Day in the life of
Executive Director – Stacey Marmolejo
I am the Executive Director of Florida Beach Break, a coalition of in-destination small businesses on Florida’s Space Coast. As the Executive Director of a coalition of in-destination businesses, my job is to help vacationers find my members so the travellers can book these in-destination experiences with my members while they are here on vacation. Ideally, we’re able to be in front of the travellers before they arrive. As such my job is a mix of marketing public relations, advertising and promotion.
Florida Beach Break Instagram page
What does a typical day of work look like for you?
Most of my day is spent:
Posting to social media
Travel is an easy industry to promote online because depicting it with beautiful photos is as easy as stepping out our back door and snapping a photo with our phone. That’s the good news.
The bad news is, it’s that easy for every other destination as well. So we are continually trying to find ways to effectively compete for attention with other vacation spots.
Instagram, Facebook and YouTube are our three primary social media channels. Most in-destination association content creators are responsible for posting the content as well as creating it, but we have divided the efforts here. Our Editor participates in our members’ activities, going kayaking or surfing or sailing or fishing and capturing real vacationers enjoying their experience. Once he’s edited the photos or video, he passes them over to me and I post them to social media. He writes the articles about his experiences for our website blog.
Connecting with media
Whether I’m attempting to get one of my members placed on a talk show or whether I’m serving as a subject matter expert, earned media is an important element to my job in order to make people aware of not only our destination but also our website.
Our website enables people to research all of the activities and companies who provide those activities for their upcoming vacation. Our website is not a booking website so we have no conflict of interest.
Managing advertising campaigns
69% of leisure travellers who purchased trip experiences say they evaluate travel options online so understanding how digital advertising works is an important element in a tourism marketing role. I manage our relationship with a digital agency that creates and books our online ads. The agency also guides us on optimizing our website for search engines.
Recruiting members
The last aspect of my job is recruiting members. Each day I’m reaching out to in-destination providers on the Space Coast and explaining the benefits of being a Florida Beach Break member as I recruit them to join our coalition.
Staying abreast of trends in the in-destination sector of travel industry
Whether it’s reading articles, attending conferences, chatting with other professionals with a similar job to mine in a different destination or participating in webinars or courses I need to stay on the forefront of what my members need to know and what I need to do to serve them.
One of the type of companies Stacey promotes – Cocoa Kayaking
Pros
- I happen to think our section of Florida is the absolute best of the entire state. After all, I chose to live here. To be able to introduce vacationers to it is very rewarding. I love when people say things like, “I’ve never heard of the Space Coast but it sounds like exactly what we’re looking for!”
- Even though I’m not the one who participates in the excursions for our stories, I could if I wanted to. All of our members invite me to join in whenever I want. That’s quite a perk!
- I love working in an industry that brings people joy. Everyone looking forward to a vacation is happy. I am surrounded by happy people.
- I like the variety in the work.
- When you work in the travel industry, you are usually afforded industry discounts when you travel elsewhere.
- It isn’t a 9am-5pm job. I may be asked to appear live on a TV show or podcast that happens after 5pm or on the weekend. If a member has an Open House or celebration, I attend it. At the same time, if I want to go to a yoga class or zen out on the beach in the middle of the morning, the job is flexible enough to allow for that. The job is a lifestyle and I enjoy that.
Cons
- Association work is not a high-paying career. Some people who do what I do work for local visitor bureaus or state tourism bureaus. Government jobs generally aren’t high-paying either.
- If you work for a government agency your job is dependent on funding being approved each year.
- In addition to staying up to date on the travel industry, I find it stressful to try to stay on top of all the social media. I haven’t even touched Tik Tok or Clubhouse and I feel like I should.
