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TDC Minutes 04/25/2022 April 25, 2022 MINUTES OF THE COLLIER COUNTY TOURIST DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL MEETING Naples, Florida, April 25, 2022 LET IT BE REMEMBERED the Collier County Tourist Development Council in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:00 AM in a REGULAR SESSION in Building F of the Government Complex, Naples, Florida, with the following members present: Chairman: Commissioner Andy Solis Vice Chairman: Clark Hill Amanda Cox (excused) Susan Becker Kathleen Brock Ed "Ski" Olesky (absent) Jared Grifoni Nancy Kerns Beth Petrunoff ALSO PRESENT: Paul Beirnes, Collier County Tourism Director Colleen Greene, Assistant County Attorney Buzzy Ford, Digital & Social Media Coordinator, County Tourism Andy Miller, Coastal Zone Manager Cyndy Murrieta, VP, Integrated Media, Paradise Advertising (via Zoom) Michelle Kelly, Lou Hammond Group (via Zoom) Joseph St. Germain, President, Downs & St. Germain Research Group Enriqueta Balandra, Project Manager, Miles Partnership (via Zoom) Marissa Baker, Manager, Paradise Coast Sports Complex Adrian Moses, General Manager, Sports Facilities Cos. Jaci Erale-Baughn, Venue Marketing Dir., Sports Facilities Cos. 1 April 25,2022 Any persons in need of the verbatim record of the meeting may request a copy of the video recording from the Collier County Communications and Customer Relations Department or view it online. 1. Call to Order Chairman Solis called the meeting to order at 9:00 a.m. 2. Pledge of Allegiance The Pledge of Allegiance was recited. 3. Roll Call A quorum of seven was established by those members present in the board room. Mr. Beirnes noted Amanda Cox was excused but expected to join the meeting at 10 a.m. 4. Agenda and Minutes A. Changes and Approval of Today's Agenda Mr. Hill made a motion to approve the agenda. Second by Mr. Grifoni. The motion was carried unanimously, 7-0. B. Approval of prior TDC Meeting Minutes 1. Regular Meeting March 28,2022 Ms.Becker made a motion to approve the Feb. 28, 2022, meeting minutes. Second by Ms. Brock. The motion was carried unanimously, 7-0. 5. Presentations/Public Comment-(3 minutes each) Mr.Beirnes reported that Collier County received a gold award and two bronze awards from the Hospitality Sales Marketing Association International,the global platform for hospitality,for last year's efforts in COVID recovery. He and Chairman Solis went to the award ceremony, where they also received the President's Award for the best recovery campaign globally. That was quite an honor. There were representatives from as far away as Norway. This is not just a CVB award,it's a TDC award, a community award. When you look back at the journey of the recovery through COVID, it was a true team effort, a community affair that included the Board of County Commissioners. It was a monumental win. He showed TDC members a tweet he saw last week about the CVB's winter campaign in Chicago. This was a picture of the snow at the warming stations on the subway and transit platforms in Chicago, with a CVB ad suggesting they could go from white snow to sandy beaches. "Only Paradise will do." The tweet said, "Effective Advertising,Paradise Coast!"That came from someone who was trying to warm their toes waiting for their ride. A lot has happened in the last month,when spring break was upon us. The numbers were great and they are still doing very well. But we have definitely seen some impact from the economy and world news. Research that came out last week, Longwoods Sentiment Research,takes a look not just at Florida, but anywhere domestically, as far as what is influencing people's travel decisions. It showed 63%of those surveyed indicated that gas prices and the economy were a"significant impact or 2 April 25, 2022 consideration"for their travel decisions, so we cannot ignore that. He's bringing that up because Paradise Advertising will be talking about the spring and summer campaigns. They're probably tired of hearing me asking, "What is the sentiment from Florida residents?What happens if gas prices increase significantly enough that we need to pivot?" So, we're monitoring that very closely. We are already in the spring-summer campaign. We are monitoring the sentiment from our European representatives and talking to them daily about how Ukraine and Europe impacts us. 6. Consent Agenda All matters listed under this agenda item are routine and action will be taken by one motion without separate discussion on each item. If discussion is desired by a member of the TDC, those items will be moved from the Consent Agenda and considered separately under New Business or Old Business. A. Coastal Zone Management None B. Beach Park Facilities None C. Tourism Division None 7. New Business 8. Old Business None 9. Marketing Partner Reports These reports (Marketing Partner Reports-Downs&St. Germain Research Group;Paradise Advertising&Marketing, Inc.;Lou Hammond&Associates; Convention & Visitors Bureau PR Team; Collier County Tax Collector-tourist tax collections;Miles Partners- Website Analytics, Digital&Social Media; Book Direct, JackRabbit Systems-online hotel booking systems; County Museums)are provided to TDC members on a digital link to the County website. The Research Data Services report will be presented monthly, and the other reports will be presented at TDC meetings on an-as-needed basis. TDC members may request a presentation by the marketing partner representative or by tourism staff at each TDC meeting. Part 1. Marketing Partner Report A. Downs & St. Germain Research Group—Joseph St. Germain "Collier County Tourism Research—March 2022 Visitor Tracking and Economic Impact Study" Ms.Becker asked about the direction of spending and the economic impact,referring to a slide that showed the percentages were exactly the same. Mr. St. Germain explained that the multiplier was the same, so the numbers were the same. Chairman Solis asked if it just happened to be the same. Mr. St. Germain said yes, it normally wouldn't be the same. Ms.Petrunoff noted that inflation has gone up significantly. Did you split out an inflation rate to show us the factors that are increasing this revenue? Mr. St. Germain said that isn't split out. It's largely with the data we get from visitor tracking. We want to give you the numbers from the raw data. The reasons why people are spending more are 3 April 25, 2022 revenge travel and larger travel party size. It doesn't account for inflation. It's just a factor we need to consider as we move forward effectively. Ms.Petrunoff noted that he'd said gas prices and the economy are what they need to watch. What is it in the economy?Is it Ukraine, inflation or mortgage rates? Mr. Beirnes said Longwoods Sentiment Research cited gas prices specifically and they looked at stock market,inflation and those items, so that combines what he refers to as the"hurt in the wallet." About 63% of those were somehow financially influenced,which was pretty significant. Mr. St. Germain said we've seen this before whenever the stock market takes a dip. Even if that doesn't necessarily affect your day today,you still think about it and you're making those decisions. [He continued his presentation.) Ms. Brock said on the ADR, are you considering Airbnb rates, as well, or is that just hotel properties? Mr. St. Germain said it was hotel and vacation rentals. The vacation rentals' occupancy rate tends to be a little lower and the ADR is higher. Ms. Brock asked if that would increase occupancy in larger properties. Mr. St. Germain said it would decrease it. It tends to have a lower occupancy. There are more units available, so in terms of counting the number of visitors and revenue,it's generally up. We're still trying to fully understand it in Collier County. We're getting more data,but that's something we're always going to try to keep our finger on in a market,vacation rentals,in general. There's a lot of data, so we're doing what we can to try to give you the best idea of what that looks like. Chairman Solis asked what the value on the travel dollar was,the scale. Mr. St. Germain said it's 1-10. Last month,it was 8.5 and it was 8.9 in past months. As a more upscale destination in this range, it's going to be good. It's hard to reach a 10 when you're paying an ADR of$500 a night. As we continue to collect this, it's important at the start to see how you're doing against yourself, and that's why last month was—he didn't want to say"a concern"—but if it would continue,we would be concerned. The bump back up was very good to see. Chairman Solis said he assumes that in terms of destinations like Collier County,that's a pretty good level to be at. Mr. St. Germain said it was,especially given the ADR rates. As that goes up, visitors' expectations go up with it. That's why it's an important metric. Given the ADR and RevPAR metrics you have, that's a win. Mr. Hill asked about vacation rentals, saying he noticed that in the data, it shows a little over half the occupancy is being driven by vacation rentals. Then, if you go to the Tourist Development Tax Collections, it's considerably lower than that. Would that mean the vacation rental rate is lower than the hotel-room rate? Mr. St. Germain said he'd need to double-check those numbers. In most markets,vacation rentals tend to be a bit higher. This is the one market where it's closer to equitable or the same. Ms.Petrunoff said she was surprised by the 40%of new visitors. It's the first time they've come here. Did we dive down into the demographics of that segment to see who's now attracted to our community?That could possibly be a leading indicator of what amenities we would want to build. Mr. St. Germain said they have that data,but if they do it,they recommend going back to the start of October, so you have more than one month of data. That's something we could look at and we can share it with Paul and the team and they can share it with you. We can break out how the first-time visitor is different from other types of visitors. 4 April 25,2022 Ms.Petrunoff said that seems like a big number to her. People seem to come here over and over. Mr. Beirnes said we have a very strong repeat visitation rate and research isn't necessarily the first indicator. It's most likely driven by our refined marketing, which was intentionally focused on reaching those incremental numbers. What we have found in some of the research is that the repeat visitation is very strong, so you want to cultivate that and make visitors happy, but you also want to cast your net and make sure we are broadening our exposure. He noted that Paradise Advertising will talk about how they've done that this winter and how they're starting to cast unique,new nets wider for the spring and summer. They're connected and very intentional. It's to make sure that we're not just losing a segment—age and demographics,whatever —and then having to rebuild. So,we're continuing to build wide. CultvP-pry Ms. Becker said she didn't see a question about whether visitors are coming here forvents. Mr. St. Germain said they are asked about that,but this report involves the top four or five reasons and that's not among them. Ms.Becker noted that it's quite a long list. She believed it should be there. Mr. St. Germain said if it's not included, he'll make sure he adjusts that. Mr. Beirnes said he believed it is part of the questions. We can include that on the percentages they give the TDC. Mr. St. Germain said they'll tweak that moving forward. B. Paradise Advertising—Cyndy Murrieta "Advertising Report—Winter Ad Campaign January 10-March 31, 2022 and the Spring-Summer Campaign, A Look Ahead." (PowerPoint presentation) Chairman Solis asked if this was the first campaign they've used in Quarter 1. Ms.Murrieta said it wasn't. They did it in the fall. This is cumulative. Ms.Petrunoff asked what the top competitive destinations they're trying to cannibalize were. Ms.Murrieta said she couldn't think of them all,but Amelia Island,the Palm Beaches, Sarasota,the high-end beach domestic destinations. Ms.Petrunoff said, so they're not trying to target St. Bart's and other Caribbean beach destinations? Ms.Murrieta said that for a while, before there was international travel, she used luxury cruises and international travel as "competitive"because people were staying domestic, but now we've stuck to domestic for this campaign. Ms.Becker asked about Key West. Ms.Murrieta said they have focused on the Florida Keys,but not specifically Key West. That's super-expensive and is more of a party audience. [She continued her presentation] Ms.Petrunoff asked if they ever go hyper-local. You're running around downtown Chicago,but the decision maker for a vacation might be at home in Lake Forest or Hinsdale. Do you ever do things that are local on NextDoor or other kinds of media to get to that decision-maker? Ms.Murrieta said they probably wouldn't go as hyper-local as NextDoor. She wouldn't want to be in that environment because Paradise Advertising is very protective of this brand and where they advertise. 5 April 25, 2022 [As an example, she showed the TDC neighborhood focused billboards in Lincoln Park and four other neighborhoods.] Ms.Murrieta said they specifically researched the upscale neighborhoods. Instead of buying big highway billboards,they went into the neighborhoods. When we go into New York City or someplace like this, she wouldn't want to blanket everything because it might get lost. When we go into a market,we already are targeting 25 to 64-year-olds with a household income of$175,000-plus, so most of what we're doing is targeting that. They chose The Loop,more upscale areas and commuting.Nothing is a perfect science when it comes to traditional media. It's about trying to surround Chicago, so as they're going about their daily business,they can't miss it. Looking at spend- per-city, it looks like there are some huge differences on where they come from. Ms.Petrunoff said if she remembered correctly,Boston spends the most money here and Chicago was next. Do we ever look at spending more marketing dollars where consumers are going to be spending more money here? Ms.Murrieta said we're always looking at the top yielding markets. We don't look at one source in a silo. We're always looking across all sources to determine which target markets to go after. Within that, we don't say, "I want to put more money toward this or more money toward that."We allow everything to run across all of those, so that's the answer to your question. Mr.Beirnes said something we've overlooked is that over the last year we've seen an interesting migration. All of a sudden,the No. 1 market for a couple of months will be the Midwest,then New York starts sparking. We're watching it, we're analyzing it. Maybe this could have been caused by the lockdown because this was a year ago. Maybe that's why the Midwest is sparking,then all of a sudden New York started elevating. Is that because they're fully open or they're just starting to get out of the market?All of this is not a perfect science,but we'll be adaptive. We're being nimble and anticipating where the next season is, so as we look to the spring and summer, we've changed some of our target markets based on the behavior of spring and summer travel. Ms.Murrieta said there's a lot of adaptive work,but it's important not to be too reactive because things shift month-to-month and from season-to-season, so we need to keep that consistent presence in all the markets we know have consistent visitation for you. We don't want to pull off the gas in those markets unless we start to see we're keeping consistent and visitation is going down, which we have seen over the years in a couple of markets. [She continued the presentation] Ms.Petrunoff asked if they had information on dollars per impression. Do you have any metrics on your return on investment? Ms.Murrieta said that for most of what she's showing today,they do,but not for everything. It's hard to show a return on investment for traditional media, so we can look at other metrics like this to see how it worked. ADARA is something we have started to use. It has some really cool dashboard analytics. For the three months of the winter campaign for the people exposed to our advertising, exclusive of Expedia, it generated$714,000 in hotel revenue. ADARA has a direct partnership with a lot of hotels, flights and car rentals.From all their direct partners,that's the hotel revenue that was generated by 169 hotel bookings and 94,000 searches. The biggest percentage of visitors was couples,at 50%, and they also stayed the longest, at 5.4 nights. The planning window,the time from when they first started searching to when they booked and from when they booked to when they actually traveled, that is growing a bit longer because during the 6 April 25,2022 pandemic,people were booking at the very last minute. That's growing a bit longer, 37.2 days for a hotel,from when they booked to when they actually made it to the destination. That's good to see that number getting bigger. The No. 1 driver of revenue is Kayak, followed by ADARA, and third is Division-D, a media partner they use to do competitive targeting. Mr.Beirnes noted that historically, we have not marketed to Canada. Our priority was domestic,but some of our trade is U.K., Germany and Latin America. Other Florida markets,the Southwest Coast and West Coast, have been very successful with Canadians. We felt that based on the ability to fly after pent- up demand and the fact that the borders recently reopened. It was a new strategy that we enacted last May. It has come along very well. It's a lot of effort,but not a significant amount of budget, so we are taking note from this and will react accordingly,but it's been very successful. [She continued her presentation] Ms.Brock asked about when she represents Miami as one of the key markets, does that include Broward County?Is it Dade and Broward? Ms.Murrieta said,yes, it's Miami-Fort Lauderdale. There are times when we specifically focus on Miami,but generally, it's Miami Fort Lauderdale. Ms.Brock noted that there's a significant Canadian population there, especially in Hollywood, in South Broward County, where she's from. Maybe we could cannibalize some of those visitors as that gets more and more crowded and less and less desirable? Ms.Murrieta said right. Mr.Beirnes said that for those of you who were here last year at this time, we were talking about our marketing plan. As we went through the pandemic, we saw Florida residents surge.Everybody in Florida discovered their own backyards and then when we take a look at other research, it shows the repeat visitation. There's a great opportunity. They've come down,they've experienced,they've test drove it,they fell in love with it, and all of us Florida residents know the moment when the last person leaves town. They know when they can come back and reclaim their beaches for their own Florida-resident feeling. We discovered last year that going into the pandemic we hadn't developed a robust enough database of Florida residents to be able to reach out and connect with them on a moment's notice. We are developing that database, so that we can talk to them and turn on the heat really quickly if needed. There's a lot of lot of strategy going on behind the scenes,not for immediate response,but for long- term growth and management of our database. C. Lou Hammond Group—Terry Gallagher "National Public Relations Update—TDC Meeting—Services Conducted in March 2022" (PowerPoint presentation) Part 2. Marketing Partner Reports D. Collier County Tourist Tax Collections—Paul Beirnes "Tourist Tax Collections—March 31, 2022" E. Miles Media—Enriqueta Balandra Paradise.corn Web Analytics Report—February 2022 (PowerPoint presentation) 7 April 25,2022 Chairman Solis asked about Kansas. That came out of nowhere. Mr.Beirnes said it's interesting that he caught that. It's an anomaly. A place called Coffeyville, Kansas, is the geographic center of the United States. You'd think that we had the biggest reach in Coffeyville,but anything that doesn't fit geographically anywhere else,they lump it into the city of Coffeyville. You'd think there'd be 30 million people there,but it is a weird anomaly.He also noticed that a couple of months ago. It's a reporting challenge that if it doesn't fit anywhere, it's by default,the center of the U.S., and it shows up as Coffeyville. F. Paradise Coast Sports Complex/Sports Facilities Companies—Marissa Baker, Adrian Moses, Jaci Erale-Baughn Ms.Becker asked them to say something about Sunset Saturdays. M5 Mr.-Seeker said that through their food and beverage director and marketing manager,they've 13�K developed a concept to tell the public that The Cove Bar is one of the coolest places to be in Collier County on Saturdays. We've been hiring reggae bands on Saturday evenings for local residents and sporting event participants. About 120 people came out last Saturday. G. County Museums—Amanda Townsend "Collier County Museums—March Visitors Report" 10. Council Member Discussion Chairman Solis congratulated staff and the marketing partners on the HSMAI award. He had no real understanding of how big a deal it really was. It was good that(former Tourism Director)Jack Wert was there, as well. Clearly,the respect that the industry has for Paul and Jack and everybody involved in our marketing partners was evident from all the comments people made, so that was a big deal. Even his son,who is graduating from the hospitality program at University of Florida, said that he knows about the award. He learned about it in one of his classes,that HSMAI is a big organization. What amazed me was that the other marketing agencies we competed with involved Las Vegas, whole countries,European countries. It was amazing to get that kind of recognition when the competitors were countries with budgets that were kind of GNP size. It was an amazing team effort throughout the pandemic and coming out of the pandemic. Mr.Hill asked Mr. Beirnes to explain what the campaign involved for anyone who wasn't aware. Mr.Beirnes said it was a two-year process. The world ended in March of 2020, as we knew it, in tourism. What the CVB and the community did was immediately rally behind a recovery campaign, unlike many other destinations, whose approach was to go silent,hunker down and wait it out. Almost two weeks to the day, our first TV advertising campaign was not only created,it was produced and was airing. It basically said that when you're ready to travel, we'll be waiting for you. It was the right message. It was passive. People were watching television,but it was exactly what they were looking for. Coming out of that,the TDC and the Board of County Commissioners rallied behind a recovery strategy,which was our Paradise Pledge. That was reaching out to the community to encourage increased cleaning protocols on all levels because the reality was that we could be ready for visitors to come back,but if there was a significant decrease in business to restaurants, retailers and hoteliers,they might not be there and ready. So,we were really pushing and campaigning toward not only that market,but for locals to go to local restaurants and retailers and keep them going with the takeout menus. 8 April 25,2022 We reached out to Florida residents and continued to push the message further. We were working very closely with research, Miles Media and Paradise Advertising. We were looking for those sweet spots along the way, so one year ago almost to today, seniors were the first ones getting vaccinated. We had a campaign we internally referred to as"targeting vaccinated seniors"because they were able to get out and they were the first ones to have their"Superman capes" on. It was keep-your-ear- to-the-ground targeting,very specifically,but very methodical in the approach. We were still in the thick of it in January 2021,but our numbers and Tourist Development Tax collection in 2021 set all-time records. Given all those challenges,to be able to have that was remarkable. Thank you,chair,for acknowledging us. It was truly a community effort,the BCC, TDC, all our agencies rallied together. The teamwork was incomparable. We've got such a closely- knit, well-oiled organization now that will definitely take us strong into the future.Plus,the tagline, "Only Paradise will do"was absolutely true. Ms.Brock agreed that the tagline was very big. Mr.Beirnes noted that everyone had a pecking order priority of what they were willing to accept or what they were looking for. Destinations that used to be the 800-pound gorillas were maybe not what people were looking for. They were looking for 30 miles of white sand beaches,wide-open spaces, ecological adventures. It was ideal, so that allowed us to say, "Only paradise will do." We're the only ones that fit that mold and we're morphing that a bit now as we go into the spring and summer. People know us now. We're owning it and moving forward, so it's pretty exciting. Chairman Solis said it was methodical. Talk about being able to pivot on a dime. It was amazing. Ms.Becker pointed out that the hospitality program at FGCU was silenced for several years due to COVID. 11. Tourism Staff Reports Director (Submitted) Mr.Beirnes said that as we look to May,we're going to have a lot of efforts. Starting off in May, we are already deep into our FY23 Strategic Marketing&Budget plan. We're already looking into next year. IPW(International Pow Wow)is a very important event for us and that's the start of June. It's where all the world buyers and U.S. sellers come together under one roof. That will be in Orlando, so this is the first major opportunity for IPW to get together. There was a very condensed show in September of last year,but we were there and put our best foot forward. Pickleball is happening now. He encouraged everyone to go to the Sports Complex to watch. It is phenomenal and will be running until next Sunday. They will be here at our meeting next month to provide a recap of how that went,what worked, and the challenges. Next month,we'll also have several items involving the TDC grants program.He congratulated John Melleky,the new Manager of Arts & Culture, who came in February and handled that. We'll review those grants at the next meeting. 12. Detailed Staff Reports Submitted 13.Next Scheduled Meeting Date/Location—9:00 a.m.May 23,2022 9 April 25,2022 Collier County Government Center,Administration Bldg. F,3rd Floor, 3299 East Tamiami Trail, Naples,Florida 34112 There being no further business for the good of the County,the meeting was adjourned by order of the chair at 10:54 A.M. COLLIER COUNTY TOURIST DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL Chairma d, "; ;; issionpr ndy Solis e\m‘zyrc1.f\- GC�� K These minutes were approved by the Council on 5 -3 3-a3 , as presented, or as amended X • 10