With an increasingly diverse population the Palm Beaches remains the ultimate aspirational town, and if you don’t live there you should already begin scheduling your next vacation. In an in-depth conversation  Milton Segarra, President and CEO for Discover The Palm Beaches, shares the must-see sites, his personal key to success, and why NOW is the best time to visit the picture perfect destination.

“Palm Royale,” Apple TV+ highly anticipated series that takes place at a fictional club in 1969 Palm Beach is now streaming, featuring an outstanding cast that includes Ricky Martin, Kristen Wiig, Carol Burnett, Kaia Gerber, Laura Dern and more. You’ll be impressed by the larger than life locale with its displays of wealth, majestic beaches, regal mansions, and over the top personalities.  The real Palm Beaches retains those qualities that made it “America’s First Resort Destination,” but today, in 2024, it is much more than that.

The Breakers

Segarra first joined Discover The Palm Beaches in the fall of 2022 as Chief Marketing Officer, effectively leading the marketing team through an accelerated implementation of the widest range of promotional efforts in the company’s history. These efforts successfully resulted in new visitation records, top rankings in Florida’s tourism performance and record bed tax collections. Tourism’s economic impact in Palm Beach County surpassed $10 billion in 2022 for the first time.

Prior to his role with the brand Segarra led the Coastal Mississippi Tourism Board, where he spearheaded the creation of multiple initiatives. He was also President & CEO at Meet Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico Convention Bureau), where he oversaw a major brand transition, as well as digital marketing, and social media initiatives to position Puerto Rico as one of the premier destinations in the Caribbean for meetings and conventions.

The Palm Beaches – Worth Avenue

Now Segarra is focusing on several key initiatives, including transforming The Palm Beaches visitor experience by integrating meaningful brand evolution with revolutionary marketing technology. He is spearheading a new campaign and building on the success of previous marketing, sales, community engagement, and organizational sustainability initiatives. He will also continue to oversee the implementation of an accessibility strategic plan, as well as championing diversity, equity, and inclusion and sustainability initiatives.

H: What can you tell us about this new marketing initiative, “The Palm Beaches Collection”?
Milton Segarra: We are “America’s First Resort Destination,” and that’s our brand. Being the original, the one, the only, is a big responsibility. With this campaign we want to take it to the next level where we are providing a plethora of experiences to more than 9.9 million visitors a year. We are offering an opportunity for them to discover, enjoy, and become immersed in the myriad of experiences that we have.
You can create your own collection of experiences. If you’re a golfer, there you go. If you’re a fashionista there you go, if you’re a nature and adventure lover, there you go. If you prefer to stay in a downtown location, like West Palm Beach and enjoy the nightlife, there you go.

PGA National Resort

You can have your own collection of experiences and that is something that will go deep into the decision making process to commit and enjoy what we bring as a destination. It’s not only great places to stay and to visit or to play or to entertain but more than that is to expose yourself to a culture in which you’ll find well-being, prosperity, and identify those emotional benefits of our brand.
Hopefully making you not only enjoy a great vacation, but touching you on ways that will develop loyalty, and connect on a deeper level.

H:  What can people expect when they visit the Palm Beaches?
MS: We are sophisticated but accessible. We are an elevated experience, but for everyone.
You can go for a family vacation, go with a group of friends, go for a business visit or go to the beach and in all those you will feel the true meaning of being part of a community. For me this is the most important component of why we are so successful in tourism and it’s because the local community, the residents, have accepted their role as being the ambassadors of America’s first resort destination.
The way we live, our lifestyle, our day to day reflects this commitment.
Every time a family, a group, a business trip, or simply a regular visitor interacts with our residents they feel that.  That’s remarkable, that’s very unique.

Delray Beach

H: What are some of the new developments coming to the destination?
MS: Before we go into the many changes that are happening, in April we are going to start with a master planning process that will take the entire community, the entire stakeholders, the government, us, to discuss what do we want to become as a tourism destination for the next ten to twenty years. Decide the goals, the objectives, as well as the decisions that we will have to make to ensure we have a sustainable, accessible, all-inclusive, all-welcoming destination for the future.
Besides that we are in the process of a ‘request for proposal’ to build a second hotel at the Convention Center that will help us elevate the number of rooms available and committable for more groups, and bigger sizes.
In terms of activities I can tell you our hotels have invested billions of dollars, literally, in spas, in rooms, in addition to increasing facilities, restaurants. The collection of restaurants that we have is amazing. It’s over two thousand and ranges from small to more well known names. The number of chefs that are either Michelin star or Top Chefs is phenomenal. Then there’s a lot of activities from golf, to entertainment; polo is also a big one.
The bottom line is that there is a significant investment all over the county to support the overall experiences of tourism.

The Flagler Museum

H: What would you say are the five ‘must see’ experiences of the Palm Beaches? 
MS: I can’t name five (laughs). You’re putting me in a very difficult spot, I would say at least twenty.
But it’s important. There’s Henry Flagler who is a very important figure in the development not only of the Palm Beaches, but the entire state of Florida, and the nation. His Flagler Museum, and all the legacy that was created. We have a few of the hotels right now, like the Breakers, and some others are a must see. In terms of culture there are plenty of activities like the Norton Museum.

The Norton Museum

When it comes to nature and adventure we have in conjunction with the FPL the Manatee Lagoon; the Loggerhead Marine Life Center in Jupiter is another phenomenal opportunity.

The equestrian activities, the nightlife in Downtown West Palm Beach or Delray, the Lighthouse in Jupiter, or the Mizner Park in Boca Raton, not to mention the beach; those are a just few highlights.

There are plenty of things to do. If you do those, or a combination of those you’ll have an amazing time.

H: You mentioned a ten year plan, but what is your vision for the evolution of Palm Beach?
MS: You’ll see a few things. One of them is a marketing technology evolution of the company so we can have the infrastructure and the knowledge to maximize that very important space, including artificial intelligence, and some of the other things that are in the process.

The Manatee Lagoon

The second thing is the development of a strategic plan for a more sustainable and accessible destination, those two are hand in hand and that’s key.

Mizner Park

The third component is a program called Certified Tourism Ambassadors which is a company we have hired that will be training front line employees across the county.
On top of the training that they are getting from their hotels, restaurants, or attractions we’re going to help and provide additional information so they know more information and history on the destination, to create a strong service culture.

Worth Avenue

Those are all key but one that I like is the evolution of our brand to see how a destination starts to shift from attracting visitors to influence them once they are here. Their personal aspirations on the destinations they are visiting can become more attainable. In our case its by providing a source of inspiration that our destination provides.
When you go and visit and interact with residents and you see that our way of living in the Palm Beaches is something that people sometimes aspire to. This well-being and prosperity is something that we believe through a tourist experience will be able to impact visitors.
In a nutshell that’s what you’ll see from us in the next few years.

The Breakers

H: This aspirational theme takes us to a series like “Palm Royale,” are there any expectations?
MS: I hope a lot of people will watch it. When you are such an important destination and an important component of history, the best thing to do is share it. We’ll see what happens. It’s a phenomenal cast.

H: Having achieved major success with multiple tourism organizations, what would you say is the key to the success of a brand?
MS: First are the elements of consistency, discipline, and understanding your weaknesses and strengths.
The other thing is that you can really identify which ones are the emotional benefits of your brand that will be the ones that will drive, not only attention, but also the support that a tourism brand needs.
In our case it’s the residents. It’s impossible for us to be successful if our brand does not generate the inspiration from our stakeholders and residents to commit to the overall experience. That’s what we have.
The top of mind awareness of our brand is great, the relevance of our brand is very strong, but the most important thing is that three of every four residents in Palm Beach say they like tourism and want to see it grow further in an organized way.

National Polo Center

H: And what is the key to your personal success?
MS: You have to be you no matter what. You have to be transparent, you have to be honest, and the most important thing and the role that I enjoy the most is being a leader. In this case I’m blessed to have not only talented people, but also good people.
A good leader will always inspire and create the behavior that is needed to accomplish the goals.
I spend a lot of time trying to inspire, which is not to motivate.
You can motivate by increasing the salary or paying, but inspiring is when you commit everything you have to a cause not knowing if it will be successful or not, you are committed. I put a lot of time into that and create the behavior that is important to be successful.

H: Finally, what would you say to someone who admires your achievements and wants to follow in similar footsteps?
MS: I will thank them first for that honor. And say make sure you have your priorities aligned. Be clear with you religion whatever that is, make sure you have your loved ones close to you, and be truthful to your stakeholders and the people around you.

The Jupiter Lighthouse