Stuart Blumberg had a 54 year career in hotel hospitality and promoting the hotel industry on Miami Beach. In this interview, he talks about starting out as a bellman and learning his way up the success ladder. He founded the Miami Beach ETC, as well as the Greater Miami ETC. He believes Miami Beach's continued success as a tourist resort is due to visionaries who were able to re-invent the Beach's image when it was needed. He says he has witnessed three iterations - the glamour resort of big hotels in the 50's and 60's, the South Beach cool of the Miami Vice era, and the cutting edge “hipsterism” begun by visionary Tony Goldman. He believes the historic preservation movement helped tourism but has been too inflexible in terms of ongoing Beach development.
