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TDC Minutes 10/15/2024MINUTES OF THE COLLIER COUNTY TOURIST OEVELOPMENT COUNCIL MEETING BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSION CHAMBERS Naptes, FL - OCT.15,2024 LET lT BE REMEMBERED the Cottier County Tourist Devetopment Councit, in and for the County of Cottier, having conducted business herein, met on this date 9:00 a.m. in REGULAR SESSION at 33299 Tamiami TraiI East, 3'd ftoor Naptes, FL 341 12 with the fottowing members present: Commissioner Rick LoCastro, Chair Ctark Hitt, Vice Chair Councitor Jared Grifoni Susan Becker Laura Radter Nancy Kerns City Councit Member Michaet McComas Council Member Bitt Kramer (excused) Edward (Ski) Otesky (excused) ALSO PRESENT: Jay Tusa, CVB, Tourism Director Sandra Rios, CVB, PR and Communications Manager Cotteen Greene, Cottier County Attorney Office, Managing Assistant County Attorney Buzzy Ford, CVB, Digitat and Sociat Media Coordinator Marissa Baker, Regionat Manager, Paradise Coast Sports Complex Neit Dorrett, Administrator at Petican Bay VIA ZOOM Kristin Murphy, Paradise Cindy Murrieta, VP of Media for Paradise Anyone who needs a verbatim record of the meeting may request a video recording from Cottier County Communications & Customer Retations Department orview it ontine. 1. Catt to Order: The meeting was catled to order at 9:00 a.m. 2. Ptedge of Attegiance: Led by lared Grifoni Rotl Calt Agenda and Minutes Changes and Approval of Today's Agenda Move Presentations 88 to before 8A Susan Becker motioned to approve Nancy Kerns seconded 3 4 a 1 Motion passed unanimously Susan Becker ( motioned to approve M inutes f rom Sept. 17 ,2024 Nancy Kerns seconded Motion passed unanimously Public Comment None Tourism Director Report Jay Tusa, CVB Tourism Director Update and Tax Collection Report Since our last meeting, we've had a coupte of storms. We've had Hurricane Hetene and Hurricane Mitton. Luckity the industry has done pretty. Some of our partners have had some damage, mostty retated to cteanup. The big chattenge that we have, at least from a marketing perspective is now so many peopte think when these storms happen to Ftorida, they just tump att these communities into one fett swoop. Based on the conversation we had tast meeting on marketing, I think it's even more prudent nowthat we reatty have a deeper conversation later in the meeting with the marketing plan and a coupte of the few addendums that we're bringing back to you on that marketing p[an. Andy Mitter with Coasta I Zone Management is going to come into the meeting tater to update you on how the beaches are. August tourist devetopment tax coltections were at $2,651,744, resutting in a year-to-date totat of $44,419,470. August snapshot for visitors over occupancy rate was 45.4o/o, a decrease of 1.7% compared to August of 23. The ADR saw a stight increase al2o/o yeat ovet year, honestty that's retativety ftat. The RevPAR was $105.42. Like I sa id, essentiatty the same as tast year at $1 05.1 7. Direct spending by visitors and tota t economic impact of tourism in August increased by 1 .30lo and 1 .20lo respectivety. The totat economic impact of tourism is currentty up 10.90/0 so far. ln terms of visitor attributes, August 2024 saw year over year increases in the number of visitors traveting as couptes, the number of visitors coming to the area to visit with friends and famity and the number of visitors who visited two to five times prior. Giveyou a tittte update on some awards thatthe CVB won. IARTE VIVA! won severatawards from the lnternationat Festivats and Events Association, inctuding gotd for best single magazine disptay ad, sitver for best giveaway item, and bronze for best muttimedia component. Thanks to the team and to the agencies that hetp support us in our efforts. Just a tittte bit on iArte Viva! You can see some of the artwork promoting Arte Viva that's on disptay here in the Commissioners Chambers untit the end of the month. This festivat kicks off with a cetebration in November that inctudes six events centered around Dfa de [a Muertas. Additionat activities throughout the year inctude concerts, arts exhibitions, food festivats and pubtic art instattations. iARTE VIVA! is presented by the CBB and the Cottier County Board of County Commissioners. This enhances the visitor experience as wett as the resident experience here in Cottier County. lwoutd tike to recognize CouncitorJared Grifonifor his service. This is his tast meetingwith us today. He is rotating off as his term is timited on Marco lstand City Councit. Thank you for your service. We reatty appreciate att your input and work over the years. You've been a great asset to this team, to the Councit. And thank you for your service. And I do have a ptaque foryou. 5 6 a b. 2 Chairman LoCastro This might be for a f uture meeting, but it's perfect timing right here to make sure we atways have a hotel person, a City Councit, somebody from Marco. We want the best peopte possibte to buitd a Board that realty represents the strength of cottier county and the diversity. ldidn't know if that was a Marco specific seat. Do you decide who reptaces you? Jared Grifoni . Let me say thank you to Jay, Sandra and everybody on the Board. o This is my second term on the TDC. Marco lstand has term timits. l'm compteting my second term on Marco as of November 5th.. I reached out and informed the team that I was going to be resigning the remainder of my term, eFfective November sth. The City Councit atready has something scheduted for discussion at our meeting tomorrow night to tatk about appointments. . Forthis as wett as Marco because we've got a Councilorwho's oFf on November sth as weLt, who currently serves on that committee.. Since it's an etected office position on the TDC, we're going to nominate another individuat to serve, and then that goes to the county and then uttimatety that gets in front of you on the BCC and you approve it or not. . We've got some great Councitors remaining on the Councit as wetl as new fotks running. Deb Henry is here. Thank you for coming out and showing your support.. When we appoint someone here, they'tt be very supportive of the rote of the TDC and making sure the right things happen tor Cottier County. Jared Grif oni . The fact that Deb is here is great to see. When I first ran for City Councit in 2016, there was a Lack of invotvement from the City levet to the County tevet, a nd that connection d idn't reatty exist. That was one ofthe things that lwanted to work hard atto improve. And we did that. I was showing up at the BCC meetings and there were Marco lstand items on the agenda, and there was nobody there. That's changed now for the better. . The city councit and the city staff, and the citizens understand that connection is important. And going forward, getting peopte who show that they care enough to be here, tike Deb and others, is super important. 7. New Business a. Recommendation to authorize expenditure ot Tourist Development tax funds for the Clam Pass maintenance dredging project in the amount of $218,876.64 to reimburse the Pelican Bay Services Oivision for construction and associated engineering, surveying, monitoring and reporting. That was paid in advance by Pelican Bay Services Division and authorized the necessary budget amendments, and make a finding that this item promotes tourism. Chairman LoCastro Jared has done so much for Marco lstand and for this Board. Your expertise has realty been vatued. Neit Dorrett l'm the Administrator at Pelican Bay prior to that I was a long term County emptoyee. I work under contract to the Board of County Commissioners to run their program there. We have a serious drainage problem that occurred at the north end of Bay Cotony, ad.iacent to the Ritz Cartton, the dune that was reconstructed after Hurricane lan over washed into their onty drainage structure wlthin BayCotony. We've had contractors out there mechanicatly reopening that. With respect to Ctam Pass, the Board of County Commissioners own the conservation area and the natural resource protection area at Ctam Pass that inctudes the mangrove estuary. There are two environmentat permits that are tied to that management ptan with both the Army Corps of Engineers and The Department of EnvironmentaI Protection. Some of the criteria with respect to when the pass needs to be dredged or excavated to maintain the highest level of hydrautic efficiency and to keep itsetf open on an outgoing tide, which ftushes the mouth of the intet and creates what's catted the ebb shoat, are very important. At the beginning of the summer, the system began to fait. The Pass has not been hydrauticatty dredged in atmost 6 years. The management ptan that is in place has worked quite wett. We monitor tide tevets in the back bay in reat time, and we measure the difference between mean high tide, mean tow tide, and we need the difference to be at least a half a foot of water for the outgoing type to hetp scour itself in the backup materiats. l'm here todayto request a reimbursement ofthose fu nds thatwere authorized by the Advisory Board at Petican Bay. A totat amount of $218,876.64, as outtined in the Executive Summary. Historicatly, you've had a verygood partner in the Foundation at Petican Bay, which is essentiattythe Master Homeowners Association. They historicatty have reimbursed the County for any sand that goes in front of their amenity at south Beach. The environmentat permit obtigates me to put sand f irst at the County Park at Ctam Pass and f itt that to the maximum extent altowed under the environmentat permit before we put any sand on the north side of the intet adjacent to their south beach facitity. And white not required, they have been a wonderfuI steward. They have been invoiced for $48,000 worth of the totat of $218,876.64 and we expect to get that money back. At the time that that is booked and received, then we wit[ reimburse you forthe TDC funds that have otherwise requested today. This is something that I witl come and a ppeat to you for. This is an etigibte use of TDC f unds, not onty because of the unique lntet that is represented there, but the fact that there is an adjacent Pubtic Regionat Park that is the primary beneficiary of any of the work that we do. Ctark Hitt I'tt move that we approve this agenda item with the understanding that it does contribute positivety to tourism. Michaet McComas seconded Chairman LoCastro Have TDC tunds ever been used for a simitar thing in previous storms? Neit Dorrett Constantty, in the past 15 years. Motion passed unanimously with a vote ot 8-0. 4 b. Recommendation to approve the Tourism Development Tax ODT) Promotion funds to support the upcoming 2025 Florida Fastpitch Coaches Convention up to $1,500 and make a finding that these expenditures promote tourism. Jared Grifoni moved to approve Nancy Kerns seconded Motion passed unanimously with a vote of 8-O. c. Recommendation to approve the expenditure of Tourism Development Tax (TDT) Promotion funds to support the upcoming 2025 True Lax All Region Games up to $5,000 and make a finding that these expenditures promote tourism. Marissa Baker o This is atso a first-year event January 17-19,2025. They are relocating from the Bradenton area to come to Cottier County because of our destination and the facitities we have. This is for youth lacrosse ptayers up to high schoot age to come and ptay an eternity styte event where over 40 different recruiters are going to be watching these kids ptay and get recruited. The estimated bed tax was about 25,000 it's going to bring over 500 room nights. He's paying about $20,000 in a facitity rental and we're requesting $5,000 to hetp support hosting costs. Again, we betieve that it's a good return on investment. Susan Becker moved to approve Jared Grifoni seconded Motion passed unanimously with a vote of 8-O. Steve Quinn We're going over the Top Gun event we did June 27th to the 30'h and l'm atso going to tatk a tittte bit about the other events that we have coming here outside of FBU. Atso, what we have coming up in about 60 days, which is our Footbatl University National Championship Tournament. 8 a 5 Marissa Baker . This item is a grant for the Ftorida fast pitch coaches' convention. I do have the promoter on the zoom, shoutd you tike to hear specifics about the event. lt is a coaches' convention with seminars and speakers and is meant to prepare coaches at any [eve[ to coach softbatl. They are going to be utitizing the Sports Comptex Stadium for their seminars and their sessions and paying for catering services to be there. This is a first-year event at the comptex and hoping to make it an ann ua I repeat event. We are requesting $1,500 to support the event. They are bringing in an estimated $9,500 in bed tax atong with paying up to 9,200 in catering. lt's a good return on.investment. Because they are paying over $9,000 in catering, there is no facitity fee. Presentations 2024 FBU Top Gun Recap, Marissa Baker, Regional Manager Paradise Coast Sports So.iust to kind of give you an idea about Top Gun, everybody atways asks, how do you get 2,000 kids here? So last March, we embarked on a 32-city tour. lf you're a wrestting fan, think of WWF meets Ringting Brothers, Barnum and Baitey Circus. That's what we do in footbatt. We go to 39 cities across the Country, pack up two trucks, footbatt trucks att wrapped with att our stars that ptayed in our events. On the back it has the Marco lstand CBB togo and Paradise Coast logo and QR code that goes to the website. We travel one truck east of the Mississippi, one truck west of the Mississippi, and we stop in 39 tocations. At those events we have about 200 to 250 athtetes that come to be trained by current and former NFL and Cottege coaches. About 40 to 500/0 of these athtetes that attend our regional camps get invited to Top Gun. We have over 500,000 fottowers on our socia[ media ptatforms, Twitter, Facebook, lnstagram and TikTok. We had a 120lo uptick this year in our todging with over 2,700 rooms. We had over 25 hotets that participated in our Top Gun event. Nearty $500,000 in hotet revenue, which was up again about 13010. Over 70% of our groups had 5 or more. Coltier Beaches lmpacts from Hurricane Helene and Milton Andy Miller, CoastaI zone Manager . A stide presentation outtined the variances in sand erosion from both Hurricanes. o Sand is being pushed from streets and parking areas back onto the Beaches. . We let Mother Nature do what Mother Nature does, which is move that sand in generat, especiatty during the summertime, when we typicatty have a general or wave action from the southwest. The water pushes that sand gentty up onto the beach over the summer, and they catt that a summer profite. And then in the wintertime, we get the cotd fronts that do just the opposite. They come in and scou r the sand back. . And some new proiects. Park Shore is being postponed to December, opposed to doing it in between Thanksgiving and Christmas and having that interruption to the traffic ftow. We're going to wait titt after New Year's and ro[[ the trucks during January and earty February. Chairman LoCastro Let's break untit 10:40 c 2024-2025 Matketi ng Plan Jay Tusa We're anticipating$48 mittion in Tourist DevetopmentTax cottections FY24. Tourism remains a major iob creator, supporting more than 28,000 iobs. Revenue from tourism hetps improve beach retated pro.iects, benefiting both residents and visitors a tike. These beach projects that we d iscuss and approve to fund, are being funded th rough TDC funds. lt's important for peopte understand that we're not using generat fund dottars to support those efforts and initiatives. Local businesses thrive on tourism spending which strengthens the (ocat economy and creates stabitity. sustainabte tourism practices protect the environment white maintaining a high-quatity visitor experience. Tourist visitation saves the average Cottier County househotd $1,525 in taxes ann ualty. b o Tourism enhances residents quatity of tife by supporting cutturat, recreationat and environmentat projects. Joseph St. Germain, President Downs & St. Germain Research Stide presentation handout . You're tooking at your key metrics of Tourist Development, tax, direct spending, number of visitors, room nights, average daity rate. . Those metrics are a[[ up signif icantty for the fiscaI year. We know they've stipped a tittte bit in the tast few months and September is tikety not going to be as strong due to the hurricanes and some other things. . Occupancy was down 30/0. ln the previous fiscat year some units were not avaitabte, but they were availabte this year. So, there's.iust more supply avaitable overatt and that's how occupancy can be down, but room nights are up. o Since April 2024 this county has had att-time highs in terms of leisure and hospitatity emptoyers. Business vacancy rates remain low. o Ftorida and the Nation's tabor shortages have been causing some issues that is hindering growth in some areas and witl continue to be a chattenge. . As we look at how tong they ptan ptanned a trip in advance. The typicatvisitor ptans their trip about two months in advance. But you have significant percentages especiatty in the, in the peak season where that ptanning takes a tonger period. . The average tength of stay is about six nights, and the typicattravet party size is about three peopte. . From the tast meeting we saw questions tike are why are visitors choosing competitors destination? Why are they not choosing Cottier County? Why do they choose Cottier County? . Let's, investigate Cottier County's unique value proposition and brand identity. Let's vatidate advertising brand strategies and realty took at the campaign messaging and create a direction.. These are some of the things that have come up that we've shared with Jay's team and the paradise team that went Into what we're about to propose today with the marketing. Kristin Murphy Stide presentation handout Th is section is going to outtine the key pittars that are going to guide our efforts throughout the entire year. One of the first things that we do is cottaborate with alt the partners that's primarity working with Downs & St. Germain and the CVB team. We atso work with other sates teams and some of these research partners you see on the stide to hetp guide our efforts. Now, it's essential that we rety on robust and diverse data and insights. Downs & St. Germain is phenomenal and they're very weU known in the industry, and they atso utitize a number of these different resources as wett. We incorporate this research into our strategic recommendations. These resources atso attow us to remain very competitive and make sure that we're eff ectivety positioning the destination against our competition. We taitor att the content that we create based on who we're speaking to. lt's not iust a one size fits a tl approach. We don't produce one piece of content and hope that it works for everybody. We take content and we specificatty cater it towards our audience based on their demographics, their interests, their behaviors. We do this so that we can drive deeper, deeper engagement and hightight the richness of our destination. Something I want to focus on here that's not mentioned is the importance of first party data. 7 First party data is going to be at the core of everything that we are focused on doing. And again, it's a priority tor us moving forward and attows us to understand consumers behaviors, their preferences without retying on externat reaI resources. This retationship reatly enabtes us to detiver highty personatized and effective marketing campaigns while ensuring that we remain comptiant with data privacy taws. Uttimatety, it pretty much empowers us to make smarter data driven decisions, better engagement and higher returns on investment. You're looking a tist of the five core campaigns we're going to be doing. A sustaining campaign, a fatt, winter, spring, summer, and the internationaI campaigns. We're going to be concentrating our etforts on increasing occupancy. We atlocated more significant portions of the marketing spend accordingty. This approach is going to attow us to maximize the impact during these slower periods which we've discussed over the last several meetings. Our campaign for FY25 witt continue to buitd upon the Onty Paradise Witt Do theme showcasing unique experiences and elevated lifestyte for our destination. Chairman LoCastro Just my feedback. The fotks that we cater to are otder and so if they must reach for readinggtasses or must squint to see if it's Naptes or if it's Los Angetes it isn't as effective. I tove the campaign, but the biggestthing at the end, we want peopte to remember when theyftip the pages, what did I just took at? Whether it's in a magazine or it's on a bit(board or whatever, you have a few seconds to embed in their minds. 8 Cindy Murieta, VP of Media for Paradise . The strategy we're going to emptoy is a tittte bit different for each segment. And these are the two key audience segments. . The first group is what we're ca tting the aspiring tuxury visitor and those are 2 earner househotds with incomes of '175k ptus or net worth of 100k to 1 mittion and they are drawn to branded tuxury and vatue. . The luxury etite, the second segment, are the high-net-worth individuats of a mittion ptus and they seek a little bit diFferent type of experience. . The campaign, which witt start in November and go through the year is the backbone of the paid media that's out there. This witt be in the markets that we've setected that you see there. . They're a mix of Northeast, M idwest and Florida Markets and this is based on att of the med ia we took at Expedia, Down & Saint Germain, Zydeco and who was most responsive to our actual advertising, which is what we see from Adara lmpact. . The a pproach for this sustaining campaign witt inctude the Googte paid search, Facebook, lnstagram and Pinterest. . lt witt be OTA'S tike Expedia and Kayak.. The messaging witt be taitored to both the aspiring tuxu ry traveter a nd the tuxury etite and witt rotate sea sona lty. o November and December we focus on the Midwest. . For the winter campaign we setect the markets that are showing the most traction. Atso, the emerging markets from last year like Ctevetand, the year before, Hartford, New Haven.. With international it is the UK, Germany, Canada. We know that the international visitation has rebounded, but we stitt have a tot oI opportunity there. We know that we have those B2B efforts with the boots on the ground in Germany and UK with the travel and tour operators. Canada is su per important. We have seen a tot of growth from Canada. lt used to just be that we did winter campaigns for Canada, but a few years ago we switched to reatty doing tonger sustaining campaigns so we coutd get them to visit farther into the summer and that has really worked tor us. We're going to focus that on Greater Toronto and the Gotden Horseshoe area. We reatty want to reach peop[e as an atternative to that traditionat cottage country visits where they go to the north of Ontario. We have three options for supptementat budget options here, and they range f rom $5 mittion to $3.7 mittion and the last is $2.4 mittion. Chairman LoCastro So, we have money sitting there that we're not investing? Jay Tusa . We had a big reserve in advertising, 12.2 mittion. . We're at 6 miltion now and what we're tooking at now is supptementat.o l'm going to turn it back over to Paradise and they can present the components of the different options for us to consider. Jared Grifoni The expansion into new markets is important as wetl as increasing our marketing in current market areas Comparing this to the second option, the onty d ifference is the number of marketstoexpand into and the number of marketing to add additionat marketing. Therefore, the first option makes sen se. Chairman LoCastro This is a ticking time bomb for us. Do we need to tatk, do a deeper dive, do a pre brief, do we need to do something between now and the second Tuesday in November? Because it's going to be on that agenda. How much time does, how much in advance do we need to advertise an emergency meeting? Colleen Greene 72 hours is probabty the minimum. o Jay Tusa I have a stide presentation of marketing budgets from other Florida Counties and the takeaway is there are some of our competitive sets that are outspending us. They have bigger stafFs. So I think with the request for the TDC Councit and asking for us to bring back some addendums to the marketing ptan, certainty with current trends with the economy and visitation in generat to Ftorida, and then obviousty, in tight of the storms that we just had over the past few weeks, I think that it woutd be prudent to spend some additionaI doltars on marketing. As we review thls, we can get into the finer points of what that amount shoutd took tike and what the Councit might want to recommend uttimatety to the Board of County Commission. Paradise presents stides demonstrating options (handout) Ctark Hitt I tike the idea of doing the vote now in support of up to the amount of option one. And then we meet separatety and if we don't have a quorum, then we can stitt go in. Jay Tusa Like Mr. Hitt said, move forward, approve it, give staff a direction to work up the presentation for the Board, then come back and present that here and then get some thoughts and ideas. Ctark Hitl makes the motion that we approve option one, not to exceed amount of the total cost of SJq,067,5OO, obtain staff's input into how it's presented, how it's organized and what the contextuat part of it is. And that it supports tourism. 15,cb7,5c0 Susan Becker seconded Motion passed unanimously with a vote of 8-0, Chairman LoCastro Between now and this emergency meetingthat we're goingto have. What I woutd sayto somebody if you can't make it in person, stitt catt in, because your inputs important and we can have the benefit of your expertise. Jay Tusa I was just handed the dates that are avaitabte next week, and it's just one day, Wednesday, November 23rd. Chairman LoCastro Ithinkwe conctude this meeting now so we can a[[ do what we need to do. We atl have access to the slides. Tying the stides on to the end of the emergency meeting, if we have time just to sort of go through them or you pick out the hightights woutd be beneficiat if we're going to come here anyway. We're not coming here to just look at your BCC presentation, and then we leave in 20 minutes, we can make good use to that meeting. Consent Agenda Items 9.A & 9.8 moved to 7.B & 7.C 10. Old Business 11. Ten Minute Break 12. Marketing Partner Reports 13. 14. Tourism Statf Reports CounciI Member Discussion Next Meeting Date TDC Next Meeting Date November 19,2024 Adjourn 12:39 pm 15. 16. 10 9. COLLIER R ENT COMMITTEE Chair,issioner Rick LoCastro These minutes were approved bythe Committee on ll-l 4 -l'.4, as presented, ,orasamendedx 11