We’ve been poking around Pier Park’s Facebook Fan Page and came across the full event schedule for the New Year’s Eve Beach Ball Drop event.  Reading their updates, it seems apparent that there will be a large dedicated stage for the headliner band, Vertical Horizon and tons of fun things to do for the family.

Per the event listing:

5:30 pm to 8:30 pm – Family Celebration: Bands including The Barry Fish Band, bounce houses, stilt walkers, balloon artists, face painting, funnel cakes, tons of fun for the kids including 7,000 beach balls being dropped at 8:30 (right now there are lines going across the main Boardwalk area, could this be for the beach balls?) and fireworks off the pier.

8:30 pm to whenever – Countdown celebration: Nothing Short of Pure Band at 9:00 pm, Headliner Band is VERTICAL HORIZON will go on at 10:45pm, funnel cakes, beer and liquor tents, tons of fun for all including a countdown and grand firework display off the pier at midnight!

140+ prizes being given away including 12 Southwest Airlines tickets to ANYWHERE in their network.

VERTICAL HORIZON Hits include “You’re a God” and “Everything You Want” with their latest album including the single “Save Me From Myself.” Visit www.verticalhorizon.com for more info on them.

Three of the things that seem to stand out this year that are different from last year:

1. 7,000 inflated beach balls being dropped at 8:30 pm for the kids.  This looks and sounds very cool.  I can only imagine how this will play out, but I keep imagining tons of beach balls bouncing all over the streets and tons of kids smiling.
2. Vertical Horizon playing.  Now having some experience seeing how the back end of these types of operations work (thank you seafood festival!), I know it’s no small task bringing in a “big” band and getting everything set up for them the way they want.  These bands have requirements for everything from stage set up to lights to the access people have behind stage (which is why it is so hard to get back stage passes, etc.)  I also know that Vertical Horizon was a band that I listened to quite a bit back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, and they had a few hit songs that most of you have probably heard of.  I thought this was cool because Panama City Beach was getting another semi-big name band coming in (like Styx).  Check www.verticalhorizon.com to listen to some music.
3. Southwest Airlines is the presenting sponsor.  I know last year Margaritaville was the presenting sponsor.  I’m not sure how much it costs to be a “presenting” sponsor, but I do know that it is a big title and certainly a great thing that our new tourism “partner” is supporting this event and having a dominant presence.  This is very fitting, especially since there are bound to be thousands of out of state tourists here that will be glad to know that they very well may be able to fly here low-cost next year.  This is a cool evolution for the area.  Last year was the first event at our new shopping meca, Pier Park, this year we announce that next year you can fly here for way cheaper than you ever could before – NON-STOP in many cases!

Panama City Beach Beach New Year’s Eve Beach Ball Drop from Jason Koertge on Vimeo.

Bob Montgomery, Southwest Airlines vice president of properties announced on Wednesday the new destinations from the Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport. While disclosing the much awaited news he told that there would be non stop flights to and from the new airport to Orlando, Baltimore, Houston, and Nashville. The announcement of the key destinations would eventually help tourists and regular travelers to get direct or connecting flights to other 58 Southwest gateway cities.

“We’ve tried to pick our finest,” Montgomery said. The new flights would serve about 2000 travelers per day. According to Christi Day, a spokeswoman of Southwest, the four destinations were chosen to draw visitors from those areas who were less frequent visitors to Panama City Beach. Further the new cities would open new markets to North Florida.  According to the Airport Authority, the one goal of the new $318 million airport was to market Florida to more vacationers.

Airport board member Rick Koehnemann said that travelers would be able to fly direct, without changing the flights to Chicago through Nashville (BNA), New York through Baltimore, and Dallas through Houston (HOU) and Ft. Lauderdale through Orlando. It would take three hours to fly between Chicago and Panama City with a short stop in Nashville. “You get four direct flights and four semi-direct flights,”Mr.Rick Koehnemann said.

Sonny Mares, executive director of the Beaches of South Walton Tourist Development Council, also welcomed the new announcements from Southwest Airlines. According to her, Baltimore was a great location for conventions and meetings and as such would help to increase group meeting business.

According to Tom Neubauer, the President of Bay Defense Alliance, a Baltimore-Washington route would be beneficial to the defense contractors who travel frequently from Washington to Baltimore.

Meanwhile, the Bay Country Tourism Development Council (TDC) has begun its public relations campaign through press releases, photos, video and other material about Panama City Beach. The TDC’s findings indicate that there are more than 3 million households in the four cities chosen by Southwest as potential markets for bringing business to Panama City Beach.

Soothingly nestled at the quiet end of Shores of Panama is a full service spa that rivals many one-off spas in Panama City Beach.  The Spa at Shores of Panama has it all from a multitude of massages to facials to an aromatherapy steam room that’s available to all owners and guests free of charge.

Now, we can go through and list all the things you can do at this spa including a menu of services (and we’ll do that!), but what’s so fascinating is having a resource so close at your fingertips when you are on vacation.

Having a full service spa on location is reminiscent of a high-end experience, only to be found at the world’s higher-end resorts.  In many cases, the notion of having an onsite spa staffed with therapy professionals is what connotates the designation of a full-service resort.  Think about this for a second.  Consider why you take a vacation.  To relax, right?

Panama City Beach plays host to some of the world’s most beautiful beaches.  Now, I know what you are saying.  If you’re not familiar with our beaches, you may think that there must be tons more exotic places in the world that have beaches that rival Panama City Beach’s.  Now, while this may be true, they are surely few in number.  Take today for instance: the water is crystal clear with absolutely no waves the surf is smooth as glass.  The emerald green waters are outlined from east to west by the snow-white sand that defines our area.

Tens of thousands if not millions dream every day of laying on beaches like ours.  They envision themselves breathing in the salt air, not thinking about work and what else?  They are relaxing, or they would like to be, except that knot in their upper back, between their shoulder blade and their spine that sends a sharp pain right to the nerve if they lift their arm up a little too high.  Or, the tension in their shoulders is enough to make them feel like they are posing in a permanent shrugging position.

When you come to the beach, you want to relax, kick all your worries away and focus on yourself and your family.  What better way to start off your vacation if not with a soothing 50 minute massage right after you check in.  You’ll sleep great that night and your first full day of vacation the next day will be whole.  That $85 you spend on the Swedish Massage will be the best money you ever spent, trust me.  The best part is that you never have to leave the resort.  Check in, get settled, unwind with a massage and lounge around the resort.  Sounds like heaven, right?

The best part if that the Spa at Shores of Panama knows how to treat the owners.  If you own a condo at Shores of Panama, you can count on a permanent 20% off across the board on all services offered now and in the future.  All of a sudden that $85 Swedish Massage is now $68.  Or, the popular Exotic Stone message that normally is priced at $105 now comes in at $84.

When you walk in the door, you’re invited in by warm colors and soothing smells of Lavender and Eucalyptus.  Some of the other treatments The Spa offers are a Deep Tissue Massage, a Body Butter Massage and a Prenatal Massage.  Every Wednesday they do a Total Renew Wednesday which includes the Island Renewal Facial for $50 (normally $90).

The bottom line is that having a spa onsite at the resort you vacation at sets the tone for a relaxing vacation.  To say that the Spa at Shores of Panama is one of the many amenities at Shores would be an understatement.  I won’t go so far as to say that the Spa defines Shores of Panama (have you seen the pool?!?), but it is more than fair to say that having a full service spa on site goes fathoms in setting the Shores of Panama resort a part from the rest of the concrete cereal boxes that line the beaches of Panama City Beach.

It was made quite clear by Bob Montgomery, Vice President of Properties for Southwest Airlines, that if it weren’t for St. Joe, Southwest Airlines wouldn’t be coming to Panama City. The discussions between St. Joe and Southwest Airlines began over a decade ago. One of the things that was explained to me a short while ago was that Southwest Airlines can go where ever they want to go; they just pick an airport, and the airport accommodates. I was told that Southwest coming to Panama City made absolutely no sense from a business perspective and the prospect encompassed more risk than a company like Southwest would be willing to take. But, what if the risk was mitigated by a third party? That was their ticket into our market.

Rumors were flying around over the summer that St. Joe offered to give Southwest $10 million. A comment was made here on pcbdaily.com that $10 million was peanuts for a company like Southwest. And while I don’t necessarily disagree, a little subsidy money never hurts, even if it isn’t lining the pockets of SWA.

Of course, it should be noted at this time that the agreement for Southwest Airlines to come to Panama City is more complex than St. Joe offering a little incentive. The entire arrangement is only grounded by St. Joe’s offering, but it actually consists of several moving parts and pieces (more on that another time).

So, what did it take to woo the coveted Southwest Airlines to our beaches? The commitment from St. Joe involved money to the tune of $26 million over the course of 2 years. Specifically, St. Joe agreed to pay Southwest Airlines up to $14 million the first year of operations and up to $12 million the second year. Conversely, if Southwest operated at a profit, they’ve agreed to share that profit with St. Joe.

What does all this mean? Well, to put it simply, Southwest Airlines has a fixed cost (well, it varies a little based on fuel costs) to operate its jets. Given their experience, they’ve estimated approximately how much it would cost for them to bring service to the Northwest Florida Panama City International Airport. Therefore, Southwest agreed that if St. Joe will pay up to $14 million in the first year and up to $12 million in the second year to ensure no loss in revenue, it would make sense for them to service and build a market for our area.

By now, I’m sure you read the opinion piece I wrote refuting Carlton Proctor’s Pensacola News Journal article discussing his disagreement with Southwest “[ignoring] its long-standing and highly successful business plan,” citing that they were “bought” by St. Joe. Bought sounds like such a nasty term, used in this context; it insinuates a negative connotation in that mitigating risk is a bad thing.

The reality is risk-mitigation is a good thing, just ask any insurance professional. If one can stand to turn a profit with little or no risk, what’s wrong with that? Isn’t that the capitalistic American Way? Southwest is a publicly traded company and has a duty to please its share-holders. An opportunity to expand market share, increase customer reach, grow the company and in turn increasing revenue all while mitigating risk sounds great to me if I was a shareholder!

But, I digress, on to the details.

St. Joe has agreed to pay Southwest quarterly payments if Southwest operates at a loss for the first 2 years of a 3 year agreement. At the end of the agreement, either party can terminate if certain criterion are met. If St. Joe has had to pay in excess of the agreed amounts they can back out. If Southwest Airlines “actual annual revenues attributable to the air service at the new airport are less than certain minimum annual amounts established in the agreement,” they can back out. Furthermore, it also “provides that Southwest’s profits from the air service during the term of the agreement will be shared with St. Joe up to the maximum amount of St. Joe’s prior break even payments”

The idea here is to have a fair and equitable agreement that is mutually beneficial for both companies with the ultimate benefactor being Bay County and the Northwest Florida Regional Area. Sure St. Joe stands to make a profit with all of their land surrounding the airport, but shall we go back into the publicly traded company Capitalistic American Way discussion again?

It makes sense when two companies plan to increase market share and generate more revenue that if they can work together to decrease risk, that they do in fact do that. For both companies, it is about managing risk. St. Joe decreases their risk in holding all that land with the opportunity at future development by partnering with Southwest to bring more people into the market; and Southwest decreases their risk by accepting payments from St. Joe so that their cost to enter a market is little to nothing with an opportunity to grow substantial profits in the future.

Who wins with this? We all do.

The secret is a combination of the right price and diligent and strategic efforts by the sales team.

Buyers today are looking for a perfect combination too.  There is a fine balance between the right price per square foot and what you get for that price.  Condos up and down the beach in Panama City Beach range from $220 per square foot on up to over $240 per square foot, depending on size and amenity package.  Determining that right price is as much an art as it is a science, and if missed, the process of selling can become extremely risky fast.

So, what makes Shores of Panama so successful? When they walk in, buyers are greeted by oversized everything.  The appurtenances are many and filled with rich colors, and it is easy to be overwhelmed (in a quite pleasant way) by the attention to detail, all the way down to the color of the 1 inch mosaic tile inlaid in the tile floor.  Nothing about how the lobby is designed was left to accident, and it is this lobby that the buyers pass through to meet the sales staff.  The pool deck is one of the most talked about features of Shores of Panama.  Filled with over 13,000 square feet of water and surrounded by equally as much decorated, paver pool deck, you have a truly unspoiled tropical experience with a Emerald-green, Gulf backdrop.

“When I was at Shores, I felt like I was teleported to the Caribbean,” one visitor recently told me, “it was really unlike anything I had seen in Panama City Beach.”

While the pool is by far the largest amenity at Shores, other features that finish off this experience include a completely full-service spa, work-out facility, huge Gulf-side hot tub with stacked stone privacy wall, sunset beach-bar and tons more.

So, among that 35, what’s sold?  8 one bedrooms, 24 two bedrooms and 3 three bedrooms.  The L plan just happens to be the most popular of the 2 bedroom with their having the master and living on the Gulf and a huge 200 square foot balcony.  With a sales price of $260,000 you can’t go wrong!  That’s almost half what they were selling for when this building was first selling.  The average price per square foot is just a hair over $233.

The package at Shores of Panama consists of more than a great price, it is the perfect combination of price and amenities.  With its central location, unique styling and larger than life amenities, the Shores of Panama is a great buy in 2009.

Man, we’re getting so close to landing Canyon Blue planes in Panama City. Every time I see new aerials I’m thoroughly impressed with how far along the new Northwest Florida International Airport (actually, formally named Northwest Florida Panama City International Airport) is. Lets get right down to it!

You can see down the length of the runway in this image. the darker pavement to the left is the main taxiway. To the left out of frame, there is space prepared for a parallel 10,000 foot runway that could be built in the future when demand is met.

In this image, the terminal actually is looking pretty complete. Well, actually from the outside, it pretty much is. I have no idea what those buildings are in the bottom right hand segment of the image.

In this image you can see one of the retention ponds. Across the site there are several large retention ponds to help deal with run-off and run it through a series of complex filtration systems before it is circulated back into the environment.

This is looking out past the terminal area, it looks quite small in this image. Not actually sure what that area is right in the middle of the frame, does anyone know?

This article was contributed by pcbdaily.com