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TDC Minutes 05/23/2022May 23, 2022 MINUTES OF THE COLLIER COUNTY TOURIST DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL MEETING Naples, Florida, May 23, 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 9900 AM in a REGULAR SESSION in Building F of the Government Complex, Naples, Florida, with the following members present: Chairman: Commissioner Andy Solis (via Zoom) Vice Chairman: Clark Hill (absent) Amanda Cox Susan Becker Kathleen Brock Ed "Ski" Olesky Jared Grifom 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 John Melleky, Collier County Arts and Culture Manager Marissa Baker, Manager, Paradise Coast Sports Complex May 23, 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 Acting Chairwoman Cox called the meeting to order at 9:01 a.m. 2. Pledge of Allegiance The Pledge of Allegiance was recited. 3. Roll Call A quorum of eight was established by those members present in the board room. Mr. Beirnes noted that Chairman Solis was joining through Zoom due to a cold. Acting Chair Cox made a motion to allow Mr. Solis to participate via Zoom due to extraordinary circumstances. Second by Ms. Kerns. The motion was carried unanimously, 8-0. 4. Agenda and Minutes A. Changes and Approval of Today's Agenda No changes made B. Approval of prior TDC Meeting Minutes Regular Meeting April 25, 2022 Ms. Becker said a word should be added to her comment on Page 5, where she said she "didn't see a question about whether visitors are coming here for events." It should say "cultural events." On Page 8, where she asked about Sunset Saturdays, it says Ms. Becker answered. Ms. Becker said she wasn't certain whose name should be there, maybe Ms. Baker's. It should say "Mr. Moses" provided the answer. Ms. Becker made a motion to approve the April 25, 2022, meeting minutes, with the changes. Second by Ms. Petrunoff. The motion was carried unanimously, 8-0. 5. Presentations/Public Comment - (3 minutes each) Mr. Beirnes said we're going to be receiving a preliminary recap of the 2022 U.S. Open Pickleball event that took place April 23-Apri130. It was very well attended. If you recall, the 2020 event was canceled due to COVID and in 2021, the travel industry was just getting back on its feet. At the time, international borders were shut down, so there were two years of impact toward that and 2022, like the rest of the winter, was met with pent-up travel demand. The U.S. Open Pickleball Championships definitely were Efferent from that. Over the course of the year, the CVB executed a constant level of marketing that included digital, website, public relations, media placement, social media, email communication to our database, print and digital ads, and integration within their broadcast at the park itself. Over the year, there were site improvements, a new 11,000-square400t, $3 million East Naples Community Park Welcome Center, a new state-of--the-art championship court lighting, state-of--the-art lighting replacement at the northwest courts, electrical service for the broadcast van, extensive grass parking lot stabilization, an asphalt pathway to the southwest court area, extensive site landscaping May 23, 2022 upgrades for the event, dedicated County staffing to achieve the U.S. Open Championship site standards, and Community Center renovations and updates. Kudos to everybody across the County who assisted. A. Minto US Open Pickleball Championships Presentation Terri Graham and Chris Evon, co-founders of the U.S. Open Pickleball Championships New Pickleball Channel Video and PowerPoint Presentation Ms. Graham called the event an economic driver for Collier County, the Augusta National of pickleball. They'll be back next month with a presentation to ask for additional funding to make this a better and better park than it already is. Ms. Becker asked if they could be specific about what will make it bigger and better. Ms. Graham said some of it is minor, like astroturfing some of the sand -rock area. Others are bigger. Florida right now is catching up with us. When we brought the U.S. Open here in 2016, there was nothing like it out there. And then the second year, you built the shade structure. Now the shade structure isn't that unique. If you look at other places in in Florida, covered courts are a very important piece of this. There must be 12 facilities in Florida that have built covered courts right now. Our shade structures are wonderful for shade, but the minute it rains, it shuts down and then it drips. It really shuts us down for a long time. Everything from covered courts to parking is a big thing, and asphalting the parking lot out back, which used to be a soccer field. We had a fire truck get stuck out there. That really needs to have parking done. Parking is our No. 1 concern. We filled Sugden Park's lot this year and on most days, people were parking all over the street, so we're a little landlocked there and we understand that. We have to maximize what we have for parking. There will be a slew of things we will end up coming back to ask you for. Ms. Petrunoff asked if they'd drilled down in "dissatisfied or less dissatisfied" on the survey to see what those reasons were, or were you speculating it was the weather? Ms. Evon said no, they didn't have a checklist, but people could list their likes and dislikes, so they could get a general idea. Weather was a big part of it. Every year the dislikes involve food. It's really difficult if you try to think of food for 35,000 people. And every year we upgrade the food. We do more food trucks and different types of foods, but in that small category, you're going to get somebody who didn't have the food they liked, so we don't get too concerned with that. Shade was another. We're not quite sure why. We have been out there, we have a ton of shade throughout that park and the Welcome Center helped us with that, but there are pockets that might not have shade. Parking is probably one of the big ones. The parking team did a phenomenal job this year, especially after the first couple of days. They figured out a new flow for the traffic and they got that going a lot smoother, but some people got caught possibly waiting for buses to come from Sugden Park. So, there were things we're usually aware of as the event is going on and we always try to improve each year. Ms. Petrunoff asked if they had cooling stations, given the late April timeframe. Ms. Evora said they don't have a cooling stations, except for the medical tent, where they have cooling capacities, but they do have a lot of shade, so they're pretty well covered. 3 May 2352022 Ms. Petrunoff asked if they'd considered opportunities for next year, co-op opportunities with the food trucks down the road or Naples Botanical Garden to get one more day out of attendees and get them to stay. Ms. Graham said they spoke to Rebecca Maddox, owner of Three-60 Market & Wine and the food truck park down the street, about getting people to stay. Both are packed all day long during the championships. During the shoulder -season, those tend to die down, but they were packed. It's one of our sponsors for our guest services, so we send people there, the Botanical Garden. Ms. Petrunoff said their billboard strategy seemed to work in Florida. Have they thought of other areas where pickleball is well established, such as Arizona and California, maybe Chicago because of the weather? Ms. Graham said they did speak about extending it into the Midwest areas. We never expected this park to be as full as it was. We expected it to be more than last year because last year we didn't do any marketing. This year, we did a full radio campaign throughout Florida. Last year, we didn't do the billboards and when people started coming. Then when we filled Sugden Park, we said now what do we Jo. We had 3,000-5,000 people at that park every day. So, yeah, we want more people to come, but there is going to be a fine line of too many to manage that 47-acre park. Mr. Grifoni noted that they' d mentioned in the presentation that they thought they might be tapped out around 2,800 or so participants. Have you considered looking at satellite locations to expand the player - pool opportunities on Marco Island or other areas within Collier County? Ms. Graham said they did look at that in 2019. The concern is that people want to be at East Naples Community Park. That's where the party is, and if we ended up going to Veterans Park or Marco Island, we'd really have to establish a party atmosphere there, as well. She's not saying they couldn't do that. In 2019, they took too many people and asked Minto if they could use their eight courts and beautiful facility. We gave them free lunches and shuttled them over and you would have thought we were sending them to Harlem. We got so many negative comments about it that we put the satellite idea on hold. Moving forward, the Parks &Recreation Department and Collier County should consider adding more pickleball courts. They just built eight at one park, but in Collier County, from Marco to North Naples, we need more pickleball courts because people are coming to this area to play and vacation. When they get their group together, the first thing they ask is where can they play. It's pickleball travel. Pickleball Magazine this month is focused on pickleball travel. So, build us more courts, six or 10 on Marco Island, and we would need a larger facility to do a satellite location. Mr. Grifoni said he's sure there are plenty of pickleball players on Marco Island who would agree. Mr. Beirnes said as the TDC is aware, over the last year we have solicited a new partnership with Zartico, which allows us to monitor and track digital devices. Unfortunately, that takes a bit of time to extrapolate all that data and they were nearly finished late last week. In the next seven days, we'll be able to get a little more definitive data, so we'll be able to provide that to the team. There are a couple of things he's seen that have been pretty mesmerizing. It's literally on a map and you're able to see hour -by - hour where people are moving once they leave or just prior to arriving, so it's pretty fascinating. We'll add that next month. 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. 0 May 23, 2022 A. Coastal Zone Management None B. Beach Park Facilities None C. Tourism Division None 7. New Business a. Recommendation to approve a Work Order with Humiston &Moore Engineers to provide professional support services for the application preparation of a United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) permit for the South Marco Island Beach Restoration, under Contract No. 18-7432-CZ, for time and material not to exceed $34,132.00 and make a finding that this item promotes tourism (Fund 195, Project No. 90071). Mr. Miller said we do beach renourishment on South Marco and had an Army Corps permit for 15 years there. We just renourished the South Marco Beach in April 2020, and we typically do that on a seven-year cycle, depending on Mother Nature. What we want to do with this item is to get Humiston Moore, our local coastal engineer, to establish another new 15-year permit. The recommendation is to approve a Work Order with Humiston &Moore Engineers to provide professional support services for the application preparation of a United States Army Corps of Engineers permit for the South Marco Island Beach Restoration, under Contract No. 18-7432-CZ, for time and material not to exceed $34,132 and to make a finding that this item promotes tourism Mr. Grifoni made a motion to approve a Work Order with Humiston &Moore Engineers to provide professional support services for the application preparation of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit for the South Marco Island Beach Restoration, under Contract No. I &7432-CZ, for time and materials not to exceed $34,132, and lie found that this item promotes tourism. Second by Ms. Petrunoff. The motion was carried unanimously, X0. b. Recommendation to approve Tourist Development Tax Grant Applications for FY 2022-2023 Marketing Grants (formerly Category B) ($1009000) and Non -County Owned/Operated Museums (formerly Category C-2) ($672,500) and make a finding that these expenditures promote tourism. Mr. Melleky said he wanted to provide a little history on the Tourism Development Tax Grant Program and how it worked this year. It's funded by the hotel surtax and applied to the rental fees paid by visitors for short-term accommodations, such as hotel, motel rooms, condominiums, vacation homes and rental sources. The TDC administers the funds collected into a grant program for arts and cultural organizations. Thanks to our 1.6 million visitors a year, we can provide funds to arts and culture organizations to help them direct tourism to the Paradise Coast. Pursuant to Florida Statute 125.0104, the events and activities that have as a main purpose the attraction of tourists, as evidenced by the promotion of the activity to tourists. The activities we're looking at providing grant funds for must demonstrate the intent and ability to attract visitors to Collier County. These grants currently provide funding for exhibition support and marketing expenses for organizations. 5 May 23, 2022 Throughout this year's process, you approved an expanded definition of a museum, per the museum grant, that in that a museum is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical or scientific importance. Many public museums make these items available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Second, a museum is a non-profit permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public that acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and of its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment. The grant process opened on February 15, it was extended and closed on Apri129. Here's some background on the Tourism Grant applications. • Grant applications this year were up over the past two years. • For the first time, the program included a webinar to help organizations with the grant process, help them fill out grants and to drive the purpose of the grants, to promote tourism. • 14 organizations participated in the grant program, a 50% increase over last year. • They submitted 17 different projects, a 35% increase over last year. • There were five first-time submissions. • 13%were for festivals and events. • 27% were for performance -based activities. • 70% were for exhibitions. • The grant amount requested was over $1.2 million, a 25% increase from the previous year. • $950,000 is available in the grant budget, $850,000 for museum grants and $100,000 for marketing grants. He thanked the organizations, many of which are here today, and they're here to answer your questions. We also have some on Zoom who represent the organizations. This includes the support that you approved to help fund the Hispanic Art Festival, a $250,000 portion of the $850,000 in museum grants. All the applications we received that were completed on time and signed are recommended for approval for some type of grant. The recommendations in both categories for the museum and marketing grants represent a total of $772,500, $672,500 for the museum grant and $100,000 for the marketing grant. That leaves a balance in this first round of grants at $177,500. What are we asking for today? There are a couple of steps before that. I want to talk a bit about the Hispanic Art Fest. There has been discussion among the non- profits to combine efforts and work together and really build a cultural heritage to showcase what we have in Collier County. A lot of the activities they already were planning are HispanicAhemed, so they've been working on a marketing campaign to showcase these events and a Hispanic Art Festival. There will be more about the marketing of this festival as we work together with the organizations in the marketing campaigns for the next year. From the 17 grant applications: • Eight were for the Hispanic Art Festival, which represents 47% of the grants. • A total of $359,000 of the recommended $772,000 were for the Hispanic Art Festival, which represents 46%. • Of the $359,000, $314,000 is for museum grants and $45,000 is for marketing grants. The first step to consider today is to approve the grants with the recommendations today for this first round. With $177,000 still available in the Museum Grant Fund, there are two other steps to SEA May 23, 2022 consider. We realized performance organizations were at a deficit. There is a maximum of $103,955 of performance productions in the current round of applications that could be granted if we were to modify the grants, so our second request is to look at that and modify grant requirements for performance -arts organizations. Three organizations would have additional support from the current round of applications. As we went through, we earmarked what we know we have. That would then leave an additional $73,545 in balance left if we were to give all that money to those performance arts organizations. Our third request is to ask to open a second round of grants to continue funding Hispanic arts organizations, plus other organizations. It's athree-step process. The first step is to look at the recommendation to approve Tourism Development Tax Grant Applications for fiscal year 2022-23 marketing grants, formerly category B of $100,000 and non-county-owned/operated museums, formerly category C2 for $672,500 and make a finding that these expenditures promote tourism. The executive summary contains information about each organization and their project, past awards, what's fundable, expenses from the applications, what's not fundable and a recommended grant amount. There are two types of grants: museums and marketing. Part of this delineation includes the purpose of the organization and represents the funding stream. The Museum Grants are funded directly from TDC taxes and the Marketing Grants are taken from the CVB's budget, where we allocate a certain portion of our marketing budget to create the marketing funds. Marketing Grants, formerly known as Category B, support marketing activities outside the region and can include direct -mail campaigns, website upgrades, advertising and public -relations costs to help direct tourism to the activity. With $100,000 for marketing grants, there are four grants for your consideration. Ms. Petrunoff asked how these are calculated from heads and beds. She noted that columns on the spreadsheet specified the number of hotel nights that would generate the number of tax dollars and then there's a multiplier that's applied and it's an economic impact. When she did a spreadsheet based on his spreadsheet, she looked at returns the way you would look at a financial spreadsheet, return on investments, and it's all over the map. Maybe she is misunderstanding or these are weighted in a different way. For example, for every dollar spent you get X and an economic value off the charts. Gulfshore Theater and the Naples Botanical Garden and the others seemed to be either medium or underperformers and when she looks at how many TDC dollars it takes to get one hotel night, sort of an advertising return. They're all over the map, from $16,000 to 68 cents. Her background is finance and she's trying to understand the metrics. Mr. Melleky said they're estimates based on attendance, so what we need to do is work with the organizations because a lot are applying for the first time. Some have been doing things over a number of years and some have applied for grants for the first time, so there's a wide range of different activities being requested for funding. What we want to do is have a basis of support in all regions of the County. That's an important concept. There are things going on in Marco Island and the East Naples area and we want to ensure the whole County is being represented. Ms. Petrunoff said she understands they're trying to represent the whole County in regional areas, but she thought the purpose of this was for tourists. Are you trying to drive them to all different parts of the county? Is that a stated objective? Ms. Becker said yes. 7 May 23, 2022 Mr. Melleky said yes, it's building tourism areas around the County. We want to work with the organizations to build metrics. The metrics are an important component. We want to work with the organizations and build stronger metrics and also help them with surveys during events, so we're really becoming more data -driven. Ms. Petrunoff said she spoke with some private museums and they were a little frustrated by this because they said they didn't know how many hotel rooms their event generated, so they didn't apply. So they would they work with you on trying to get some estimate because it seems like this is an important metric for you? Ms. Kerns said when she first started, the grant process was cumbersome. We were asking people to apply and they didn't know how to document it. Jack Wert and staff streamlined the process and had a webinar to show them. She's delighted to have all these applicants because the money wasn't used every year. Ms. Petrunoff questioned the metric. She's for funding, but maybe heads and beds is not an appropriate metric for some of these venues. I see from a financial background how frustrating that can be, and attribution in return on ad -spending return on investment is so different because of the lack of a one-to- one correlation. Acting Chair Cox said that as a hotelier, it's very difficult to say what drives a person's purchase decision because it's a variety of things. Certainly, we like to say it generated this many room nights. It is rare outside of special events, such as a Super Bowl, that we can say this is the reason they came. It's more likely for a well-rounded experience that touches on beaches and natural beauty to arts and culture. Mr. Beirnes said over the course of the last six months, there have been a lot of conversations about the arts and culture community. Commissioner Taylor has really allowed us to rally everybody together. For 2023, we're already deeply in conversation with our advertising agency to build a campaign and integration within everything we do because it's the beaches, dining and the arts and culture, which is a wonderful bow that really wraps these incredible offerings in this destination from one end of the County to the other. It really does elevate the arts and culture community in a way that we have not had the ability to do. John Melleky has brought this team to the chambers and we're pretty excited about where it's going. Ms. Brock said of the biggest issues for Everglades City is the heads and beds metric. We know we're putting heads in your beds because they come and we know this because during the season we'll have 3,000-5,000 people a day riding airboats. They're not sleeping in Everglades City, but they're extending their trip elsewhere. She's spoken about this to the TDC before and wants to know if they can look at state Department of Revenue sales taxes to document the traffic that's coming through that part of the City or that part of the County to show that, even though their population is only 400. A significant number of our statistics are upside down. Typically, tourism is a small percentage of the overall population. Our population is dwarfed by the number of tourists that are in our town every day, but we get very little credit for it because we don't have the heads in the beds. We can't put them in ours, but we can put them in yours. That's something that I'm very interested in. And we send them to Marco and we send them to other places because that's where we have to. Acting Chair Cox said that with almost 50% of the applications influencing the Hispanic Art Festival, which she thinks is an outstanding initiative, do you have any concerns about the volume of eggs in that one basket, versus distribution of year-round programming? E'3 May 23, 2022 Mr. Melleky said no. That's a valid question because the festival is really a year -long effort involving activities from October to June. It's more of a thematic type of presentation marketing plan, as opposed to a festival, where someone would go for three days, stand outside and listen to something. With all the organizations, it's a breadth of activity. There are performances, music, visual arts, paintings, exhibitions, so it's everything. What's exciting is that everyone wants to participate and do something and really build it because they see this as something to start, and take it into the future, as well, which is an important thing to build. Acting all Cox said that something for us to consider, as we think about our next motions, would be the July, August, September gap in that festival, given that is our third quarter of the year, also weather season in South Florida, when it is more difficult for us to attract tourists for revenue, hotel beds and anything. Mr. Melleky said some of the organizations want to start working with hotels more. How do they build out those relationships, how do they deal with offseason, and building those partnerships? Commissioner Taylor said economic development is always on her mind, especially because she's the Commission representative for the economic aspect of this County. We've always had a very strong tourism -based economy. That's our business. But we understand tourism has three legs to that stool, including leisure, which we've always paid attention to. In 1992, we started and passed the ordinance to re -nourish our beaches. Mr. Wert came to City Council in the 2000s to talk about tourism and how excited he was that things were moving. The red-headed stepchild of that had been the arts and also sports. Where else have you heard $9 million in one week and 35,000 people enjoying themselves? Go look at that park today. It's spotless. This this is exciting stuff. We're right at the beginning of it. And now the arts. To have the increases that we saw with the grants, to hire somebody that's so competent and has reached out physically and gone around this County to talk to the arts groups to learn more. We are moving into an area that can only increase and benefit our quality of life here for us as residents and businesses. So, thank you very much. She's so glad Everglades City is here. It's one of her favorite places. We have open minds now, we have a very competent attorney who keeps telling us to look the State statute and says we can do this, but be very careful about how we proceed because the State law is State law. But we've opened up the grants for performances. The next moves are going to be very interesting. Mr. Melleky said there are four marketing grants for consideration. • Florida Stone Crabbers Association is requesting support to promote the 53rd Annual 2023 Everglade Seafood Festival in February 2023. They are estimating 7,150 overnight visitors. Funding is requested for the promotion of the festival out -of -region through digital marketing and out -of --home marketing, which includes billboards, advertising and radio campaigns. Staff recommends funding up to $25,000. • Gulfshore Opera is requesting support to promote the 2022-23 lineup of opera productions and concerts in numerous venues in Collier County. They estimate 900 overnight visitors. Funding has been requested for the promotion of the lineup out -of -region marketing through print, radio, television and social -media campaigns. Staff recommends funding up to $10,000. • The Marco Island Historical Society is requesting support to promote the 2023 exhibition of Clyde Butcher's Photography: Cuba, The Natural Beauty. This is part of the Hispanic Art Festival. They estimate 3,000 overnight visitors. Funding has been requested for the promotion E May 23, 2022 of the exhibition out -of -region through print, broadcast and social -media campaigns. Staff recommends funding up to $45,000. • The Naples Players is requesting support to promote the regional premiere of the production of "A Christmas Carol, The Musical," which has typically been played in New York City in November through December of 2022. They estimate 450 overnight visitors. Funding has been requested for out-of4egion marketing and promotion through print and radio campaigns. Staff recommends funding up to $20,000. He asked if anyone had questions on those grants. Ms. Petrunoff asked why funding was cut for Gulfshore Opera. Mr. Melleky said the advertising campaign targeted Lee County and Bonita Springs. They should go to Sarasota and outside areas. That's one thing they want to work on with Gulfshore Opera. They've typically done promotions in Lee County and we want to work with them to expand their horizon and advertising campaigns outside Lee County to provide heads and beds. Ms. Petrunoff said she didn't understand. They asked for $15,000 and we're recommending $10,000. What's the difference? Why did we reduce that? Mr. Melleky said that in the past, they've typically received reimbursement for funding for advertising campaigns in Lee County and Bonita Springs. We want to work with them so they're expanding more. Instead of funding advertising in Lee County, we'll ensure that they're going to Sarasota County and outside-of4egion areas to increase heads and beds here. Mr. Beirnes said that proposal was heavily inclusive of near-m markets, so we're trying to encourage them to go farther. What was presented was very much Bonita and Lee County. They need to reach beyond that. He's not saying that can't be a part of the marketing plan, it is just not a part that's reimbursable by a grant. Ms. Petrunoff thanked him and said that makes sense. Mr. Grifoni asked what backup there is for the estimated number of overnight visitors. What do we look at after -the -fact to determine whether we're actually seeing that? Some of the numbers seem rather high. Mr. Melleky said some of the organizations tried to include that as part of the grant application. It is not a required question, so right now, that's nothing we could fix. This is one of the things we want to fix to start building that measure. Some of the organizations, especially ones that have received grants before, do surveys. For instance, if you go to an exhibition at Artis-Naples, you fill out a survey and it asks what your primary ZIP code is, how long are you staying and where you're staying. Those numbers tend to be more valid, as opposed to others. But these are estimates and we want to work with the organizations to help reach those goals and how they measure them. And if some of the measures are wrong, that's fine, especially for this first year as we try and rebuild the program. He'll be back in September and October to look at how to change the grant process and the questions we're asking. Mr. Grifoni said there's a lot of good stuff here. Looking at the year in advance, what can we do to get a firmer grip on that data, so when we're looking at a significant amount of grant dollars going out that we can feel confident in that type of return that we're getting as a County overall? Mr. Melleky said that if you look at Opera Naples' grant application, they used one of our companies to help do their surveys at their Festival Under the Stars and you can see the data that is collected. That's what we want to use as a model and move forward with. That really shows actual detail and the knowledge they gain from those surveys at the event itself. 10 May 23, 2022 Mr. Beirnes said that was conducted by Downs & St. Germain, our research collector, and you will receive an update later. We realized there was a void and wondered how we could utilize some of our trusted resources to be able to slice, dice and analyze. That's what John was mentioning. We said let's have them do the Intercept Survey at this event to start the process. As we go into 2023 and the execution of this, we're going to be definitely educating and informing Downs & St. Germain where all Athese activities are so we can layer on and get a better feel. Not only does it allow us to engage in that monthly, but it will provide a lot of great market intelligence and insight going forward. We're also trying to figure out how to Geofence and tap Zartico to do similar items, so there are a lot of data analytics that will be employed going forward. Acting Chair Cox said it would seem that with both of those, it would be much easier to add some data that could help put all of these applications on the same playing field. Ms. Brock asked if they will be working with some of the first-time grant applicants to help them, for example, to take these surveys and not wait until next year. Mr. Melleky said they will use some standardized questions that they've used before. In the past, it's been a paper survey. We're looking at how do they measure it through digital means, whether it's surveying people afterwards, exit surveys or if they need help with Downs & St. Germain. We'll help with that. Ms. Brock said perfect, thank you. Acting Chair Cox asked if there was any support to help with marketing grants. They did great work with webinars and assistance filling out applications and understanding the grant process, which can be cumbersome. Is there any similar support provided for organizations that might wish for help on marketing once the grants are approved? We have so many great partnerships. It could be helping their media buys go further through centralized spending or assisting with social media or digital for those organizations that might not be as familiar or have the acumen inhouse. Do we offer any of those resources? Mr. Melleky said they're looking at starting some of those resources. On Wednesday, the CVB is doing a seminar on social -media influencers. All the arts organizations were invited to participate. We're building that partnership program, making sure the arts organizations know about all those opportunities and providing others about marketing. �He continued his p�esentationJ In the requests for the museum category, formerly C2. This category allows funding similar to the Marketing Grants, as well as funding for exhibitions that would help drive tourism to our destination. There are 11 in this category. In two groups, five and then six, they are in alphabetical order: • Artis-Naples is requesting support for marketing and exhibition support for the exhibition "Love Stories from the National Portrait Gallery of London" at the Baker Museum, February through May 2023. We wi11 be one of only two locations in the country that will have this exhibition. They estimate 15,873 overnight visitors and funding has been requested for the exhibition, support and out -of -region marketing. Staff recommends funding up to $100,000. • Artis-Naples is requesting support to promote its 14th Annual Naples International Film Festival, which will run from October 27-30, 2022. They estimate 1,088 overnight visitors. Funding has been requested for out -of -region marketing, including digital print and social -media campaigns. We recommend funding up to $50,000. • Golisano Children's Museum of Naples is requesting exhibition support for two traveling exhibitions, "Pigeon Comes to Naples" and "Namaste, India: From Bollywood to Hollywood." They 11 May 2312022 will run from October 2022 through September 2023. They estimate 16,185 overnight visitors. Funding has been requested for out -of -region marketing and exhibition support. Staff recommends funding up to $78,500. • Gulfshore Playhouse is requesting marketing for its 2023 season, including the production of "26 Miles," which is part of the Hispanic Art Festival and will run in October 2022. They estimate 5,865 overnight visitors. Funding has been requested for out -of -region marketing. Staff recommends funding up to $20,000. • Holocaust Museum is requesting marketing support for its year -long programs and for exhibitions, support for "Two Regimes - Witnesses to the Holodomor and the Holocaust" and overall out -of - market advertising for programs on "Lessons Learned From the Holocaust." They estimate 2,597 overnight visitors. They are requesting funding for the exhibition, out -of -region advertising and website updates. Staff recommends funding up to $30,000. Are there any questions about those five projects? Ms. Petrunoff asked about Gulfshore Playhouse, which is asking for $100,000 and we're giving them $20,000. When she looks at the metrics, the returns, she thought it would be a good thing. Mr. Melleky said Gulfshore Playhouse is one of the performance organizations where we run into difficulty in the grant application. They've requested $20,000 for marketing dollars. The other $80,000 was for production costs. However, in the current grant process, that $80,000 isn't eligible, which is why we tracked that for the second grant process and the second Executive Summary. If that were to be approved, then they could obtain funding for that, as well. That's a valid question. Ms. Petrunoff said it seems to be a very productive endeavor for tourism. Ms. Kerns said the amount requested by the Holocaust Museum seems like a lot of money for out -of - region marketing promotions. Mr. Melleky said it's for out -of -region marketing and portions of the exhibition. With museum funds, we pay a portion of the exhibition. That's the way that it's been done. We typically try and look at 50% and make sure the organization is paying 50% of the exhibition costs and then 50% could be funded up to. Ms. Petrunoff agreed that the Holocaust Museum doesn't generate much of a return. Mr. Melleky said they do about $7,000-$8,000. Joan (Hogan, the museums Marketing and Communications Manager), is here and can speak about the exhibition. Acting Chair Cox said talking about consistency and metrics, there were nearly 2,600 overnight visitors, but only five hotel -room nights, so it's harder to universalize those metrics. Ms. Petrunoff said she would propose that we don't use those metrics because they are misleading. They lead you to a different set of conclusions. Ms. Hogan said she'd explain how they got that. We had visitors that could stay from a long weekend to a month, two months, so we picked five nights as a very conservative estimate to generate the hotel rooms. We cannot necessarily say this is why people are coming to Collier County. We're one of the unique experiences that visitors can get only in this region, so we do get the visitors, but cannot say we are going to guarantee this amount of heads and beds rooms. (Ms. Petrunoff said she didn't believe any of them can.) But we bring a lot of value because we've got wonderful beaches, wonderful natural resources, wonderful restaurants. As you can see from all the groups here, there's that untapped resource of cultural resources that you just don't get anywhere. You can have so many wonderful hits when you 12 May 2312022 come to this area, so many interesting, memorable experiences. We're proud to be a part of that, and to contribute to what Collier County has to offer. Acting Chair Cox said the other thing that makes this difficult and confusing is that it's not a zero -sum gain either, For example, we could have both the Marco Island Historical Center and the Marco Island Center for the Arts reporting an overnight visitor that could be the same visitor and those would both be correct because they visited both venues, but it's not a singular attribution, right? We all see that when Are go on our own vacations. We don't go to a city or destination to do one thing, so it does make it hard on our financiers to attribute. Ms. Petrunoff said we are being asked to make decisions on this spreadsheet about this and we all know that when people come here, they visit multiple places, so maybe the whole measurement system needs to be re -looked at so that we can ultimately say if we have 30 items, we should be investing in these 10 and we shouldn't be investing in these 10 because of XY and Z. But it probably is not beds and heads. It's probably something else because they are doing multiple things. Ms. Brock noted that another Council member asl�ed if the County helps with marketing. That's a huge deal because when she first started a couple of years ago after owning an ad agency for 30 years and having a background in how to measure things and how they should be looked at, it always bothered her. If she saw an application and it said social -media, it might not be paid social media. People think that they actually are doing social media if they just post it to Facebook. They need assistance or a review process once they've done it themselves to make sure the marketing dollars are actually being spent properly. Mr. Melleky agreed and said part of that is done. To get the reimbursement, because this is a reimbursable grant, they must turn in an invoice to show they've spent the dollars, what was done, a copy of the ad, and a canceled check to show what was expended. Then it gets reimbursed. But we need to take it that a step further. How are we looking at those measures, what's the reach? Those are important measures. We'll be working with that to make sure that happens. Ms. Brock said perfect, thank you. Mr. Melleky detailed the final six grant applicants : " • Marco Island Center for the Arts is requesting marketing and extion support for its 2022- 23 season, which has various events tied to the Hispanic Art Festival. They have a variety of exhibitions and a music series called "Musical Interludes With a Latin Twist." They estimate 6,426 overnight visitors. They are seeking funding for out -of -region marketing and exhibition support. Staff recommends funding up to $10,500 ($10,580 was rounded down for balancing purposes). • Naples Art Association is requesting support for its 2022-23 season, "Miradas de Mujeres, Isabelle de Borchgrave" and the "World of Frida Kahlo Exhibition" in March of 2023, a Hispanic Art Festival event. This is an exhibition of the artist Isabelle de Borchgrave, who creates replicas of dresses and costumes out of paper. This is part of the Hispanic Art Festival. They estimate 2,813 overnight visitors. They are seeking funding for exhibition support and out - of -region advertising and promotions. Staff recommends funding up to $100,000. • Naples Art District is requesting support for its 2022-23 season, which includes a variety of events and exhibitions, including some at the Hispanic Art Festival. They are looking at building their marketing and tracking programs. This is a first-time applicant. They are seeking funding for out -of -region marketing, including social -media campaigns, rag cards and direct -mail campaigns to measure visitors. Staff recommends funding up to $48,500. 13 May 23, 2022 • Naples Botanical Garden is requesting support for its "Johnsonville Nightlights in the Garden," which runs from November 25 to January 1. They estimate 1,055 overnight visitors. They are seeking funding for out -of -region marketing and exhibition support. Staff recommends funding up to $100,000. • Naples Botanical Garden also is requesting support for its exhibition rental for exhibits throughout the year entitled "Mexico's Celebration of Plants and Culture," which includes exhibitions of "La Calavera Catrina," "A Dia de los Muertos Festival," and "Frida and Her Garden," which will run from October 2022 through June 2023. They estimate 3,063 overnight visitors throughout the season. They're seeking funding for out -of -region marketing and exhibition support. Staff recommends funding up to $100,000. • Opera Naples is requesting support for its 3rd Annual Festival Under the Stars, which will run at Cambier Park from March 20 through April 6, 2023. It will include performances of Bizet's "Carmen," South American music and Spanish Zarzuela music and dancing and is a part of the Hispanic Art Festival. They estimate 478 overnight visitors. They are seeking funding for out -of - region marketing. Staff recommends funding for up to $35,000. Acting Chair Cox asked if Opera Naples is similar to the other situation we looked at where the $5,000 trim is based on production expenses not being reimbursed under our current grant. Mr. Melleky said that was correct. Ms. Kerns asked for clarification on the tourist tax revenue for Marco Island Center for the Arts. It's the same amount as the Holocaust Museum. You're looking at two completely different scenarios. Acting Chair Cox added that they had very different funding proposals. Mr. Melleky said that was correct, but you have to look at the grant applications and what they requested. Marco Island said a lot of their funding is for marketing. The important thing about the Marco Island Center and one thing under consideration is that it's going to be one of the hubs for the arts and the Hispanic Art Festival for Marco Island and that's the way their application is written, to drive that build from there. They also are looking at how do they do that, the marketing support and the measures. This is also a first-time grant funder. Ms. Kerns asked where the exhibits would be for the Naples Art District, the Botanical Garden and the Naples Art District. Mr. Melleky said they are doing different activities in the district itself on Shirley Street, but they're also combining and doing some work at the Botanical Garden as part of their exhibitions because their marketing support and campaigns are reaching out to Sarasota and out -of -region East Coast, as well. Mr. Solis said the Naples Art District is off of Shirley Street, kind of in Trade Center Way, north of Pine Ridge Road. There are about 70 galleries and artist studios, with active artists. During season, they have weekly events where they coordinate among the studios. People travel to the different studios so they can get to know the artists. It's really developing into a wonderful art district that has the potential to bring in folks from out of town, just because there's such a high concentration of active professional artists in one area, so their efforts, and Paula Brody (the president), is bringing that together and increasing their advertising through the Art District. It's a great idea and he hopes the TDC can support that. Ms. Becker said each of the associations have sent a representative. She asked that they speak briefly so the TDC could see them. Representatives introduced themselves and thanked the TDC for its support: 14 May 23, 2022 • Alice Van Arsdale, Artis-Naples • Courtney McNeil, Baker Museum at Artis-Naples • Jon Forrester and Roxanne Dyer, Golisano Children's Museum • Alex Castano, Gulfshore Playhouse • Hyla Crane, Marco Island Center for the Arts • Pat Rutledge, Marco Island Historical Society • Kit Baker, Naples Art Association • Paula Brody, Naples Art District • Britt Patterson -Weber, Naples Botanical Garden • Kent Kyle, Opera Naples • Bryce Alexander, Naples Players • Holly Dudley, Florida Stone Crabbers Association; coordinator for the Everglades Seafood Festival Mr. Castano said production costs are really important because it's carpentry, building sets, getting the rights to plays. We do consider that we're trying to protect heritage and culture. Ms. Baker said it's wonderful for us all to be together and to be seeing the amount of energy and leverage we're bringing to the community. She invited everyone to explorer a database published study that has been done five times over that will help guide data decisions going forward. Americans for the Arts has published studies and we're currently in our sixth study as an arts division in this country, measuring the cultural destination and cultural tourism and how it can be measured and quantified. We only submitted one exhibition, but have an entire year's worth of activities we're proposing for the celebration of Hispanic culture in our community that she will send to the TDC. Ms. Brody said she's president of the volunteer -run Naples Art District and that by next year, they will have over 100 working artists in the industrial area off Shirley Street, including J&C Boulevard and Taylor Road, with some expansion onto Yahl Street and Seward Avenue. We're a collective of working artists who offer something unique to visitors, who are able to come into our working studios and see artists at work. In a sense, we're a visual arts organization, but we are a performing arts organization in a certain sense, as well, where you can see potters, woodworkers, fiber artists and painters of different varieties working to create unique work. This year, we're thrilled to partner with the Botanical Garden to bring the work of Frida Kahlo, particularly the Botanical Gardens, and to bring Ricardo Soltero to the Naples area. He's the creator of the "La Calavera Catrina Exhibit," which will open in early October. Our artists will be working with him to create life-size Frida sculptures, which we hope to have in the Naples Art District during our Frida Fest collaboration with the Hispanic Cultural Arts Festival. We have a number of other collaborations planned and we're very excited to offer for the first time this year, during the shoulder season, a creativity camp. It's a 10-day opportunity for people to come to Collier County and take a wide variety of art classes, which we offer throughout the year. But during this 10 days, there will be a concentration of classes and we're thrilled to work with John. This is a first-time application for us and we're delighted to be part of this group of funded organizations. She brought brochures to introduce everyone to the Naples Art District. Mr. Kyle noted that Opera Naples' Under the Stars festival brought 3,500 to the area, a large economic boost and City Council presented their artistic director, Ramon Tebar, with the key to the city and named him a special cultural ambassador. i� May 23, 2022 Mr. Alexander said he was the CEO for Naples Players, a first-time applicant. They offer 200-plus local performances yearly and have about 50,000 in the audience. Although 60- to 65% of them live in Collier County, 35% come from somewhere. We've never applied before because the metrics are so convoluted, so he applauds the conversation about how to calculate those hotel rooms, things some of them way -underestimated and some way -overestimated. The conversation that's being had today is really exciting and encouraging and he thanks John for engaging with the performing arts and the TDC for its consideration. Acting Chair Cox thanked Ms. Becker for suggesting they introduce themselves. Ms. Becker made a motion to approve Tourist Development Tax Grant Applications for FY2022- 2023 Marketing Grants, formerly Category B, ($100,000) and Non-County-Owned/Operated Museums, formerly Category C-2 ($672,500), and found that it promotes tourism. Second by Ms. Kerns. The motion was carried unanimously, &0. c. Recommendation to approve modifications to TDT Grant Guidelines on allowable uses to include the cost of producing a performing arts production or entertainment at an event or location whose primary purpose is the promotion of tourism, not to exceed 50% of the total cost of the production and based on the availability of funds and make a finding that this program promotes tourism. Mr. Melleky said the second recommendation is to approve modifications to the TDT grant guidelines on allowable uses to include the cost of producing a performing arts production or entertainment at an event or location whose primary purpose is the promotion of tourism, not to exceed 50% of the total cost of the production and based on the availability of funds and make a finding that this program promotes tourism. This provides performing arts organizations with an opportunity to participate in the promotion of tourism and qualify for grant opportunities. Since performing arts are a fabric of our community, it's important that the guidelines allow the same leeway that an exhibition gets and the current guidelines for museums are eligible for funding for an exhibition and its related expenses for that installation. In a performing arts organization, a comparable cost would be the cost of production, which would be found to promote tourism. Based on the review of similar tourism grant programs throughout the State, it is recommended that the allowable use of grant funds should be considered up to a maximum not to exceed 50% of the total cost of the production and based on the availability of funds. Mr. Grifoni said he didn't understand the rationale of why this wasn't approved originally. What prompted the change now? Why was it not in place before because it seems completely reasonable and logical that a performance would generate just as much, if not more, tourism than an exhibit. Mr. Beirnes said that was decided many years ago before many of us were here. When we sat down and took a look, it did make sense that compared to what other destinations and regions do consider allowable, this felt like it fit in line, in compliance with, and mirrored many or all of those. Mr. Grifoni asked if they knew the original reasoning to prohibit it. Mr. Beirnes said they didn't. Acting Chair Cox agreed and said she didn't understand the dissimilarity between the costs of a production versus the costs of acquiring an exhibit. They're different endeavors, but it seems like both would be a large burden on the cultural organization and similar necessities to go forward, so he's glad 16 May 23, 2022 he asked. If we were to make a motion, would the agreements whose funding was affected and weren't approved be included? Mr. Melleky said it that's the third recommendation, but it's separate. We want to carry over those applications to include. Then we'd also know how much is left to fund, so depending on that next grant opening deadline, we already know where some of the funding could go. Acting Chair Cox asked if there was a motion to modify the grant guidelines. Ms. Petrunoff made a motion to approve mod cations to TDT Grant Guidelines on allowable uses to include the cost of producing a performing arts production or entertainment at an event or location whose primary purpose is the promotion of tourism, not to exceed 50% of the total cost of the production and based on the availability of funds and found that this program promotes tourism. Second by Mr. Grifoni. The motion was carried unanimously, &0. d. Recommendation to authorize a second round of grant application solicitations for the C-2 Category Museum grants beginning July 1, 2022, with a deadline of August 31, 2022, at 5 p.m. and make a finding that the grant program promotes tourism. Mr. Melleky said the last recommendation is to authorize a second round of grant application solicitations for the C2 category museum grants beginning July 1, 2022, with a deadline of August 31, 2022 at 5 p.m. and make a finding that the grant program promotes tourism. With the approvals that already have been done, what this would do is allow us to reopen the grant process to include the performing arts organizations in this grant process in this second round of grants. We would then allow them to fund performances up to 50%, as you just approved. It also allows other organizations that want to apply to apply, especially if they're interested in the Hispanic Art Festival, so it leaves another window open for organizations to apply. Ms. Becker made a motion to authorize a second round of grant application solicitations for the C- 2 Category Museum grants beginning July 1, 2022, with a deadline ofAuxum 31, 2022, at 5 p.m* and made a finding that the grant program promotes tourism. Second by Ms. Petrunoff. The motion was carried unanimously, 84. Acting Chair Cox said they had so much great dialogue today about attribution and return on investment. Is there a good checkpoint for us to do a follow-up and look at that? Mr. Beirnes said this is a great segue, Downs & St. Germain, which is coming up. He doesn't expect they're going to have the answer, but the challenge is that as we go through the year, as they do these intercept surveys and as they encounter some of these nuggets of feedback as the year progresses, Joseph could tell us each month what they're seeing or not seeing when it comes to the arts and culture and the interest and activities that are in markets. That's a good challenge because we are talking about a significant amount of money. Acting Chair Cox said she'd not as familiar with Zartico's abilities in that arena versus some of the other more traditional arenas of that business, but it would seem like there's some translatable value. Mr. Beirnes agreed and said they're working with Zartico's executive leadership because this is much Efferent than a singular geofence. There are a lot of bits and pieces and some of them are hourly, they're not just forever, so we'll have to work very closely with them to dissect that. That's been quite a good conversation that we've had with them because it's our request and our challenge to them as an 17 May 234) 2022 organization has been very, very different than anybody else that has worked with them, so we're kind of challenging them to utilize the data as best as possible for us 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 —April 2022 Visitor Tracking and Economic Impact Study" Ms. Petrunoff asked if he was worried about the 8.2% drop April over April in occupancies. That seems like a pretty steep drop year -over -year. Mr. Beirnes said we've certainly seen what "a crack in the paint." There was such exuberance with the pent-up demand in Q 1. Everything from consumer price indexes to interest rates to gas, there was a ripple effect, if not a tsunami, that happened right at the end of March. We sensed that it triggered people to reevaluate what's going on, including international incidents. We're watching that really closely. Coming up in just a few moments is going to be Paradise Advertising, and what influenced the markets and our way of messaging in our spring and summer campaign. If you go back 60 days ago, we were optimistic and then became cautiously optimistic. Now we're just becoming cautious. Historically, April does dip down. We hoped it would have continued. A year ago, what you're comparing it against is Florida residents were really traveling like crazy and you saw the Florida resident data. Everybody was traveling and figured this is a great opportunity to take advantage of relatively low rates at the time. So, we're comparing it to that behavior now. Florida residents have receded and allowed their beaches back to the travelers. We're really watching it. We're anxious to see this weekend with Memorial Day, with the spike in gas. We'll see how that all plays out, but we're trying to take advantage of that forward -looking advanced planning that Joseph just mentioned and try to do our absolute best to fulfill a strong summer. For the rest of 2022, we'll be comparing it against a weird anomaly of what was happening a year ago, so there'll be more conversations like this, of what happened in August? And then that will remind us. Concerned, yes. Are we worried? We were certainly hoping for a much more positive economic impact or statement. We watch travel sentiment through Longwoods Travel Sentiment on a regular basis. Historically, when it came to COVID, you saw spikes and valleys in travel sentiment. As he mentioned in previous months, something like 63% were significantly concerned about gas prices. That remains about the same. It hasn't gotten any worse. He's not sure it's gotten any better, but we're watching that really closely. COVID has continued to recede and that economic impact has stabilized. He gets more worried when there are huge fluctuations where people are very skittish, so there's a lot that's going on in the market. m May 23, 2022 Ms. Petrunoff said she's not surprised that the planning and advance has increased just from talk of tourists in town. They are worried about being booked out and everything selling out when they normally come down here, so it seems like everybody who has something to rent is already committed for next year. Mr. Beirnes said there's definitely a lot of advance booking. One of the challenges going forward is when it comes to ensuring that we have vibrant and available room blocks for sporting events that come in September, October, November, December, in the off-season before peak season. A lot of hotels sense the revenue management is just not sure. He assumes there's a trepidation over what will occur. We are hearing a lot of those hotels are holding rooms to wait and see, which is not advantageous to the destination because we would like to provide our rights holders with those room blocks to lock them in for September and October. We're going to be having some conversations to encourage the hotels to look at the sentiments and the economic impacts that are out there. That is a little concerning to us. Acting Chair Cox said she was concerned to see the close to 50% split between reservations up and down going forward. Commissioner Taylor spoke of a three-legged stool with the leisure business, which we all know has been like fishing in a barrel. But there's been really strong demand for the last 18 to 24 months, and she spoke of arts and culture and sports as drivers. She'd (Cox) add group and convention business to that mix. What she's hearing from some hoteliers is that we are really going to have to get back in, particularly in the third and fourth quarter, the shoulder and offseason, to guarantee reasons for people to be here during those time frames, such as a sporting tournament, group convention or cultural event. Now that more options are available, she thinks that's going to change. Is it possible for us to add a 2019 to our overnight visitor origin markets as a reference point so we can get a better feel of how the pandemic affected our "traditional -source" markets? Mr. St. Germain said he can add that. The reason they got rid of it was because April 2020 was the strangest out of all the months. Ms. Becker said that on Page 18 of the slides, there was a visual she wanted to see again. What is that? It looks like a woman falling down. Mr. Beirnes said it's an aerial shot of a kid playing in water. They can relook at that. B. Paradise Advertising —Joseph Taylor "Overview foN Summer, the Spying -Summer Campaign, A Look Ahead. " (PowerPoint presentation) Mr. Beirnes said his emails back and forth with Joseph are thick with approvals and there sometimes are 10 or 15 different designs and layouts. We talk hourly about anything that's going on, the business impact, the Northeast, Midwest and Florida, to monitor it. We need to really be nimble, not a week or a month late. We speak within 45 minutes to an hour of when something hits. Ms. Petrunoff asked if he thought it would be an advantage to advertise that, in most cases, this is a direct flight here and we are on a convenient time zone versus the competition destinations for a segment of 40 and under. Right now, air travel is pretty much a disaster. You don't have to take connections to come here. It's a hop, skip and a jump. She thought that would have some appeal. Mr. Beirnes said RSW is a crown jewel for us. We should really be celebrating it. It is not something we have looked at. Ms. Petrunoff said it's not a connection or five time zones. 19 May 23, 2022 Mr. Beirnes said we include it a lot within our PR messaging or influencers, where there's a little more robust ability to have that conversation — and that's really a key celebration, the fact that it's easy access, straight into RSW. But we have alternate locations, as well, whether it's Miami or Fort Lauderdale, which are not that far away. We do include those for our longer -form conversations. C. Lou Hammond Group — TeIfy Gallagher and Leslie Nobloch "National Public Relations Update — TDC Meeting — Services Conducted in April 2022 " [PowerPoint presentation] Part 2. Marketing Partner Reports D. Collier County Tourist Tax Collections — Paul Beirnes "Tourist Tax Collections —April 30, 2022" E. Miles Media — En�iqueta Baland�a Paradise. com Web Analytics Report — April 2022 [PowerPoint presentation] F. Paradise Coast Sports Complex/Sports Facilities Companies — Ma�issa Bake, Adrian Moses, Jaci Erale-Baughn [PowerPoint presentations] Acting Chair Cox asked about the size of the business obligations his company inherited. What percentage is left? Do we still have deals and or tournaments like that that we're going to be servicing or are we close to the end of those? Mr. Moses said the soccer tournaments and lacrosse event were multiyear events. But based upon our ability to build relationships with those clients, we essentially had their permission to terminate those contracts and renegotiate our own. As we move forward, we're going to retain those events, but they're going to be on our terms. Ms. Petrunoff asked if they had adequate financial support from the County when structuring those deals so that you are ensuring that you don't have deals that lose money or that are too labor intensive. Mr. Moses said the support from the TDC is adequate and the way our budget is structured means that if we need to go and ask for more money to put on events, we can do that. But the goal is never to get into any agreement in which we're not covering our costs first, and we're making sure that we're getting the most return on effort. [Ms. ENale Baughn stated hey presentation on the website] Acting Chair Cox said she'd never seen a new we presence without a paid traffic investment. Is that purposeful, not engaging in any paid -traffic sources? Ms. Erale-Baughn asked if she was talking about paid social or Google ads, or both? Acting Chair Cox said not necessarily. Paid social is important, too, but either paid referrals or paid increase in search -engine optimization. It's interesting to see the paid sessions at zero when we're trying to grow. Ms. Erale-Baughn said they're looking at a second phase to bring that in. They just did SEO and will be looking at paid. We would want to do some paid. Anything that we do out there, whether it's in a newspaper, print ads, or a magazine, we try to drive through website traffic. You're absolutely on point with that. That's a second phase. May 23, 2022 Acting Chair Cox said she's sure they're seeing a very small piece of your search -engine optimization efforts. Maybe the next time you come before us, it would be great to see that this really is a one -of -a - kind facility and how our SEO rankings stack against some more robust competitive words, not Naples - based searches, but Florida or South Florida. It would be interesting. She hopes the Paradise Sports Complex ranks well since it's the only one, but it would be interesting to see how we rank in some more competitive terms. Ms. Erale-Baughn said, sure. We have a monthly meeting on the first week of the month and she'll bring that up because it's a great point. [She continued the p�esentationJ Mr. Moses said he's getting a lot of feedback from event organizers who are unable to secure hotel rooms for upcoming tournaments. The frustrating thing is that the rooms are available on booking websites, but they're not being offered to our tournament operators. These are people that fill rooms and have a critical mass of people who want to come to Collier, but are unable to get through their lodging partners the pre -requisite number of hotel rooms that they need for their events. That is a huge challenge for us. Paul is fully aware of it and we're trying to work through some solutions on that. It's our No. 1 threat at the Sports Complex as we look forward, so, hopefully as a community, we can come together to find a solution to provide the number of rooms that people are going to use. Acting Chair Cox asked if they've done a collective informational and/or question -and -answer process to get underneath some of the decisions for cut-off dates and booking mechanisms. Is it dates of the tournaments? Have we tried to have any type of central conversation with the most impacted properties? Mr. Beirnes said there's no single source on the group sale side because, whether it's sports or group, it's same challenge. We haven't been able to identify it exactly, but there has been some direction by ownership management to wait and see, or there's a moratorium on those blocks. So, whether that's coming from revenue management, general management or ownership, we haven't been able to dissect that. It is something that we're going to be communicating. We have some upcoming educational sessions and some of the hotels will be participating in that for social media this Wednesday. We're going to be bringing that up, so we're really checking all of those opportunities when we're sitting across from them. Any direction that was given was probably four weeks ago and sentiment will probably be radically changing from now through the next 30 days. Acting Chair Cox asked Mr. Moses about the proactive sales strategy in the off -time. It's amazing that March is lacrosse in Naples, but we're certainly not short of demand generators in March. So, whether it's the first 10 days of January, the third week of December, or the last two weeks of August after school starts, there are about 77 dates in the year that really can make a difference if the hotels win or lose because it's when we don't have organic demand. It would be great to have an acquisition list of sports events and banquet -demand generators that match up that time frame. Also, if we can show the hotel community that we're really dedicated to acquiring business where they need it most, that might make a difference in how they respond during some of the higher demand timeframes. Mr. Moses said they've got some exciting things we've been working collectively on with the CVB and Lee County's CVB on to bring incredibly large and new events through Southwest Florida. He and Paul have been working to identify those compression weekends and we have our business development director, Jeff, looking at the weekend where there is compression and offering more 21 May 23, 2022 community -based events on those weekends versus going out into the marketplace. There is a very structured approach to identifying where those gaps are in the calendar. In all reality, the majority of the weekend dates are spoken for. As we get into the summer, we move more into stadium events rather than large tournament events just because now we can look to attract new events in areas that are out of season when we're in season. That's where people travel when they're in season and we're out of season, so there are opportunities for us to do some self -operated things in those times, as well to try and drive new things. Mr. Beirnes said they probably don't want to leave anything on the table, but this is the time where there probably is a need for a reset and reevaluation of that for them. G. County Museums —Paul Beirnes "Collier County Museums —April Visitors Report" 10. Council Member Discussion None 11. Tourism Staff Reports Director (Submitted) Mr. Beirnes said IPW (International Pow Wow) is the week after next. It's where the world's travel buyers come faceAo-face with travel sellers. We will be up in Orlando with a very prominent presence because we just need to really grab that international group business. We have a full -court press to really get the large and small groups back into the destination at the same time. We already are deep into Fiscal `24 strategic planning, so our hotels will be receiving some outreach from us on the planning and development for that. On June 6, our new PR manager will be starting. He's not at liberty today to disclose who that is, but we are extremely excited for that arrival. 12. Detailed Staff Reports Submitted 13. Next Scheduled Meeting Date/Location — 9:00 a.m. June 27, 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 acting chair at 12:2 .m. COLLIER COUNTY TOURIST DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL er Andy Solis These minutes were approved by the Council on �� � ° °.., � '� as presented, "" or . as amended i