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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTDC Aug 2024 MinutesST. LUCIE COUNTY TOURIST DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL MEETING Wednesday, August 14, 2024 ◊ 1:00 P.M. MINUTES Members present: Terissa Aronson, SLC Chamber of Commerce Lisa Cataline, Ocean Village Vacation Rentals Lauren DeAcetis, New York Mets Chair Chris Dzadovsky, St. Lucie County Commissioner Jeremiah Johnson, City of Fort Pierce Councilwoman Stephanie Morgan, City of Port St. Lucie Ronnie Nichols, Residence Inn by Marriott Port St. Lucie Marika Sexton, Sandpiper Bay Resort Members Absent: Donna Qvarnstrom, Cobbs Landing Staff present: Katherine Barbieri, St. Lucie County Assistant Attorney Charlotte Bireley, St. Lucie County Tourism Katherine Cordero, St. Lucie County Tourism Tayler Hardison, St. Lucie County Tourism Also present: Cayetano Alfons, Miami International Ins John Alvarez, Expedia Josh Brown, Sinclair Broadcasting Gwynne Constantino, Hilton Garden Inn PGA Robert Delgadillo, SLC BOCC District 1 Muelley Duze, SLC BOCC District 1 Rick Hatcher, Play Treasure Coast Sports Martine Lapointe, Courtyard Port St. Lucie Tradition Robin Moran, Fairfield Inn Emily Rappolt, Dave & Busters Amy Trumble, Right Directions Rentals Larry Winter, Fort Pierce Vacation Rentals 1. CALL TO ORDER Chair Chris Dzadovsky called the meeting to order at 1:02 PM. 2. ROLL CALL Katherine Cordero called roll. 3. SELF-INTRODUCTIONS 4. PUBLIC COMMENT Tourist Development Council Meeting ◊ August 14, 2024 Page 2 of 4 No public comment. 5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Terissa Aronson made a motion to approve the minutes from June 12, 2024. Commissioner Jeremiah Johnson seconded. Motion passed. 6. Reports from Municipalities Councilwoman Stephanie Morgan reported the City of Port St. Lucie has had multiple ground breakings and grand openings including the inaugural Port Fest which celebrated the opening of The Port District and Pioneer Park. She also reported within the first week of Pioneer Park being opened, over 18,000 people visited. There was also the grand opening of Paseo Park and the new pickleball indoor facility. Port St. Lucie also had the groundbreaking of Tradition Regional Park. Councilwoman Morgan announced the grand opening of the historical museum and educational center will have their grand opening in September 25th. Commissioner Jeremiah Johnson reported the City of Fort Pierce Commission extended the contract agreement regarding Kings Landing and the city has a joint venture partnership with Harbort Realty Services and the city is actively engaged with hotelier Mainsail. The city has a 90-day due diligence and are expected to hear good news after that timeframe. The commissioners also met with FPRA, the Fort Pierce Redevelopment Agency, to approve the Kings Landing project through that side as the FPRA owns that district. He also reported the Kings Highway corridor will be rebranded to the jobs corridor with plans to bring more jobs to the north side of the county, and the commission approved a plan to move forward with an expansion of Indian Hills Park. The redevelopment of Fisherman’s Warf will be discussed in September. The City of Fort Pierce hired Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council to take on the task to look at the wastewater treatment plant with a plan to move the plant within the next 4 years. 7. Reports from Tourism Staff a. Financial Report: Charlotte Bireley reported April TDT collection was $463,413, an 25.8% decrease compared to April 2023. May 2024 collections were $415,120, an 8.5% decrease compared to May 2023. Year-to-date, the TDT collections are down 13.3% compared to 2023. Even with the normalization of tourism in Florida, the year-to-date numbers are still pacing 44.2% higher than those of 2019, what is to be considered tourism’s last “normal” year. Charlotte also noted that in April, 74% of the collections came from commercial properties, 26% came from private vacation rentals, and in May, 80% came from commercial properties, and 20% came from private vacation rentals. b. Hotel Performance Report: Charlotte Bireley reported that April occupancy was down 10.5%, ADR down 17.2%, and RevPar was down 25.9%. May occupancy Tourist Development Council Meeting ◊ August 14, 2024 Page 3 of 4 was down 8.3%, and ADR was down 7.2%, and RevPar was down just over 14.9%. Source: STR, LLC. c. Website, Social Media, and Email Marketing Report: Tayler Hardison reported 116,000 users visited the Visit St. Lucie website with 1.4 million events taking place, and 441,000 key events. She also reported year-to-date, there have been substantial increases which she credited to the Locals Only campaign as that page is number 3 most visited page. The top states visiting the website include Florida, New York, Georgia, Ohio, and Virginia. Overall clicks month-over-month are up 2.8% and year-to-date are up 13.5%. Tayler highlighted social media interactions were high throughout June and July, in July there were over 27,000 link clicks to the Locals Only page. She also reported seven emails were sent to about 6,000 locals about the Locals Only campaign. The open rate increased by 1% to 26%. d. Feb & March 2024 Arrivalist Report: Charlotte reported the average nights in the destination in April, May, and June increased by 1% from 2023. Shared day trips went down 1.1%, however the goal is to have more overnight stays, so this is a positive number. The share of overnights increased by 1.1% compared to the previous year of that quarter. The top five origin markets they came from were 1. Florida, 2. New York, 3. Georgia, and 4. California. The number one place that was visited was Lawnwood Stadium, two was Ocean Village, three was Colver Park, fourth was the Jetty Park, and fifth was Fort Pierce City Marina. e. Earned Media: Katherine Cordero reported year to date, St. Lucie has over $248,000.00 in earned media value, with over 47 million results/clicks. She credited local media outlets including TCPalm and WPBF who covered the Locals Only campaign resulting in over 103,000 results/clicks. 8. Regular Agenda a. FY 2024 Digital Media Performance Report, Q1-Q3 Madden Media presented the digital media performance report for quarters one through three of the 2024 fiscal year. b. New Website Update Madden Media presented the new Visit St. Lucie website that will be launched in late August. c. Play Treasure Coast Sports Tourism, Quarterly Report Rick Hatcher, President & CEO of Play Treasure Coast Sports provided an update and presentation on Play Treasure Coast Sport’s first, second, and third quarter performance and activities. d. Locals Only Campaign Update The staff presented an update on the Locals Only campaign and announced the campaign had generated over 50 room nights, and 72 redemptions at the time of the presentation. Tourist Development Council Meeting ◊ August 14, 2024 Page 4 of 4 e. Staff Updates Katherine presented the finalized itineraries for the upcoming Industry FAM tours of both Port St. Lucie and Fort Pierce and announced there were 11 hoteliers signed up at that time. 9. Other Business Commissioner Jeremiah Johnson announced the territories for Freebee has expanded. Terissa Aronson announced the Chamber’s Adult Spelling Bee will be August 22nd at Dave & Buster’s. She also announced she will be working on the Little Jim RFP process. Ronnie Nichols announced Residence Inn Port St. Lucie is part of a pilot program with Tesla, where Tesla does a remote showroom at the hotel. 10. Adjournment The meeting adjourned at 2:36 PM.