03-24-2010
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