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HomeMy WebLinkAbout03-24-2010 NEW HANOVER COUNTY TOURISM DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY BOARD OF DIRECTORS MARCH 24, 2010 John Andrews, County Restaurant PRESENT: Bill Caster, NHC Commissioner David Cignotti, Mayor – Wrightsville Beach Scott Cromartie, Wilmington Chamber of Commerce Brett Darlington, Hotel – Carolina Beach Anne Marie Hartman, Hotel – Wrightsville Beach Kim Hufham, President/CEO – NHC TDA Frank Jones, Hotel – (-)150 Wilmington Joel Macon, Mayor – Carolina Beach Bob McKoy, NH County Vacation Rentals Donna Moffitt, County Attraction Chuck Pennington, County Bed and Breakfast Ronnie Pernell, Hotel – Kure Beach Avril Pinder, NHC Authority Finance Officer Bill Saffo, Mayor – City of Wilmington EXCUSED: Scott Cromartie – Greater Wilmington Chamber of Commerce ABSENT: Dean Lambeth, Mayor – Kure Beach STAFF: Jeanette Foster, Administrative Services Manager/Recording Secretary Shawn Braden, Executive Vice-President of Marketing Mikie Wall, Vice-President Sales and Services Connie Nelson, PR/Communications Director GUESTS: Brian Feskos, Lumina News A.Kyle Myers, Wilmington Hospitality Association Patrcia Matson, Wilmington Star-News Steve Bridges, City of Wilmington Chairman Ronnie Pernell called the meeting of the New Hanover County Tourism Development Authority Board to order at 5:30 p.m. at the Verandas Bed and Breakfast. 1 ITEM #1 – EXCUSED ABSENCES Scott Cromartie ITEM #2 – MINUTES APPROVAL – JANUARY 27, 2010 [Motion made by Bill Caster, seconded by Donna Moffitt and unanimously carried that the minutes of January 27, 2010 be approved as read.] ITEM #3 – FINANCIALS AND ROT REPORT – AVRIL PINDER Avril Pinder, New Hanover County Finance, advised that as of March 31, 2010, 75% of the year has already passed. We are well below where we should be for this time of year in expenditures. The revenue report is only through January, 2010. 59% of revenue has been received. We are on track and holding steady. ROT – Revenues for the fiscal year to date for the first 3% are down 5.8%, however in analyzing it over last year for same period of time, we were down 8.73% so we are pretty much holding our own; Carolina Beach is only down 1.88%, but better than last year; Kure Beach is up 5.71%; Wrightsville Beach is down compared to last year, but holding steady. Overall, we are not seeing the steady decline that was seen last year. The CVB staff is looking at some cuts to the current FY 09-10 budget should steady increases not come through. [Motion made by Avril Pinder, seconded by Bill Caster and unanimously carried to accept the financial report for the first 7 months.] (Avril Pinder had to leave following her report to attend another meeting.) ITEM #4– CONVENTION CENTER UPDATE – STEVE BRIDGES State of construction project is about 75% complete. 95% of glass perma walls are in. Getting ready to turn on power, HVAC and gas, etc. within the next 2-3 weeks. 90% of interior walls are installed; they are beginning to paint walls and ceilings. Kitchen hoods installed today. That is a milestone. The rest of the kitchen equipment will be installed in two months or so. Curbs and gutters to be started next week. 2 Stairs for elevator towers being installed today. Elevators follow soon after that. Parking deck itself is more or less complete. Equipment to operate parking deck is on order and to be installed probably late in the project. Loading decks and equipment for loading bays are being installed today. Steve acknowledged that the quality of work being done at this time on the center is very good. State of budget and construction schedule: Is not over budget. There have been rumors that we are which is entirely untrue as project is well within allocated funds. Project itself is only slightly behind schedule. Feel completion date will be somewhere between late September to late October. The CVB has submitted its budget for opening year to Steve and he has submitted it to his budget folks. Will essentially be the same as last year’s budget with one minor exception of some transportation incentive money since we do not have an anchor hotel. Will need transportation to get people to and from the convention center from outlying hotels. The new general manager, Sue Eakins, is now on site and working closely with Kim and John on group business, etc. Sue’s office is now located in the old Atlantic Coast Line Railroad warehouse offices. SMG is currently planning a budget for the first 8-9 months from time convention center opens to beginning of the next fiscal year. SMG and Steve has started clarifying a list of fixtures, furniture and equipment for the building. Draft document has been prepared, but probably will not go out for bid for another couple of months due to lack of storage space. In the process of preparing an RFQ for technology services for the facility (telephones, computers, TV’s, etc.) Grand opening events are in the process of planning. The City Council has initiated the process of the Convention Center Advisory Board, which includes the TDA, Chamber of Commerce, various hotels, attractions, etc., to sit on this Board. The Arts Committee is in place to select all art, pictures, sculpture for outside, etc. Beverly Tetterton is heading this up. Riverwalk has to be constructed in front and to the north of the convention center. In the process of pricing now and hope to have something to the City Council by their second meeting in April. Want to have Nutt Street improvements and riverwalk completed at same time as convention center opens. Nutt Street improvements run from Red Cross Street all the way to Brunswick Street. Will be bid sometime in early to mid June. Hotel: Have a proposal from John Q. Hammonds, but like anyone else right now, they are having a hard time securing financing. Commercial lending for the most part is dried up. Mr. Hammonds and his group are very much 3 interested in building the anchor hotel. Hope to have some indication on plans within next 90-120 days. Questions to Steve from the TDA Board members: How many rooms does the hotel have? 250. How long to design and build? Probably 2 years. Are Nutt Street and Riverwalk part of the convention center budget? No, monies for this are part of the City capital improvements. How far are we responsible for riverwalk? Our responsibility goes to the north of the convention center. Property owners on other side responsible for marina and their portion of riverwalk. st When to expect to open? Unofficially November 1. The real kicker is the sewer connection (some conflict in road, but will get past it); in addition, also final inspections by the building inspector and the health department. Group bookings: Nothing contracted yet, but have intown and out of town groups looking and some will be able to book short term. Have groups of 400 to 2000 interested. Rumors: Rumor is that the convention center is behind schedule, which is untrue; in addition, rumors do not include that the revised building plan is part of the expansion which is also being done at the same time. We are running 4-5 years ahead of the previous schedule since we could go ahead and add the additional meeting areas, etc. Steve wanted everyone to know that the facility (once completed) will be very impressive and absolutely beautiful. ITEM #5 – FUNDING REQUESTS – WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH – KIM HUFHAM Funding requests have been received from Wrightsville Beach in the amount of $38,000 to support their Beach Patrol Officer function during FY 2009-2010. Funding also being requested in the amount of $28,000 to help support increasing demands on the Town’s efforts to provide clean public restrooms, public parking areas and beaches for the visitors. A third request has been made in the amount of $354,300 to support the Town’s Ocean Rescue Program during FY 2009-2010. Each of these requests have had previous requests back as far as 2004. The total amount of the requests is $420,300 and funds are available. [Motion made by Anne Marie Hartman, seconded by Mayor David Cignotti and unanimously carried to approve the expenditure requests of $420,300 for Wrightsville Beach during FY 2009-2010.] 4 ITEM #6 – PRESIDENT’S COMMENTS – KIM HUFHAM President Kim Hufham acknowledged some in-house cuts are being made. On first 3%, about 5% in cuts so far. Should others need to be made, will come back to the Board. Kure and Carolina Beaches budgets are fine on their marketing/tourism related funds. Wrightsville Beach has already implemented cut of $10,000 to their marketing funds. This should carry them through to the end of the FY. Should taxes for the spring start rising, some of the cuts can be put back in. th Had a very successful 15 annual “Be a Tourist in Your Own Home Town” event. Attendance was nearly 20,000 which beat the previous record in 2004 by more than 3,000 people. Thanks to Connie and her staff for putting everything together. Had sent an e-mail to the Board and others reference the Greater Wilmington Business Journal’s article. Bill has alluded many times and we have talked about the importance of sports marketing. The Beach to Battleship was ranked in the top 5 iron distance triathalons. That’s quite an rd honor considering it is only 2 years old. Plans already in works for the 3 year. The state sent out a press release reference North Carolina’s top 25 historic attractions. We have 3 of our area attractions included in the 25. #5 was the Ft. Fisher State Historic site; #8 was the North Carolina Aquarium at Ft. Fisher (note also that they rank #1 among the 3 in the state); #20 was the Battleship North Carolina. We had three mentions in the March issue of “Southern Living:” Wrightsville Beach mailbox; Garden section; Dixie Grill being a hot breakfast spot. We will again be participating in National Tourism Week May 8-16. We will th go to the County Commissioners on April 19 to get our County Proclamation. Our press release will allude to the economic impact that tourism has. Kim and staff will again travel to Raleigh to set up to meet with the legislators and exhibit in the Legislative Building. Our relationship with the convention center (Sue Eakins, G.M.), SMG and the City is very good. We have a great core team as we work to market the center and move forward. Have several bookings that we are waiting for contracts to be signed (8-9 right now.) Can’t mention names at this time, but be on the lookout for future exciting announcements. Thanks to the Hilton for their help. Mike’s staff has been great to work with as well as some of the other hotels. Kim alluded to Steve’s understanding in needing incentive money to provide transportation to get groups to/from the convention center until the core hotel is completed. The convention center will definitely have an impact on our area. Some of the Board members are on the Beach Marketing Committees and have heard about the marketing assessments which have been taking place and the strategic planning process we are going through. President Hufham presented the following brief update which the Board will see more of when 5 the budget is presented in May. There will be some shifts as to where marketing dollars will be placed, etc. Kim introduced Shawn Braden, Executive VP of Marketing to those who may not have yet met her and advised that Shawn and her team have worked very hard on putting the marketing assessments and strategic planning process together on where we need to go. Travel trends are changing daily and we have to be on top of things to keep up. Want to make sure we look at some strategic directions this year in the paradigm shifts we are seeing. Want to increase efficiencies in the office as with our current budget, can not foresee increasing staff in the near future. Have to be smarter with our time. Want to also be able to deliver incremental visitor spending. Want to improve technology marketing and sales systems reporting so we can interact better with the industry and share information. We want to be able to involve our creative from an invitation to visit, and how to utilize our “come and play” theme by involving it in a further direction to be more inviting. This is all about interacting with the visitors…..go back to the social, not just delivering a product. We want to coordinate our marketing efforts across our communities. We have discussed this with Wrightsville Beach as well as Kure Beach. Will be meeting with Carolina Beach next week. We want to be able to market the destination to the beaches and then our beaches to the destination….be able to cross promote on our messaging. We have found out through some good focus group exchanges that we had in the Triangle area that they don’t always recognize our beach names, but do recognize Wilmington. We want to be able to feed off each other and get the biggest bang for our promotional dollars. We want to increase in our interactive marketing and our strategic social media. Want to embrace our digital methods and devices to reach visitors. Want to develop an appropriate balance of traditional marketing and the new media and printed materials, because some still want the old way; then we have the new ones walking around with their hand held devices and that’s the way they operate. Got to balance the two. One of the biggest things we found from the focus groups was starting here within our own state and growing our marketing efforts from there. The main focus in all of this is having open conversations with our visitors…..give them an experience. Mayor Saffo wanted to discuss the recent meeting held at UNCW where Myrtle Beach and the Cape Fear Coast CVB came together for a discussion. Kim briefly gave a synopsis of this meeting. Areas discussed included visitors coming to Wrightsville Beach are not necessarily the same visitors that go to Kure or Carolina Beaches. Tourists are looking for different types of experiences. People who come to a Bed and Breakfast or the historic area may not be the same type coming to the beaches. Myrtle Beach noted that they are more targeted with “interest.” In our web sites, etc., we are trying to base what people are interested in. This in itself will target these groups of people versus the type of destination we have. We want people to understand we have something for everyone. 6 The Mayor was interested in how Myrtle Beach targets their area. He also discussed Charleston and what their targeted areas have been. One of the topics at the UNCW meeting was Turbo Tourists. People visit and then eventually move here due to natural resources, the beauty of the community and cultural events, etc. The Mayor was glad to see the combined efforts between Myrtle Beach and the CVB. Have a lot more in common in the tourists perspective perhaps than other parts of the state. ITEM #7 – NEW BUSINESS/OLD BUSINESS – CHAIRMAN RONNIE PERNELL Chairman Pernell introduced and welcomed our newest member to the TDA Board…Mike Keeler of the Hilton Wilmington Riverside. He is taking Chris Green’s place. On a sad note, Donna Moffitt of the Aquarium, is having to resign. Due to circumstances with her job and another position she is going to need to fill, she will have to leave the TDA Board. She will really be missed. Bill Caster advised we should start looking for an attraction to take her place. Applications should be sent to New Hanover County Commissioners. Chairman Pernell advised the next order of business would be the election of officers for 2010. The following slate of officers has been proposed by the Executive Committee to bring before the full TDA Board for approval. He advised they would be presented one at a time and if anyone has someone in mind to nominate from the floor, please feel free to do so. Chairman: Bob McKoy is the Executive Committee’s choice for Chairman. (No nominations from the floor.) [Motion made by Mayor Bill Saffo, seconded by Bill Caster and unanimously carried to approve Bob McKoy as the 2010 Chairman for the TDA Board.] Vice Chairman: John Andrews is the Executive Committee’s choice for Vice Chairman. (No nominations from the floor.) [Motion made by Bill Caster, seconded by Chuck Pennington and unanimously carried to approve John Andrews as the 2010 Vice-Chairman for the TDA Board.] 7 Secretary: Bill Caster is the Executive Committee’s choice for Secretary. (No nominations from the floor.) [Motion made by Mayor Bill Saffo, seconded by John Andrews and unanimously carried to approved Bill Caster for a second term as the 2010 Secretary for the TDA Board.] All of the Board thanked Ronnie for his many services as Chairman for the past two years. It was noted that Ronnie will serve on the Executive Committee as the immediate past Chairman and Avril Pinder remains as Treasurer as appointed by HB 1707 the County Financial Representative. ITEM #8 – CHAIRMAN’S COMMENTS – RONNIE PERNELL Chairman Ronnie Pernell asked to go into closed session for a personnel matter at 6:35 p.m. [Motion made by Mayor Bill Saffo, seconded by Bill Caster and unanimously carried to go into closed session at 6:35 p.m. to discuss a personnel matter.} [Motion made by Anne Marie Hartman, seconded by Donna Moffitt and unanimously approved to accept the proposal as presented on the personnel matter at 6:40 p.m.] Back in regular session at 6:41 p.m. [Motion made to adjourn at 6:43 p.m.] ______________________________ __________________________ Kim Hufham, President/CEO Bill Caster, Secretary 8 9