COVER STORY
16
Kathe Brewer, left, and Florida master naturalist Kristen Beck look at a
scrub jay nest while riding their bikes along the St. Sebastian River in
Sebastian.
man of FPAT and owner of Indian River Lagoon and Swampland
Boat Tours. He parks his pontoon boat at Fort Pierce
City Marina, right outside the Original Tiki Bar & Restaurant.
People who take his tour of the Indian River Lagoon get an
up close and personal look at marine and terrestrial wildlife.
Lege says they always want to know about other tours or
nature-related activities.
Lege grew up around the Lousiana bayous, part of a family
that was always involved with outdoor life. In one way or
another, he has helped the Audubon Society all his adult life,
and he uses his expertise in his tour talks when he teaches
what he calls his “captive audience” about the unique qualities
of the Indian River Lagoon.
Jon Ward, director of Fort Pierce Redevelopment, helped
get FPAT up and running. He says the redevelopment agency
had a fund it had been using to help start-up businesses
but invariably found that they failed as soon as the money
was gone.
“It was just a bad use of funds,” he says, “so we realized
we had all these small tour businesses that had been in business
for years, and there was no question that they would
survive, and we decided to help them do it better.”
FPAT is serving that purpose, he says. It is also drawing
tour operators together to talk about promotion and marketing
of ecotourism. Someday, they may have a Web site that
allows people to choose tours and activities all in one place.
One secret to promoting ecotourism is to focus on the tour
operator, helping clients establish a personal friendship with
the guide. It makes all the difference in how they feel about
the experience, Ward says.
A system of grants was devised in which the FPAT board
would rate and recommend funding for businesses that
applied. Ward says they haven’t asked for much. Typically,
one business sought $3,500 to buy computer equipment to
improve its ability to handle the office from the field. The Fort
Pierce City Commission has the say on who gets the grants.
Mahboubi says bed tax collections in Aug. 2011 were 16
percent higher than in August 2010, and year-to-date collections
were up 7 percent. The tax money pays for the advertising
and promotion of tourism by the Martin County Convention
& Visitors Bureau.
According to VisitFlorida, which markets tourism for the
state, every dollar spent in advertising tourism generates
$147 in spending and $9 in state sales tax.
Charlotte Lombard, tourist development coordinator for
St. Lucie County, says the county’s 5 percent bed tax is levied
on accommodations rented for six months or less, including
hotels, motels, homes, condominiums and campgrounds. It
can only be used for very specific things, including advertising
and promotion of tourism.
Lombard says tourist tax collections went up 15 percent in
2011 compared with the same period in 2010. About $15,000
of the advertising budget was allocated to ecotourism.
St. Lucie reaches out to the traveling public with a travel
guide featuring things to do and places to go, billboards on
the turnpike and I-95, brochures, a postcard and a listing of
Water lilies are abundent on ponds and lakes around the Treasure Coast
including White City Park in St. Lucie County, McKee Botanical Garden in
Vero Beach, and private ponds in places like Sewalls Point in Martin County.
Emery and Claire Fellows from Vermont enjoy their third winter of camping
at an RV campsite in the Savannas Recreation Area where they are right in
the middle of natural, scenic habitat.
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