TDA Board Meeting January 28 2015
NEW HANOVER COUNTY TOURISM DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
JANUARY 28, 2015
PRESENT: Jonathan Barfield, NHC Commissioner
Kim Hufham, President/CEO – NHC TDA
Neal Johnson, County Vacation Rental Property
Frank Jones, Hotel – (150-) Wilmington
Mike Keeler, Hotel – 150 (+) Wilmington
Dean Lambeth, Mayor – Kure Beach
Connie Majure-Rhett – Wilmington Chamber of Commerce
Carl Marshburn, NHC Attraction
Nicolas Montoya, Hotel – (150+) Wrightsville Beach
Chuck Pennington, County Bed and Breakfast
LeAnn Pierce, Hotel – Carolina Beach
Angela Rhodes – County Restaurants
Bill Saffo, Mayor – City of Wilmington
Dan Wilcox, Mayor – Town of Carolina Beach
Lisa Wurtzbacher, New Hanover County Finance Officer
EXCUSED: Mayor Bill Blair, Anne Brodsky
ABSENT: N/A
STAFF: Jeanette Foster/Administrative Services Manager, Recording
Secretary
Mikie Wall, Vice-President Sales and Services
Connie Nelson, PR/Communications Director
Karla Thompson, Technology/Systems Manager
Shawn Braden, Executive VP of Marketing
VISITORS: Kemp Burpeau, New Hanover County Assistant Attorney
Miriah Hamrick – Lumina News
Chairman Carl Marshburn called the meeting of the New Hanover County Tourism
Development Authority Board of Directors to order at 5:30 p.m. in the conference
room of the Greater Wilmington Area Chamber of Commerce.
ITEM #1 – EXCUSED
Mayor Bill Blair, Anne E. Brodsky
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ITEM #2 – RECOGNITION OF REAPPOINTMENTS – CARL MARSHBURN
Chairman Carl Marshburn recognized reappointments to the Board:
Commissioner Jonathan Barfield, Michael Keeler, Frank Jones, Neal Johnson. He
stated how much their service on the TDA Board was appreciated.
ITEM #3 – MINUTES APPROVAL – OCTOBER 29, 2014
[Motion made by Frank Jones, seconded by Chuck Pennington and
unanimously accepted to approve the October 29, 2014 TDA Board minutes
as read.]
ITEM #4 – FINANCIAL REPORT – LISA WURTZBACHER
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Lisa Wurtzbacher, Authority Finance Office, gave report on 1 3% expenditures
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through December 31. Sales and Marketing - $576.927; Visitor Information
Services - $59,693; Administrative - $153,128. Total expenditures for July 1 –
December 31, 2014 - $789,748 or roughly 45% of the Fiscal Year 14/15 budget has
been spent.
Expenditures for the second 3% - $641,633 has been spent or roughly 21%.
Convention Center expenditures - $160,306 spent or roughly 47%.
On the revenue side, looking at 4 months or roughly 1/3 of the FY on first 3%. Have
already received 56% of what was budgeted. Pertaining to the second 3%, over
100% received due to District U funds.
ROT – First 3% compared to last fiscal year for July – November up 11.59%;
calendar year to date compared to last calendar year – up 10.69%.
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2 3%:
Carolina Beach – Fiscal Year comparison – up 12.98% for July – November;
calendar year to date (July – December) – up 11.68%.
Kure Beach – Fiscal Year up 12.48%; calendar year up 11.79%.
Wrightsville Beach Fiscal Yea up 8.47%; calendar year up 7.55%.
City of Wilmington – based on gross ROT collections – July – November up 9.70%;
calendar year up 9.55%.
Convention Center – July – November – up 20.87%; calendar year – up 17.83%.
District U – Fiscal Year up 19.03%; calendar year up 17.98%.
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Revenues looking good and expenditures on target as well.
President/CEO Kim Hufham noted that at the January 2015 TDA Board meeting, a
budget amendment for District U was approved and the FY funds starting 14/15
were received for marketing. Kim presented to the Board a proposed budget which
has been worked on with Shawn, the agencies and the Executive Committee. The
$100,000 District U funds would be for the remainder of this year. (Copy of the
budget given to each Board member and can also be found in Exhibit Book XII.)
Kim indicated that when they were looking at District U and thinking about how to
best market the assets in DU, it was noted that it’s not quite like marketing a beach
location where you have an actual municipality. Had to look at what assets were in
District U and what the strongest use of these funds would be.
Proposing $58,200 under DU would be used to increase print advertising and social
media face book advertising to promote those assets under District U tying into the
destination as well.
On the group side, one of the things that stood out are all the sports facilities such as
Veterans Park, Ogden Park and the soccer facility. This will give us an opportunity
on the group side to build some of the things we’ve needed on our sports marketing
side; to give us some of the tools we need to market and also do some additional
advertising. What we are proposing to do on the group side with the $41,800
remaining in the $100,000 budget is to include our sports marketing development
which would be a brand creative messaging and photography of our sports facilities
within District U. Sports marketing advertising, group and sports website section
redesigned and then our social media groups channel development. Another area
covered will be the leisure side of DU which includes Snow’s Cut and our golf
courses.
[Motion made by Frank Jones, seconded by Mike Keeler and unanimously
accepted to approve the District U marketing budget as presented.]
ITEM #5 – MID-YEAR UPDATE – KIM HUFHAM
Kim presented a mid-year update on where we are for the first half of Fiscal Year
2014-2015. Highlights include:
ROT Receipts for the first 3% - July – November for the fiscal year are up
9.37% over same period of time last year; calendar year through November
– up 10.69%; second 3% beaches, Wilmington, CC district and District U are
all up for FY and calendar year.
Smith Travel Research which covers brand flag hotels and presents more a
picture of Wilmington report given.
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In a competitive set comparison covering N.C. counties as well as some areas
of S.C. and other states, percentages were given for 2014. New Hanover
County showed a 2.1% increase in occupancy; a 4.3% increase in ADR and
an 8.6% increase in revenue.
Legislative issues included school calendar law, rent by owner and ROT
remittance, film incentives, NC tourism privatization, beach renourishment
funding, sales tax on entertainment and environmental issues. Recap given
on each of these issues.
Convention and group sales – the top market segments are Association,
Sports, Reunions, Corporate and SMERF.
Group sales activity included 19 site visits and 82 groups serviced, not to
mention 10 tradeshows/annual meetings attended. In addition, hosted 2
FAM tours.
Upcoming activities/events discussed FAM tours, military shows, tradeshows,
MPI, sports commission, etc.
Communications/PR activities included, but not limited to press release
distribution, individual journalist site visits, traditional media contacts,
earned media/editorial, non-media inquiries, etc.
Working with French/West/Vaughn on PR strategies for specific support of
marketing initiatives.
Discussed PR mid-year highlights and many accolades for 2014.
A sampling of publications for July – December 2014 shown.
Marketing percentages in graph form presented on the media side as well as
inquiries (No.1 is face book; PPC Search; e-Specials.)) Total cost per inquiry
is down from last year.
Media Insights – on line is the most efficient paid media channel for
generating inquiries with e-Specials being second.
Top geographic referrals: North Carolina is number one to visit our website
at 44%; Georgia, Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio, New York,
Pennsylvania, Florida and Maryland are next.
Discussed total downstream exit inquiries
Developed over 30 short videos – “Go with the Flow and See Where The
Water Takes You.” Have done many website enhancements.
Face Book – 75,681 total fans as of December 31, 2014; new fans since July 1,
2014 – 14,402 which is a 23.5% increase. Top cities for Face Book are
Wilmington, Raleigh, Charlotte, Greensboro and Fayetteville.
Twitter – 1,944 new followers from July 1 to December 31, 2014 or a 24%
increase. As of December 31, 2014, we have a total of 9,964 followers.
YouTube – 33,151 views between July 1 and December 31, 2014.
Instagram – 1,195 total followers as of December 31, 2014.
Upcoming activities include National Tourism Week in May; Simpleview
Partner Training; 15/16 Strategic Planning and Budgets; NC Governor’s
Conference on Tourism in March.
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ITEM #6 – PRESIDENT’S COMMENTS – KIM HUFHAM
Annual presentation to the City of Wilmington, Mayor Saffo and City
Council in conjunction with the Convention Center.
Met with the Kure Beach Town Council concerning marketing questions, etc.
Hopefully were able to answer questions about their marketing budget.
Hosting a workshop with the general managers for a “Lunch and Learn.”
When the Executive Committee met, we were talking about our new Simple
View program. Frank Jones had a great idea. So many times we will have
front desk employees or computer staff to come for various workshops.
Frank indicated that the first session on Simple View would be beneficial as a
round table discussion to learn from the general managers of properties as to
what their needs are; what they are looking for from our web sites and how
we can better serve them. In this way, they can be shown the new
capabilities with Simple View. The next step will be training for properties
and will do same on a quarterly basis due to changeovers in staff, etc.
Chairman Jonathan Barfield will be bringing the State of the County address
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on Monday, March 2 at the County Courthouse at 6:00 p.m. On the
following Monday, Mayor Bill Saffo will be bringing the State of the City
address at City Hall at 5:30 p.m.
Annual Chamber Luncheon is next Tuesday and will be held at the
Wilmington Convention Center.
ITEM #7 – OLD BUSINESS/NEW BUSINESS
Chairman Carl Marshburn said at the last meeting, the 10% holdback by Carolina
and Kure Beaches was discussed and trying to come up with a retainage policy for
same.
President/CEO Kim Hufham indicated we were looking at legislation and trying to
look at the legality on how it should be held back. She said Kemp Burpeau with
New Hanover County’s legal department has been involved also and is here this
evening should there be questions.
A letter was sent to the beaches on the issue and we received letters back from their
attorneys concerning this. There were some grey areas in there that did not indicate
when any monies had to be spent that were being held, etc. The major thing is the
monies have to be spent strictly on marketing; cannot be used in other areas. Kim,
and Lisa met again with Kemp and he has come up with a recommendation of how
to stay in compliance and make sure the dollars are going to be spent for marketing.
The TDA has the final fiduciary responsibility of these dollars. The suggestion is,
working with the County Attorney’s Office, is that we have a policy in place that
states what the holdback can be for. It gives the towns flexibility, but again it has to
be a designated marketing use. The beaches have to give us a timeline. Kim passed
out a history (letters, response from the attorney and Kemp’s response back to us.
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The top sheet of the packet she disseminated is actually the policy suggestion from
Kemp.)
Kim read over the policy Kemp has worked on after meeting with Kim, Lisa and
Carl; working with the legislation and the way it is worded and what the suggestion
would be. The background on the policy states:
Background:
House Bill 1707 states that at least one-half of the funds in each beach account be
used to promote travel and tourism. The Bill does not expressly prohibit the TDA
authorizing holdback/retainage. Given the TDA’s statutory duty as steward, any
holdback/retainage must be expressly authorized by the Authority Board after the
respective town establishes the need for the holdback/retainage, amount and
duration.
Proposed Holdback/Retainage Policy:
Any holdback/retainage of funds budgeted or rolled over to the upcoming fiscal year
must be expressly authorized by the Tourism Development Board consistent with
the Board’s statutory fiduciary duties. The jurisdiction requesting a
holdback/retainage must establish to the Board’s satisfaction:
1. A specific compelling need for a marketing purpose; and
2.A reasonable duration with expenditure specified within the upcoming
fiscal year; and
3.A justified amount; and
4.Expenditure of marketing funds must be only for that specific purpose.
Because of the above, our Expenditure Request Form has been amended to a
Request for Marketing Funds Holdback/Retainage with wordage as needed for
Request Guidelines and Criteria, etc. Whenever the budget is sent in the Spring for
the Board, this would be included with any retainage that the towns would hold out.
Both Mayor Dean Lambeth and Mayor Dan Wilcox agreed they would like to take
this information back to their attorneys for their review and bring back to the
March TDA Board meeting.
[Motion made by Mayor Dean Lambeth, seconded by Connie Majure-Rhett
and unanimously carried to take the ROT holdback/retainage information
policy to the beach attorneys for their review and bring back to the March
TDA Board meeting.]
Lisa Wurtzbacher noted that at the last meeting, it had been discussed as to what
procedures we could use on rental/owner sites such as VRBO and Airbnb and what
kind of costs would be involved in such a program. She said she had reached out to
a couple of counties and had been referred to Mecklenburg County. The response
from them indicated they’ve had some issues in actually getting information from
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these sites. Lisa said Mecklenburg County would be meeting at a later date to try
and obtain more information and she’ll recontact them; however will want to study
this further prior to bringing something to the Board.
Mayor Wilcox asked about the ones advertising locally, etc. Can’t we get
information this way. Lisa responded that that county only has one tax person
spending part of his time on ROT and it is very hard to get to these sites. Dan
asked to get information on what the penalty is for not paying the ROT. Lisa will
send to him. It was noted that if anyone sends in information on self-rentals, the tax
department will definitely look into it.
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Chuck Pennington said the Verandas has accomplished its 13 year of receiving the
AAA Four Diamond property award. He also said he will be keeping the Verandas
and continue to run it himself.
ITEM #8 – CHAIRMAN’S COMMENTS – CARL MARSHBURN
Carl Marshburn said at the Executive Committee meeting, the following slate of
offices was nominated to bring before the full Board for approval.
Chairman – Frank Jones
Vice-Chairman – Carl Marshburn
Lisa Wurtzbcher – Treasurer – as deemed by legislation
Angela Rhodes – Secretary
At-Large – Nicholas Montoya
[Motion made by Connie Majure-Rhett, seconded by Jonathan Barfield and
unanimously approved to accept the 2015 Slate of Officers as presented.]
Chairman Carl Marshburn said he had done President/CEO Kim Hufham’s review
and brought it to the Executive Committee to ask for a 1 ½% pay increase. She did
not receive anything last year and has done an outstanding job. The Executive
Committee was in agreement with this.
Adjourn at 6:35 p.m.
Next Meeting Date: Wednesday, March 25, 2015
______________________________ __________________________
Kim Hufham, President/CEO Chuck Pennington, Secretary
Minutes located in TDA Board Minutes Book XI
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