Bay County TDC Approves Bed Tax Increase

In a meeting that ended in great applause, the Bay County Tourist Development Council unanimously voted to approve the increase in bed tax collections from 3% to 5%. With public comment from pillars of the Panama City Beach community, such as Charlie Hilton, Julian Bennett, Julie Hilton and Joe Tannehill, good arguments were made for and against the increase with a unified concern for our area.

The motion to approve suggested that one penny go towards marketing, including helping attract a low-cost carrier. Half of the second new cent would go to beach cleaning, safety awareness and signage throughout the beach. The second half of the second new cent will go to capital projects such as new ball fields at Frank Brown Park or the proposed improvements to Aaron Bessant Park in Pier Park.

“I think we should delay, not defeat the 5th cent increase,” Bennett Sr. said discussing that we need to put together a comprehensive plan as to how the 5th sent will be spent.

“We need to work on collecting what we have,” said Julie Hilton, “before we try and get more.”

Joe Tannehill, chairman of the Airport Authority board was the first to comment during the public comment portion of the meeting. He voiced his support of the bed tax increase and assured the board and confirmed to the board and the audience that the airport was ahead of schedule and under budget. He stressed that essential to the area’s success was the success of the airport and essential to the airport’s success was getting the word out to the rest of the country that we are open for business.

He emphasized that a growing number of travelers to our area will be from out of the country, but we need marketing dollars to underscore that effort. He also confirmed discussions with British Airways and Virgin Atlantic.

Peter Yesawich from YPartnership presented on why we need to increase our bed tax stressing that any increase had no direct impact on his firm or his firm’s relationship with the Panama City Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau.

His presentation explained that we had advertising budgets that were 1/2 and 1/3 of that of our direct competitors. He also stressed that we needed to have a vehicle in place to support the new airport and any low-cost airline that may come into our area. He mentioned that these are perilous times for the airline industry and that any airline would find great comfort knowing they had some financial support here in Panama City Beach. His presentation explicated the importance of having a harmonious allocation of marketing dollars and capital improvement dollars.

Yesawich said that our future visitors are not “legacy visitors” or those returning to our area, but new visitors. He explained that we need to expand our marketing reach to outside our traditional market and that we need a broader visitor base.

Buddy Wilkes, owner of Shipwreck Island Waterpark underscored this point in saying that we’ve lost our legacy visitors already and that we must focus on new customers.

There has been much discussion elsewhere and here on pcbdaily that we need to work harder to collect the rent collectors that aren’t paying instead of trying to raise the tax. I agree and disagree with this.

We need to change our collection process and the way it is enforced. Actually, that is a false statement. We need to enforce the bed tax collection as right now, it is not being enforced at all. What happens to those that do not collect? Nothing. Period. So, how do they figure out who is collecting rent, but not paying the bed tax? I don’t know, but there are smart people than me that can figure this all out, and it needs to happen, NOW.

Bill Kinsall, Bay County Clerk-elect reassured the board and audience during the public comment section that he would do everything in his power to make their collection process and research to who isn’t paying more efficient. He said the whole process will be under scrutiny and they will figure out how to fix the system.

Julie Hilton mentioned that she thought that we may be seeing 50% of the total possible bed tax revenue due to people not paying and that an increase may push more to not pay. I cannot speculate on the number, but I totally agree with her in that the number is probably larger than we think. We need to figure out a way to determine this. I also think we need to enable some sort of enforced consequence to be imposed on those that do not pay.

Yes, we need a very comprehensive plan to exactly how we’ll spend each penny of the increase, yes we need to figure out how to collect from who isn’t paying right now, but we also need more money to be sure we are ready to spread the word about Panama City Beach to the world when the new airport comes online. We also need to be sure we continue to improve our area at the same rate our competition is improving their areas, or we will become a has-been.

The argument that if we increase our rates that we’ll lose tourists just isn’t valid. An increase of 2% will yeild an increase in room rates of $20 for a week’s stay at $1000. Is someone going to be deterred by this? No. Will they even know about the change? No. Tourists don’t ask what tax rate they are paying and they aren’t going to change their mind for a measly 2%.

Good job TDC, Bay County Commissioners, please take heed, we need this for our area.

Related: Bed Tax Increase Set in Motion

The Fall is Over, so how did the White Sale go?

I suppose it has been quite some time since I’ve shared a highly opinionated piece on how we market our area. Maybe too much criticism, or maybe I’ve been really busy, but nevertheless here we go.

Right to the point.

The Extended White Sale, as it has been dubbed was an extension of the “Wildly Successful” Summer White Sale. It was decided that the Summer White Sale had gone so amazingly well, that it was prudent to extend the promotions into the fall, so people could download coupons to Shipwreck Island Waterpark that actually closed first week in September. Please note the sarcasm.

The numbers.

It total, the entire campaign saw 95,780 visits on http://www.pcbwhitesale.com (now forwarded to visitpanamacitybeach.com) and 23,890 total coupon downloads. The entire cost rang in at a whopping $575,000. That’s right, the comma IS in the right place. Looking at previously reported numbers, that would leave 15,718 visits and 3,945 coupon downloads for the Extended White Sale. The extension cost $80,000.

I would really love to see a breakdown of what cost what – I’m wondering how the bill got up to almost $600k.

So, with the total coupon downloads being at 23,890 and a total cost of $575,000, the TDC paid $24 per coupon download. The TDC paid 24 dollars per coupon downloaded.

I have an interesting question: How far would the businesses get if THEY were given $24 for every coupon of theirs downloaded? Just curious how you think they would have fared had they been given that money, instead of a creative agency. They could do with it whatever they please – keep it on the books, use it for advertising, use it to subsidize lower rates for everyone that comes in their doors, whatever.

I mean, what if Shipwreck Island was to use that money to subsidize entrance fees giving the first random/unannounced number of people each day Monday – Wednesday (or whatever notoriously slow part of the week during the summer) 50% off all summer long. Imagine the lines of people that would be at the front gates in the morning and all the people that would stay and pay full price because they were already there with the kids.

What if Captain Jacks used their share to have Buy One Get One Free Tuesday Nights all summer long. How many more people would eat there when they were in town.

The ideas are only limited by your creativity (I have little, I know).

Look, I think we all learned a hard lesson this year. With that huge sucking noise we hear coming out of Washington as the economy falls more and more into a recession is effecting all of us – we are all scurrying to keep money in our pockets to pay the bills.

I believe rash decisions were made that turned out to be bad decisions, and hopefully next season, we will have a greater understanding as to how we need to move forward with all marketing campaigns.

Jennifer Barbee Takes the Cake – New Panama City Beach Web Site

In addition to talking about MTVu, today’s TDC meeting included presentations from the board’s top 3 web development companies that submitted their RFQ’s to build the CVB’s new web site for Panama City Beach.

The three included Miles Media, Jennifer Barbee Inc., and Simple View, in order of presentation.

If you subscribe to our Twitter page, you may have seen some opinions as the presentations took place, if not, well, you missed out.

First, I’d like to say, working in the digital media/marketing world for the last 3 years, I’ve consistently noticed particular trends. Most of the time, the guys that can create brilliant back-end cms systems with tons of “coded” features including data collection, reports, functionality, automated processes, etc. tend to really lack on the creative end. Their pretty pictures may look pretty to them, but to everyone else, they are pretty plain and not very visually stimulating. This is good for some, but not for all.

Next, the agencies that are great graphic artists, that create very visually stimulating graphics using trendy, relevant and current design elements tend to lack on the back end capabilities. The sites look good, but don’t do much.

The trick is to find an agency that is good at both, not good, but great, actually. The agencies that are great at both are few and far between. This observation was consistent with the presentations today.

The first group to present, Miles Media came out guns blazin, suits ‘a wearin. Ok, not really, but they were all wearing suits. Their presentation began with intros by none other than Roger Miles, himself. They rotated what looked like a practiced and choreographed routine, sharing presentation points with the entire team of 3, plus Roger.

They began with credibility statements, explaining that they had doubled their revenue and more than tripled their client base in the last 5 years. Currently they have over 180 clients and $35 million in annual revenue.

They operate one of the largest travel web sites in the country, visitflorida.com, which fights Vegas for number 1 with regards to most visited in the tourism/travel industry during the peak season, and falls to around number 5 during the shoulder seasons. They’ve never spent any money on any SEM efforts and have always focused on SEO. SEM = search engine marketing, or paid placement; SEO = search engine optimization, or optimizing the site so that search engines will pick it up on crawls. “Competitors spend millions annually on SEM, we spend nothing,” Roger Miles said.

I took a bunch of notes, but I’ll cut right to the chase. Their creative was weak, their ideas were OK, just OK, and nothing in their presentation poped. I think I said in one of my twitter updates, they were good, but not WOW.

Roger, I know you read pcbdaily, no hard feelings. You guys do great work, just not what PCB is looking for right now.

I’ll skip Jennifer Barbee real quick and go to Simple View. At first, the board thought Simple View had the lead, and I agreed. They seemed to have the experience we wanted, the client list to back it up, and the capability to fulfill our creative marketing desires. I think they blew it with their presentation, which was very dry, boring, and displayed their complete lack of creative talent. They started the whole thing out with a 5 minute video that looked dated, poorly put together, boring, and entirely too long. At first, I was able to tolerate the vid, but after about 2 minutes of the same music, no narration, and screen-shots and words flashing across, they lost me. They started reviving me when they showed some of their web work, which some was pretty good, but I started dozing off with the “tech-talk” on how the back end cms system works, etc. Their entire presentation seemed to be working up to a system that the TDC could take and make changes themselves, with the ability to create pages, new navigation menus, or new web initiatives. This seemed like good flexibility, but everything seemed geared towards, “ok, we’re done, here ya go,” and then the vendor disappears.

All in all, the board decided they were NOT what they were looking for as they worried Panama City Beach might get lost in the middle of all of Simple View’s ‘big’ clients.

Last, but not least, Jennifer Barbee Inc. Their presentation was second, and I knew right away, they would probably be the best. First off, their presentation was very graphically oriented, very fun to look at. That captured my attention, I was ready to see what they could do on the back end. It was very apparent, very quickly, that they were great graphic artists and could make very visually stimulating creative. And, the more Jennifer spoke, the more impressed I was.

Jennifer started out as a software developer, and over the years morphed into web development and marketing. As of two years ago, she had worked her way up to be (I think) one of the Presidents of USDM, an interactive marketing company, regarded to be one of the best in the destination and tourism industry. Her separation from them was because she wanted to get back into something that was smaller, or a boutique. She wanted to get back that intimacy that came with having only a few select clients. She isn’t the only one that I’ve know to do that over the last couple of years. Sometimes “corporate” just gets too corporate.

One of the big concerns in the RFQ review process with Jennifer was her company size and age. The marketing committee was concerned that maybe she was inexperienced or that her company didn’t have the resources to handle an account like Panama City Beach. Turns out, this is exactly what ended up giving her the greatest value. She conveyed the feeling that we would be special and given personal, individual treatment. Something the TDC very much liked.

Jennifer clearly demonstrated her knowledge of all the latest trends in the social media side with innovative ways to implement marketing initiatives across the web, not just on the Panama City Beach web site. She mentioned not only the importance of up-to-date, fresh content, but the importance of distributing that content across the web using social media, link exchanges, paid bloggers, videos and more.

Something else that was cool was their idea of customizing site content based on user submitted information. She showed an example of a visitor coming to a site, a brief survey may come up, and based on the results, the visitor is taken to a page that is specific to what that visitor may be looking for, with interactive capabilities that are tailored to him or her.

Jennifer spoke into her agency’s capability to make marketing recommendations based on varying environmental changes, i.e. economic downturn, etc., tailoring initiatives to best leverage what people may be looking for during these times.

At the end of the presentations, it was clear that Jennifer Barbee Inc. had the graphical talent to stay on top with the look and feel of the new site, and a strong back end knowledge to create a site that has tons of interactive capabilities.

The board was all in agreement, with the exception of Mr. Walsingham, that JBinc. was the right choice.

Even PanamaCityBeach.com’s Charles Mason commented at the end his agreement with the board – there’s your published confirmation Marty!

I was convinced that JBinc. was not just the best of the three, but the best for the job. Congrats Jennifer!

TDC's $52 million improvement iniative

Wednesday, the TDC’s Revenue Enhancement Committee (fancy for bed tax committee) met to discuss improvement ideas for Panama City Beach and how to fund it all.

The ideas range from a new beach trash disposal system to a grass amphitheatre with bathroom and concessions facilities at Aaron Bessant Park.

The ideas stem from the Strategic Plan and include:

TDC Marketing and Awareness
- Welcome to the Beach campaign which would include welcome signs west of the Hathaway Bridge and along Highway 79, and replacing existing signs.
- New beach trash disposal system to replace the existing blue refuse containers.
- Beach safety campaign to increase public awareness about the flag warning system and fund additional flag poles. (THIS ISN’T ENOUGH, PEOPLE, AND YOU KNOW IT!)
- Estimated total cost of $500,000 per year.
Special Events Marketing
- Construct a permanent stage suitable for concerts and theatrical performances at Aaron Bessant Park, at Pier Park.
- Build an amphitheatre ‘bowl’ with a grass covered berm with restroom and concession space on the back/underside of the grass ‘bowl’. Should be capable of a 5,000 capacity.
- Create space for tents, vendor areas, or other festival support areas in the flat areas of the park.
- Estimated total coast of $5 million

I think this is a really neat idea, and definitely worth looking into, but we need to be planning for 25,000 people, not 5,000 people. Aaron Bessant Park needs some renovation, but will never have the capability to have anything much larger than the summer Concerts in the Park series. We need to be looking at improving larger capacity facilities, like Frank Brown Park.

Sports Marketing – Frank Brown Park
- Develop two additional ‘pinwheels’ of softball/youth baseball fields with the appropriate infrastructure.
- Make two of the fields in the new ‘pinwheels’ the ‘marquee’ fields with additional seating, dugouts, press boxes, etc., one for baseball, one for softball.
- Look at building a warm-up pool and permanent seating at the aquatic center to enhance potential at attracting regional swimming competitions.
- Enhance the equestrian facilities
- Estimated total cost is $7.5 to $10 million
Sports Marketing – Sports Village Complex (in addition to Frank Brown Park, would need to acquire additional land)
- Develop indoor field house to expand offerings to include court and mat sports.
- Develop 8 to 12 rectangular fields for soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, flag football, etc. Some would have grass, others artificial turf
- Develop 8 full-sized baseball fields for additional tournaments and practicing facilities.
- Estimated total cost is $33 to $35 million
Destination Marketing
- Begin international marketing efforts when the new airport comes online and our area becomes more easily accessed.
- Increase domestic advertising – more money is needed in order to fully penetrate our core markets and expand outside the southeast (or we could just use the $500k that was wasted on the Summer White Sale campaign for something that is more innovative, creative, and effective)
- Enhance the Visitor Center with new technology and look and feel
- Estimated total cost is $1 to $2 million

Now, where did all these numbers come from? That is an unknown as of now, just estimations. The committee requested of Dan and Staff to ‘zero-base’ the numbers and give details to how much each aspect of these improvements will cost, ideally to have everything spelled out by the December TDC meeting. The goal is to have everything in order to request an additional 2cents be added to the bed tax first part of the year.

Staff counsel, Doug Sale said that from implementation to actual collection could be up to 90 days, so if they could get the tax implemented first of the year, collections could start rolling in for the new season in spring break.

I’m in total agreement that we need to collect additional bed tax in order to keep up with the competition. I’ve not been too impressed with the way the money has been spent in the past, however. I will give kudos to TDC Chair Andy Phillips for staying on everyone to be sure the numbers included will have some specificity in the near future.

Should We 'Kick' MTV 'to the curb'?

Well, should we? It would seem to me that we aren’t good enough for them. Maybe we should take our $250k (read $200k) and do something more productive with it, rather than waste it on some antediluvian has-been. I mean, seriously, who watches MTV anymore anyway. Sure, all the left-wing east west coasters that are too concerned about the color of their hair than what is actually happening in the real world may still watch it but the ‘kids’ that vacation here during their college spring break spend their free time working, partying, or hanging out with friends, not watching the melodrama unfold between Paris Hilton and her new BFF.

Not to mention that we aren’t even talking about MTV, we are taking about MTVu, a trifle subsidiary of the Bid Dawg. Sure it is college specific, but again, what does that mean today?

So what are these snobs up to now? Well, the last marketing committee meeting, the committee motioned to reduce the amount paid to MTVu from $250k to $200k. When confronted with this issue, MTVu basically cut what they were willing to bring to the table in half.

As per the MTVu Program Recap, the $250k vs. $200k:

In-market, main stage for 5 days instead of 10
Village for 7 days instead of 10
2 concert days with 4 performances instead of 4 concert days with 8 performances
225 :30 TV spots instead of 300
5 million online impressions instead of 10 million
No database
No sweepstakes
No opt-in opportunity onsite

What? They’re basically cutting their offering in half, for only $50,000 less. What’s their deal? Well, apparently, we aren’t good enough for them. Apparently $200k is small potatoes for very little on their part. I say we ditch the Brand and do it ourselves. For $200k, we can hire someone else to put on a good show and do a lot of marketing, a-lot-of-marketing. MTVu isn’t the only game in town.

I don’t like to criticize unless I have a good solution, but in this case, I’m doing just that. There are others being paid to find a solution to this, and they’ve come up with MTVu. I suggest we find an alternative. The reality is, if we throw a big enough party (and for $200k, we can throw a pretty big party) MTV will be here anyway, because that is where the action will be.

Now, to you tourism leaders, resort owners and the like: what are you afraid of? What happened to good ‘ol fashioned marketing. Most of you big guys are paying a salaried marketing person to come up with great ideas to get your brand out there. Why have we become so reliant on the Government to supply us with our business? Furthermore, the sky will not fall if the beloved MTVu brand turns their pink nose up at us. The reality is that college kids still love to come here, others can organize huge shows to keep the crowds busy and the party will still be in Panama City Beach during Spring Break 2009.

Debi Knight Starts her own Tourism Company

Debi Knight, Past President of the Greater Panama City Beaches Chamber of Commerce for sixteen years, has started her own company, Panama City Beach Tourism Services. The company specializes in marketing, management, sales, consulting and travel. Panama City Beach Tourism Services has also joined the National Tour Association.

“Membership with NTA will allow Panama City Beach Tourism Services to network with other travel industry partners and provide the best quality services and products to the traveling public,” said Debi Knight, President/CEO. “I am excited with the opportunities we have to sell our breath-taking beaches, heart-pounding adventure, eco- tours, historic walks, day trips, customized packages and more. Working with my fellow colleagues locally and regionally will enhance why Northwest Florida is so unique”.

As a NTA member, Panama City Beach Tourism Services also has access to numerous educational programs, as well as the networking and business opportunities at the NTA Annual Convention.

The National Tour Association is the preferred association in the tourism industry for packaged travel professionals. NTA’s diverse membership and progressive nature make it an industry leader as the place to do business. NTA consistently seeks innovations for the services and business tools it provides to members, and the leadership keeps its fingers on the pulse of the ever-changing world. In turn, NTA members are some of the most creative in the dynamic travel industry. NTA membership represents 34 countries, and tour and travel packagers of all types, including a group, independent, student, and more. To learn more, visit www.NTAonline.com and www.travelpcb.com.

MTVu Coming… with full database and measurement

The TDC Marketing Committee voted today to move forward with the $250K MTVu Spring Break Partnership. There seems to be a lot of kinks to be worked out, and there were definitely “wishes” put out by the committee and audience members that simply won’t be fulfilled, but the good news is that the CVB will begin properly gathering data with a “PCB Insiders” program, enabling Spring Breakers (and other future segments) to sign up for email and mobile phone updates and promotions. We’ll be sure to get results of these efforts at the end of Spring Break 09.

This will all be accomplished through a fantastic rich media, interactive Spring Break 09 website that may or may not be developed by YPartnership of “Summer White Sale Website” infamy. The new staff at the CVB should be able to make this quantum leap from the failed email marketing programs of recent past, because the new mobile phone and email programs are outsourced services that are easily implemented.

The co-op partners who participate will be able to communicate with the new database being built by the CVB. The database will be rich with information and accessible for clear measurement.

My question is… are paying co-op partners the only ones who should benefit from the TDC/CBV database? I mean, if I were a bed tax collector, writing that check every month, I’d kinda’ like to think I had access to anything the TDC gathered. But, you know, I’m not a bed tax collector. I’m just sympathetic to their collection burdens. If you are a bed tax collector, this is a good place for you to voice your opinion.

MTVu is good for the local economy. It worked last year for a lot of people. MTVu brings enough traffic that rooms are booked and promoters/sponsors have all kinds of opportunities to create relationships with these future guests and residents for a lifetime.

We’ll be writing more posts about Spring Break all the way up to the Big Bang, and welcome your opionions. But here’s one thing you Spring Break haters can consider in the meantime: How about planning to get out and meet the students face-to-face to accomplish some of your goals? Why not plan drug and alcohol prevention pizza parties? What about a job fair? Maybe join the dozens of “Alternative Spring Breakers” who will be doing things such as cleaning the beach or ministering their faith in God? Go help the Panama City Rescue mission collect cans every afternoon.

There is plenty of good and bad on this beach, 365 days per year. You can choose to be a part of the Good.

Video of Jason Koertge on the Lee Sullivan Show

I was on the Lee Sullivan Show a few weeks ago, and have gotten the show online. Lee and I discussed the TDC, the Summer White Sale and how IT WASN’T wildly successful, college spring break, sports marketing, bed tax increase, and tons more.

I’ve broken the show down to four videos. Total, it is around 20 minutes.

Segment 1

Segment 2:

Segment 3:

Segment 4:

Be sure to post a comment below!

Now, Back to Regularly Scheduled Bashing

Notes from Today’s TDC Meeting

Bed Taxes are up $117,000 thanks to back-taxes being collected.
The Circus by the Sea is more than likely coming back. Maybe it will draw more crowds next year.
The CVB has a new interactive marketing manager coming on board.
Rowe distributed estimates of costs of strategic plan proposals to board. I’ll be asking for copies of those to post here soon.
Mayor Gayle Oberst explained that Panama City Beach could not use bed taxes to fund lifeguards. As one Marketing Committee member told me later, it’s a good thing we’re smarter than Walton county on that issue. I have a lifeguard manifesto brewing; I’m sure it’ll come out any day now.
The TDC’s market research firm, Klages, is up for contract renewal, and the board showed concern that the 2008 results were not worth the investment. Tabled. Marketing Research, tabled.

Now to the juicy stuff…

Spring Break is heating up quickly… Spring Break funding was tabled after Dan Rowe requested approval on the MTVu plan ($150K CVB, $100K co-op).

Chairman Andy Phillips and Marketing Committee Chairman Buddy Wilkes questioned whether the co-op could really raise $100K. Mr. Rowe believes so; however lodging leaders stepped up quickly and said that because of the exclusive booking deal MTVu has with Student City, they would not participate in that co-op.

Board member Mike Bennett suggests the funding should go into a different Spring Break program. Dan Rowe suggested that if it’s not MTVu, then put the money in something other than Spring Break. Jack Bishop said the Klages report proved the CVB should invest the $150,000 into Spring Break. (It’s getting good!)

Folks in the audience suggested that only the Boardwalk benefited from the 2008 Spring Break plan. (It’s really getting good!)

There was a hint that there may be another Spring Break community workshop. The marketing committee will address the issue before the next TDC meeting on November 6. (Don’t you think this is going to get good!?)

And More Utter Disregard for the Special Event Policy

The Board unanimously approved 2009 funding for the Panama City Beach Seafood, Wine, & Music Festival. Wow. Wasn’t even on the agenda.

Special Event Side Note – Do you realize that 3.25 million dollars worth of lodging has to be brought in to raise $65K in bed taxes?

If PCBSWMF would have reported the need for $65,000 invested in the infrastructure at Frank Brown Park for next year’s event, that would be different. PCBSWMF Promoter Jack Bishop stated that the event could not serve 30,000 attendees as reported by previous promoters. Hopefully PCBSWMF will use all $65K to improve the infrastructure. We’ll see.

Speaking of we’ll see, we’ll see the full PCBSWMF report next month. Hopefully that report will include exactly how and where the 2008 TDC investment was spent.

In the meantime, we sure would like to have other promoters comment here with your thoughts on the TDC’s Special Events “Policy.”

If I misinterpreted anyone’s comments from today’s meeting, please email me at lancaster.kirk@gmail.com, or even better yet, clarify your message right here in the comments section.

The New TDC Website

Imagine that you’re a tourist (which we all are, at some point and place). You’re heading home from a great (or not-so-great) visit to Panama City Beach, Florida. You see 2 or 3 billboards on your way out, thanking you for choosing Panama City Beach, and a sincere request to “let us know how we’re doing!”

You see a HUGE “VisitPanamaCityBeach.com” web address and the good old-fashioned “1-800-PCBEACH” phone number to send your feedback. Whether you give feedback or not, doesn’t this at least make you think about how you feel about your vacation?

The new ability to phone right then and there from the car, or get online quickly once you get home, is something that today’s consumer is taking advantage of. Customers are letting their voices be heard, and they’ll talk to Bay County too, especially if we ask them. (And we need to ask more than 400 of them per month).

Those billboards and a feedback campaign would be a pretty smart way to spend TDC advertising dollars, if TDC advertising dollars must be spent.

The TDC/CVB’s staff’s main objective should be to listen to our tourists, save the data and share it with local bed tax collectors and Bay County businesses. This is marketing research. And in such a campaign, a very simple website is all that is needed to accomplish this tactic.

Instead, the TDC’s new website plans include selling ads, renting rooms and generating revenue. They will be able to accomplish this after they spend money to develop the new site, to the tune of $110,000.

If the CVB succeeds at building an effective, easy to use, money-making e-commerce website (HARD TO DO, I ASSURE YOU), our governmental Council is then, in one way or another, competing with a multitude of other business’ websites. From the bed tax collectors themselves, all the way to sites such as Google and Expedia, VisitPanamaCityBeach.com would be in the business-website business. Which is no business for real Tourism Development, in my humble opinion.

Just remember this, bed tax collectors… every dollar you spend on online marketing is about to be supplanted with your own bed tax dollars, in a partner-like, yet competitive kind of way.

Please use that hard-earned bed tax to get information you need to improve your own marketing and advertising. Don’t let the TDC get into the business of competing with your business.