Loading...
TDC Minutes 10/23/2024COLLIER COUNry TOURIST DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL Board of County Commission Chambers Cottier County Government Center 3299 TamiamiTrai[ East, 3'd Ftoor, Naples, FL34112 OCT.23, 2024-1iOOP.M. Commissioner Rick LoCastro, Chairman Ctark Hitt, Vice-Chair Councitor Jared Grifoni (attended via ZOOM) Susan Becker Laura Radter Nancy Kerns Councilman, MichaeI McComas CounciI Member Bit[ Kramer Edward (Ski) Oteski (absent) ALSO PRESENT: Jay Tusa, CVB, Tourism Director Sandra Rios, CVB, PR and Communications Manager Cotteen Greene, Cottier County Attorney Office, Ma naging Assista nt County Attorney Buzzy Fotd, CVB, Digitat and Sociat Media Coordinator VIAZOOM Barbara Karasek, Paradise Advertising, CEO 1. Catt to Order Pledge of Allegiance Rott Catt An in person quorum was established at 7. Michaet Mccomas made the motion to attow Jared Grifoni to appear by Zoom. Ctark HiLt seconded Motion passed unanimously 7-0 The quorum was estabtished at 8 individuats of the meeting. Agenda and Minutes Susan Becker motioned to approve Agenda change of 8b to 8a 1 2. 3. 4. 5 Nancy Kerns seconded Motion passed unanimously 8-0 Presentations None Tourism Director Report None Consent Agenda No items 8. New Business 8a. Recommendation to approve an FY 2025 budget amendment in the amount of $390,000. To allocate reserves for post Hurricane Milton recovery for tourism marketing and make a f inding that th is action promotes tourism. Barbara Karasek on Zoom with stide presentation . Over the past 10 weeks or so, we finatized the annual destination marketing plan to grow tourism. And as we've been discussing with Jay and the CVB team on solutions to springboard our economy, we identified a three-pronged approach. o Owned media channe[s, partner retationships and paid media advertising. . And optimizing our creative messaging witt be taitored against the three groups o Leisure audiences, groups and meetings and weddings. Chairman LoCastro o So, this isn't something new. Remember, you've got several new commissioners up here that have never been asked for emergency spending by the TDC. We need to set the table a tittte bit and remember I was saying find out the last time we asked forthis, what it was, and if you don't have it, that's fine. o But being able to say this is a formatity. That we come to the BCC for emergency spending after storms, just tike many of the other departments and not make it sound [ike it's some speciat thing that you're sneaking in. To them it might sound [ike you're trying to do something new to spend more money, which isn't the case. Barbara Karasek Stide presentation continues Chairman LoCastro . I haven't heard the word emergency, emergent, hurricane. We need to fund with moneywe already have. Here's where we're goingto fund it and whywe're looklng for your approva[. 6 7 I Ctark Hitt This woutd come after the request to withdraw some of our funds for additionat advertising and marketing for the next fiscat year. I think that if this comes first, I think peopte can say, wett, you know, you've atready gotten $390,000 dottars. Why do you need more? Chairman LoCastro I thought getting it out of the way is a formatity, but your point is wett taken. There coutd be a commissioner or two that sits there and says, okay, so I just allowed you to spend almost hatf a mittion dotlars, and now you're asking me for 5 mitlion more. Laura Rad[er I think the most important thing is the supplementa[, so we must do whatever it takes to get that through. I mean, if we must take $390,000 from the supplementat and use it towards emergency. Then why can't we do that? Jay Tusa We coutd take existing doltars out of our budget even without the supptementat, just our normal marketing budget and address hurricane response. We've done that in the past. I believe, from conversations I had with Sandra, that's what we did for lan. We didn't ask for emergency funds. Chairman LoCastro Like I said, if you can just do one ask and then you can figure out how to parlay out the money and it's. lt's tegitimate. We must make sure that the process altows the Commissioners to do one vote and then gives you the tatitude to be able to do that. I tike the sound of that better. Barbara Karasek We're in emergency crisis response today, so we're using existing doltars out of the current fiscat. ln the past we got the emergency funds, and it reptenishes the coffers, so we can get f rom point A to point B a lot of different ways. But we want att of you to know we're currentty in crisis response mode right now for what's needed for the CVB team to do what they need to. J Bi[[ Kramer This detaited plan woutd be something to discuss when you have your one on ones with the Commissioners, but it starts to just sound [ike more marketing spending, not emergency hurricane recovery, which is what it is. This is emergency spending in response to the disasters we've had. And you're just asking for approval to spend money you atready have in the account. And to your point, being abte to say we have, you know, this doesn't exhaust the account, but this is what the account's for. lt's time to dip into it. What Barbara just said is way more competling than anything that's written in any of the memo or any of the documentation. Jay Tusa Can we put this aside for the moment and move on and then come back to this item later in the meeting? Cot[een Greene You can table it untit the end of the meeting, but we have to come back and get a vote either way, yes or no. Susan Becker lwoutd like to move that we have this executive summary saying recommending an additionat amount of 390,000 to attocate reserves for post Hurricane Mitton recovery for tourism marketing and make a finding that this action promotes tourism. Nancy Kerns seconded Motion passed unanimously 8-O Cot[een Greene ljust want to confirm that the authorization from the TDC is the expenditure of up to $390,000. lt's up to, up to $390,000. Chairman LoCastro Let's make sure we get that consistent on the executive summaries and att that. 8b. Recommendation that the Tourism Development Council consider the supptemental marketing plan selected by the Councit at their Oct. 15, 2024, meeting, utitizing operating reserve funds not to exceed $5,067,500 to ensure Coltier County's competitiveness in the tourism market, to tinatize a recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners and to make a finding that these actions promote tourism. Jay Tusa A presentation of stides. Chairman LoCastro Supplemental means extra. We're not asking for extra. You're not asking for funds. You're asking for permission to spend. BitL Kramer Enhanced marketing. 4 Jay Tusa Tabte that for the moment. We'[[ come back to it a tittte tater. Jay Tutsa Stide presentation continues. Because of our tourism success, we have money in reserve accounts, and today we're tatking about tapping into some of those dotlars. Chairman LoCastro lnvesting some of those dotlars. Jay Tusa o Upon joining the team seven months ago, I was tasked to bring a fresh perspective to the County's tourism efforts. With my decades of experience in destination marketing, I bring a different type of strategy to this rote. o This presentation is a point of view as we rethink our approach to chaltenges and using data differentty and better to drive more informed business decisions. When anatyzing the data and the projections for what's ahead, the tourism outtook is not as bright as it coutd be. By the time we're finished having our conversation today, maybe it ends up being six or eight stides. And we do focus more on the tourist devetopment tax versus occupancy, and we can chat a tittte bit more, you know, once I f inish. Maybe what we do is crunch these numbers and see if we can putt a few buttet points out that reftect the discussion and have three, four buttet points versus a[t this information. 5 Ctark Hitt . But it's clear that the occupancy trend is dectining and that's what we need to stop and reverse. Because if we don't do that what witt fottow is the tou rist tax coltections. o We had two hurricanes back-to-back. That's going to cost us a [ot. As you know, 480/o of everything we coltect goes to the beaches, and it's going to take every bit of that. o Now I'm reading about Red Tide, it's going to fottow thanks to the turbu[ence in the water. . We've got a reaI need for those fu nds a nd a potentia I dectine in what generates them. Jay Tusa . So here we can took at our budget and staffing with other destination marketing organizations within the State of Florida. As you can see, several of our competitors coltect 60/0 tourist development tax. We are current[y coltecting 50/0. . Other destinations attocate higher percentage of their TDT revenue to marketing, promotion and advertising, which is a crucia[ factor in their abitity to drive demand. The average percentage of tourist tax collection reinvested on tourism marketing is 220lo out of this chart and Cottier County at 13%. Ctark Hitt I think the order that this should be in is the percent TDC spent on advertislng tisted first. lf you re-order this, we'd be a[most [ast. Chairman LoCastro This stide should be re-ordered. The first one up there would be Amelia lsland. Then you woutd have the Patm Beaches. Orthe first one coutd be Fort Myers. Laura Radter The onty thing I wi[t encourage you is to focus on off season because they don't want to hear that we want more visitors. Chairman LoCastro And it's not budget request. lt's a spend request. You're asking to spend money, not to increase the budget from existing funds. Enhanced marketing ptan request. Jay Tusa It coutd be enhanced marketing spend requests. I want to ctarify the $13 mittion reserve. lt's $12.2 mittion. Cotteen Greene And just to be clear, for the TDC, we need you to approve the expenditure of funds not to exceed. We have the $390,000, and we've added the $5,067,500. And so, if down the road, Jay gets direction to again separate out the two items, the TDC is ctearty approving the $5,067,500 ptus the $390,000. Whether it's on one executive summary or two. You're authorizing that expendlture of funds? Ctark Hitt made the motion that we authorize the ask to be not to exceed $390,000 against the emergency fund and not to exceed $5,067,500 against the reserve funds because we need it to promote tourism. Chairman LoCastro seconded Motion passed unanimously 8-0 8c. Recommendation to approve the FY 2024-2025 Destination Marketing Plan and make a f inding that this action promotes tourism. 6 .Jay Tusa At our last meeting on October 15,2024, we had presented the deck, the presentation for this item, but we did not present the long format of this. And so happy to review anything at this point, or we just need to get approval of the marketing plan today to move forward. 9. Ctark Hitt motioned to approve Marketing Plan 2024-2025 recommendation. Susan Baker seconded Motion passed unanimously 8-0 Otd Business None Council Member Discussion None Adjourn Meeting adjourned 3:06 p.m. Cottier County Tourist Devetopment CounciI Rick LoCastro, Chairman These minutes were approved by the Committee or Chairman (choose one) on il -l ( -aLI as presented or as amende .l 10. 11. 7