Dave Serino Blogs

Philly's Streaming Podcasts

The Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp. and local CBS news radio station affiliate KYW-AM have partnered to launch “Hearphilly.com” -  a combination of KYW podcasts and reports from the tourism marketing agency.   The Internet broadcasts include several well-known KYW news reporters and will be updated daily with reports on events and attractions in the Philadelphia area.

A very interesting play in the tourism industry for a few reasons.  The practical reasons are the distribution opportunities and online traffic.   Try searching your favorite city and see how the local media outlets dominate the results.   And, when I do web site statistical analysis programs for DMO’s, media outlets frequently rank very high on the list of referring domains.

Then you have the coolness factor. High quality, streaming podcasts of your destination running world-wide, 24-7.  Way to Go Phila!  BTW – must admit I’m a bit bias, as it is the birthplace of yours truly!

"That Happens All the Time"

I just returned to the cold and snowy Midwest from beautiful Orange County, California. I had a brief, but excellent stay. My accommodations were at a full service, upscale hotel property. (Thank you M, A and T for the hook up!)

The hotel had a friendly staff;  clean, spacious rooms; convenient location and a cool running trail about a quarter mile away from the entrance. The hotel also offered a courtesy shuttle  to the airport. When I inquired about the return trip to John Wayne International, the front desk clerk informed me that the hotel shuttles run every hour-on-the-hour, starting at 6:00 a.m, each day. He then kindly offered to schedule me on a return trip. Prior to my response, I paused briefly, to mentally calculate the commute time with my departure time.  Then I realized it probably wasn’t going to get me there early enough to pass through security and reach my gate.  Before I could say a word, he responded with, “Let me guess, your flight leaves at 6:45?”. I nodded in agreement . And his reply, “You know, that happens all the time.”

Sounds like an operational opportunity to me.