Returning guest Sean Doherty, executive director of the Punta Gorda/Englewood Beach Visitor & Convention Bureau, marks 21 years with the organization and reports the destination has finally turned the corner on recovery from the late-2024 hurricanes. The conversation centers on two timely themes. First, how AI is reshaping DMO web strategy: as AI overviews increasingly answer travelers' questions before they ever click, Sean argues it's more critical than ever that a DMO's site be accurate and fresh so those AI answers pull from — and cite — the destination as the true "voice of authority." His practical shift is from keyword-based SEO to answer engine optimization: adding conversational FAQs to every main page to match how people actually phrase questions.

Second, Sean breaks down a summer strategy tuned to the drive market amid high gas and jet-fuel prices, leaning even closer to home and in-state while not abandoning Allegiant feeder markets or higher-income fly-in visitors. He closes on the destination's culinary storytelling push — a "flavor coast" campaign featuring nine locally owned restaurants with waterfront, catch-what-you-eat, pet-friendly dining and standout stories like Bella Napoli's Italian pizza-contest finish and The Perfect Caper chef who beat Bobby Flay.

In This Episode:

• 00:06 - Introduction to Aqua Talks
• 02:37 - The Impact of AI on Destination Marketing Organizations
• 09:02 - Shifts in Travel Trends and Marketing Strategies
• 13:14 - Marketing Strategies and Audience Targeting
• 15:48 - Culinary Tourism and Local Flavor
• 20:40 - Culinary Highlights and Future Conversations

Key Takeaways:

• AI is changing DMO web strategy. As AI overviews answer questions directly, accuracy and freshness matter more than ever so AI pulls from and cites the DMO as the voice of authority.
• SEO → AEO. Sean is shifting from keyword optimization to answer engine optimization, adding conversational FAQs to every main page to match how travelers actually ask questions.
• Be the voice of authority. DMOs know more about local dining, lodging, and events than anyone — and unlike partner sites that go stale (some listing attractions that no longer exist), his staff audits the site daily.
• Summer leans into the drive market. With high gas and especially jet-fuel prices, marketing shifts closer to home and in-state (a ~700-mile drive radius), without abandoning Allegiant feeder markets or upper-income fly-in visitors.
• Airport vs. drive is one visitor strategy. It all plays out in marketing spend across Allegiant feeder markets versus drive markets; Punta Gorda Airport and Allegiant are still positioned to grow.
• Culinary storytelling is a growth driver. The "flavor coast" campaign spotlights nine locally owned restaurants — waterfront, pet-friendly, catch-what-you-eat — with pro photo/video telling owner and chef stories (Peace River Seafood, Bella Napoli, Celtic Ray Irish Pub, The Perfect Caper's Bobby Flay win), with more to come.

Welcome to Aqua Talks, where marketing meets bold game changing ideas.

Join your hosts, Larry Aldrich and Maddie Dudley as they explore the art and science of cutting through the noise, capturing attention and fostering meaningful connections with your audience.

Whether you're a destination marketer, government contractor, or simply passionate about the transformative power of marketing, Aqua Talks offers engaging discussions, fresh insights and actionable strategies designed to inspire and inform.

Welcome back to Aqua Talks, sponsored by Brennsys Technology LLC and Xeniq. We're here for the next few days at Destination Florida in Bradenton. We will be speaking with Quite a few DMOs.

Stay tuned for a lot of good conversations coming up. Thanks. Welcome back to Aqua Talks.

We're here again with we're back again with a returning guest, Sean Daugherty, executive director at Punta Gorda Beach, Punta Gorda / Englewood Beach. Excuse me. Thanks for coming back, Sean.

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Thank you. So again, I've been working with you for quite some time now.

So, you know, I know what you do again, remind the guests again where you've been, what you're doing, what's going on at Punta Gorda, Eaglewood Beach.

Yeah, sure, sure. So I've been with just hit my 21st year anniversary just last month. So it's been a whirlwind, so to speak.

The past five years or so, I've been serving as executive director of the Hunger Englewood Beach Visitor and Convention Bureau. Prior to that, I was involved heavily on the sales side of things, the sports market, the meetings market, as well as the leisure travel market.

So that's kind of what my background kind of is. And as far as what we're up to on all kinds of stuff, we're working hard and things are going great.

Speaking of sports, I wanted to golf last week. You were busy. Thank you for not golfing with me. I didn't do too well. I didn't do good at all, actually.

I've been practicing all winter with my irons and then I get on the course with a driver and clearly shows I haven't been practicing with my drivers.

I know how that is. Ye and it's hard to keep all, all aspects of your game sharp at all times. It's almost impossible.

It's extremely impossible. But we'll dive right in on some of, some of the hot topics. So we'll start off with AI website SEO.

I mean, and we know that that's a, a big Hot topic with you and your team.

And you know, you've been thinking about, hey, how AI is, is, is changing the game for the demos and websites and, and how we're viewing the websites.

So if you're seeing someone, ask, you know, chat, GPT or Google, you know, to overview their vacation or, and, and, and on the, on the golf course, excuse me, on the Gulf Coast. And how does that affect, in a destination like yours?

Yeah.

So, you know, obviously DMO's website is so important because so much of what we do from an advertising standpoint is, is, you know, intended to drive people to that website and to provide that platform to give all kinds of information.

Of course, we're not like a chamber of commerce where we have members, so we represent every aspect, every partner within our destination as equally as we can or, you know, comprehensively as possible.

So, you know, that was always the deal was you know, SEO trying to get people, you know, you know, be as high on that list during Google searches so that people would get to our website because we feel we are the voice of authority on what there is to see and do in the, in the destination.

But now with, with AI, you know, that generated AI, generated content, obviously now when you go to search for something, you get that AI overview come up and a lot of people, you know, they see that, you know, people don't like to read, they don't like to search it as much anymore. So you see that and they take that for gospel right there. They read it and say, oh, okay, there's my answer, and they move on.

And that's okay because our goal is for the potential visitor to get the answers that they want and to get it quickly. But if that information isn't accurate, that's a problem.

So it becomes more and more incumbent on us as a DMO to make sure that all of our information on our website is very accurate.

So that when those AI generated answers are coming, or hopefully they're pulling from our website and citing us as that voice of authority and everything and the people are getting the actual answer that they're looking for.

Yeah. And I know that we still look at metrics, we're still going to look at the data.

Do you see the number of views on your website going down a little bit? Because search engines have changed a little.

Bit with AI, we expect that's going to happen. I don't think we've quite seen it yet. I'd have to check with my marketing director to see if when last time she checked those metrics.

But the past couple of years we've actually seen that going up and increasing.

But yeah, we're definitely expecting that that's going to come down and primarily because that's, you know, people are looking at those AI overviews and all and just quitting their search at that point. So yeah, it's very important that we make sure that that information is accurate.

Talking about search engine optimization versus traditional SEO for DMO marketers list who haven't made that mental shift yet. What's the practice, what's the practical difference and what should they be doing tomorrow morning that they're probably not doing today?

You know, I think kind of making, just auditing your website, making sure that one of the things, you know, I read recently is to try to make sure that you're matching up the way a person's asking questions.

So before with SEO it was really about all about keywords and now it's really more about full sentences of how people might, would ask that question, you know, whatever it might be, you know, where can I go to a great seafood restaurant close to the beach or something like that.

So one of the things we're going to be putting on our website more we, you know, we do have some FAQs but adding FAQs on every single main page of our website, you know, with those, with that type of verbiage. So hopefully it matches up better and that's that it gets pulled that way through the. I guess it's what. Answer engine optimization versus SEO.

And you mentioned that the DMO website should be the voice of authority. Can you give an example or explain what that looks like?

Yeah, because we should know more than anybody what there is to see and do in the destination.

Anything related to our accommodations or restaurants, any of that information that a visitor events that might be taking place in the destination, we should know more, you know, than anybody else because that's what we deal with on a daily basis.

So rather than, you know, someone, you know, just Google searching and finding some, some, someone that just happens to put something on their website might be a, it could be a partner. But I'll tell you some, we've gone to some of our local partners websites and the information they might have on it as far as things to see and do.

We were just on one the other day and they had like four things on there of things to see and do that aren't, don't even exist anymore. So that tells me those things have been left on their website for, for several years and they haven't audited Their own website.

So we really want to make sure they come to ours because we are constantly auditing our website. Our staff's in it every single day.

How do you monitor or manage to make sure that AI is grabbing the information from your website or that your website is being used as the voice of authority and not something that's an old TripAdvisor page?

Yeah, you know, I think all we can do, and, you know, I'm not the technical person on staff by any means, but I think the best that we can do is to continue putting that, keeping that information fresh, updating things on our website. So, you know, whether it's a blog post, you know, because we could have written a blog post last year, but then certain things changed in that.

So freshening this blog post up, making sure all the listings are accurate in any, really any information, general information on there, and just make sure it's always fresh and accurate. Okay.

And doing a little shift over to the drive market and summer travel, which I can speak on, because I've been driving all over Florida and when I leave here, I'm going to further south Florida driving. So, you know, talking about what's coming this summer, you're seeing signals that the drive market is going to matter even more than usual.

What are you hearing from travelers and from your lodging partners about what people are making vacation decisions right now, you.

Know, other than the gas prices. Yeah, yeah, really. You know, the gas prices is a big part of it.

And even though the gas prices affect people that are going to be driving, it seems to be affecting even more people that might be flying. Jet fuel prices have really skyrocketed.

And, you know, if you're talking about taking a family of four, yeah, your gas in your car is going to be a little bit more, but it doesn't increase exponentially, you know, versus buying four airplane tickets. So. So I think more people will look to maybe stay a little closer to home. And they're going to.

Maybe they're not going to give up their vacations, but they're going to maybe be more likely to drive. So we kind of look at that maybe 700 mil radius as kind of our drive market.

And, you know, the thing is that the good thing, I guess it is, is that it does line up with our strategy anyway, that during summer for summer travel, we do focus on marketing to that drive market, but we're probably going to even focus even more of it, even closer. So a little more in state, you know, than maybe we would have or just.

Just out of State like in the, in the Georgia area and that, you know, so that's kind of what we're thinking because it's not. And it's not just gas prices. You know, inflation is still indirectly.

Yeah, it's still a factor, you know, but at the same time, you know, we know that, that inflation doesn't really. And even the gas prices don't really affect that upper household income level. And of course we want those people in our destination as well.

So, so it's not that we're going to abandon marketing to other, you know, fly destinations, but shift, shift some of it more a little closer down.

Are you seeing any data or any chatter about people that would have originally flown somewhere that have chosen to drive other than me? I'm working though, so I'm not on vacation, you know.

Well, we'll see because, you know, obviously we contract with a research company who provides US quarterly research reports and some of the questions in there do ask the visitor how they arrived, you know, whether they drove, whether they flew into Punta Gorda Airport or RSW or Tampa. So it will be interesting to see that especially this, we just got back our Q2 numbers, which is January through March.

So it'll be interesting to see how this, this coming quarter because I think it'll, it'll be the quarter that we're in that will end maybe then next quarter that might be most affected by those, those situations with the, with inflation and the gas prices and comparing that to previous years, it'll be interesting to see. Yeah.

Punta Gorda beach, excuse me. Punta Gorda Airport has been on a tear with passenger growth.

How does that change the equation when you're also seeing a shift towards the drive travel?

You know, I think, I think it'll be kind of a temporary thing. You know, I think gas prices will go back down. So, you know, we're not panicking over it and everything.

It's really more of a, just a, you know, subtle adjustment to our marketing strategy for the, for the summer travel. And like I said, it's not a major shift. It's something that we would normally do anyway during this time of year to focus on, on the drive market.

Anyway, one effect it could have on, on some of the flights may, some of the underperforming flights that maybe they were on the fence about renewing, maybe they don't get renewed because, you know, they weren't really filling the planes. So, so hopefully that doesn't happen.

But you know, I think, you know, overall, I think airport and allegiant Is in very good position to actually grow.

Yeah. Are you managing two different travel strategies, a drive strategy, a flight strategy?

Well, yeah, just all. It all plays out. Visitor strategy. Yeah, it really just all plays out in our marketing spend. You know, how, you know, where.

Where we're going to choose to place the dollars, whether we're going to be focusing on, you know, from a geographic standpoint of dumping money into some of those allegiant feeder markets versus. Versus the drive markets.

Yeah. When we were in Louisville for etourism, I saw two big billboards for Punta Gorda beach. One coming into the city from the major highway.

And as I was going out of the city to the gym, which was a little further in the suburbs, another big sign right there.

Did it make you want to get on the plane?

I took a picture, yeah.

You know, that's always great to hear that. You know, I was just in a meeting the other day and I was kind of explaining to the group a little bit about what we do and on.

And I kind of said to them, I said, you know, you guys probably don't see any of our advertising because this group was a group that's over in the west side of the county. So their businesses are all kind of beach related or they get a lot of their business from people coming to go to our beaches.

And so sometimes the people over there might think that we don't do enough advertising that shows the beaches and vice versa on the other side of the county.

But I said to myself, you know, you guys probably don't really ever see much of our advertising, which is a good thing because we're not targeting you. You're here. The lady sitting next to me said, you know, I was just in Long island last month visiting some friends and I saw Yalls ad up there.

I was like, oh, that's great. You know, it's working. So, you know, so.

So yeah, we're looks like we're able to, you know, not saturate the markets that we'd like to, but at least we're being noticed.

Yeah, yeah, I was definitely noticed. So. And Louisville, Kentucky, probably allegiant direct flight right to Punta Gorda Beach.

Yep, yep, yep. And that, that's, you know, Louisville is a good market. And you know, Louisville is not so far from Cincinnati.

I used to live in Louisville for a little bit, and so I know how close that is to Cincinnati. Especially if you're living, you know, just in the suburbs of Louisville, north of there.

I mean, it might be just as easy to go to Cincinnati and they fly directly into Ponta Gray Airport seven days a week.

And because right now that's kind of our main challenge with only having allegiant flying into Punta Gordon Airport is that most of the destinations are flying from May only fly two to three times a week rather than that seven days. But since then is a great example of one that, you know, flies in all the time. So.

And at that etourism event, Maureen and I had a really great conversation about the flavor coast, the taste of the Punta Gorda be Punta Gorda Inglewood beach cuisine. Do you want to touch on a.

Little bit about that going into the flav?

Yeah, sure.

You know, we're real excited about that. You know, a lot of the stuff we've been reading is very timely.

Actually we started that process of going down that road to, with that campaign prior to me seeing some of the stuff, some of the data and information that kind of points to that, the fact that people are looking at culinary offerings more as a driver of their visitation of where they're planning on going. And you know, we talked about a little bit internally.

You know, it came up several months ago, if not more, more like a year and a half ago about how many stories that we really have related to our culinary offerings and everything. You know, the fact that we only have, we have a small percentage of our culinary offerings are chain restaurants.

So we have so many restaurants that are, you know, locally owned and operated or even sourced. The food is sourced right out of the harbor. For example, Peace River Seafood. They get all their crabs right there.

But you know, the fact that we have great waterfront, waterfront dining options, pet friendly outdoor seating at a lot, a lot of restaurants.

You know, there's just so many different angles and approaches we could take to really elevate and amplify what we have to offer from a culinary standpoint. So really excited to see how that goes. And as you know, we started out with the, you know, featuring nine different restaurants, you know, and all.

And I'll tell you, all the people from that we partnered with on those, they're, they've been very grateful with the response so far they've, they've received.

So yeah, I wanted to bring that up of. If you wanted to elaborate on how you tell that story from what the conversation that, that Maureen and I had.

I mean you're, you're very few chain restaurants. It's a, it's a catch what you eat. Atmosphere along the water, along the coast, very pet friendly.

And there anything that you want to elaborate or Add to that story, how you tell that story of, you know, that few chain restaurants catch what you eat. Environment, pet friendly, being outside, up up against the water and enjoying the cuisine and.

Yeah. And destination. Yeah.

You know, like I said, those nine restaurants that we had, we, we did, you know, you know, professional photo shoots as, you know, behind the scenes to where, you know, really could kind of have a. That conversation with whether it's the. The owner or the head chef and.

And them really kind of take you back to their story of why they decided to open the restaurant or what makes their restaurant unique. For example, Bella Napoli. You know, the. We didn't even know this. We learned some stuff through the process.

They just recently got second place in a pizza contest in Italy. You know, they source a lot of their flowers directly from Italy.

So, you know, if you can win a pizza contest or come in second place in a pizza contest in Italy, your pizza is probably pretty good, you know, so being able to tell people things like that, it really makes you stand out. Celtic Ray Irish Pub. You know, that's a very authentic Irish pub and all. And the owner there, he's a hoot, you know, and everything.

And it really showed his, his personality in that, in that little short video. It's things like that that I think really grab people's attention and say, oh, I want to go see that place.

And everybody's got to eat when they go on vacation, right?

Absolutely. And there's a lot of great stories.

I've heard quite a few from quite a few people that work on our team that's been down to Punta Gorda, you know, enjoying the cuisine and the food and the stories. Are there any chefs that stick out.

That you want to. Well, yeah, yeah. The perfect caper, which is one of our fine dining establishments right in downtown Punta Gorda.

You know, she beat Bobby Flay on his show. You know, Bobby Flay is a pretty well known chef and not too many people beat him, and she was able to beat him.

So, you know, that's a great story in itself. But yeah, we got all kinds of different, like I said before, just so many different angles and so many different stories.

Can't even think about most of them in my head right now. But yeah, more to come. You know, like I said, we started off with those nine, but it's our intent to continue building upon that.

And we already have some of our other restaurants that have already kind of said, hey, you know, raised their hand, said, hey, me next, you know, so.

So we're looking forward to that and being able to kind of bring that all together and really show the full breadth of what our area has to offer from a culinary standpoint.

I know we've sat and talked in our studio. We're here in Bradenton having a conversation. Our next conversation is going to be in your destination.

We're going to have some of the beautiful views in the background, maybe even show some of that food, taste some of that.

Oh, that'd be great. We can make that happen. We can make that happen.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you, Jim.

Thanks. Thanks.

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