 160-lap race around the 2.5-mile high-bank track. And the winner was someone few have heard of -- Aric Almirola -- declared the winner without the waving of a checkered flag, though his No. 43 car was well known, the number that was Richard Petty's who won the Daytona 500 a record seven times.

The Turkey Run generates repeat visitors who like to show off their hot rods, muscle cars and antique cars to the locals.