TDC/CVB: $480,000.00…

On Friday afternoon, the TDC and CVB called to order a meeting regarding additional funds added to the summer marketing budget. To recap, the dollars previously spent totaled 1 million dollars and went towards saturating primary targets areas Atlanta, Birmingham and Nashville with an advertising media mix of 40% cable advertising, 30% online, 24% outdoor and 6% magazine. This campaign, to date, has been successful. Dan Rowe, chairman of the TDC, acknowledged this success stating that the daily site traffic to the website has increased three-fold since the start of the campaign and the URL has moved up several thousand places in quantcast rankings.

With so much early success (we haven’t yet seen the complete outcome of results) the board decided to hit the markets harder, considering bolstering the marketing efforts with an additional $500,000. The board was presented three recommendations, one from the current advertising partner Y partnership, one from JB Inc. and a local broadcast recommendation. The recommendations broke down as follows:

Y Partnership Recommendation

Extend Cable Buys
- Nine weeks versus six weeks
- $215,00
Internet TV in AL, TN, KY and Stl, Indy and Cincy
- Hulu.com, CBS.com, NBC.com
- 7.2 million impressions, 10x frequency
- $186,815
Local Broadcast TV
- Knoxville, Lexington, Waco/Bryan
- 12 Weeks, 90% reach, 10x frequency
- $73,185

Total Investment = $475,000

JB Inc Recommendation

Showcase TV Ad on NBC.com, HULU.com, Oxygen.com
- Thirteen Weeks
- 9.5 million impressions
- Geo-targeted buys focusing East US & TC
- $230,000
Extend Run of Network Video Banner (TV Spot)
- Sites TBD – (e.g. CBS.com, Facebook)
- 2.6 million impressions
- $30,000

Total Investment = $230,000

Local Broadcast TV recommendation

Gray Television – 10 Stations: AL, FL, TN, KY, TX, MS
- Seventeen Weeks
- 13.7 million impressions
- Reach=91.3%, 10.9 frequency
- Will run on local news, morning shows, and prime-time TV
- Billfish programming with on air mention during tournament and other times during campaign
- $165,000 media flight, $25,000 billfish
Hoak Television – 3 station in LA – Monroe and Alexandria
- Twelve Weeks
- Reach = 91.5% 10.2 Frequency
- $30,000

Total Investment = $220,000

These were only recommendations as to how the money should be spent and it became instantly apparent that Y-partnership would be the odd-man out. Even Mr. Buddy Wilkes didn’t care for Y’s recommendation saying they came up with, “quick ideas with very little thought” and that they, “didn’t come up with anything creative.” He didn’t have to mention the massive price tag on a less than stellar service that JB Inc and LBTV could produce at half the cost and better results. The recommendation from Y encountered such bad reviews that the overall partnership with them may be in jeopardy. To that point, Mr. Yonnie Patronis added, “This is an opportunity to test the waters with someone else.”

The board decided to go with a combination of JB Inc.’s recommendation and Local Broadcast Television with the caveat that the Local Broadcast TV compress the seventeen weeks to somewhere closer to thirteen.

What tipped the scales might have been the Billfish tournament marketing. Obviously, the Billfish Tournament is a major draw to our area and can be capitalized on with the target markets. What Gray Television plans to do is have a thirty minute show which showcases the event and the destination, giving Panama City Beach loads of face time including promotional opportunities with sports and weather. Overall, JB Inc.’s and LBTV’s recommendations should make for a good buy.

One interesting tid-bit in the meeting was a quick discussion about marketing to future potential markets like Chicago and NY. With the new airport these areas, which previously had been virtually avoided in terms of marketing, could become gold. If you have analytics you know that NY and CHI rank high on traffic on Panama City Beach sites already. It might not be a bad idea to start early with a great/new/first impression, lathering up new potential vacationers and snowbirds for a trip to PCB.

TDC: New Website, New Commercial, New PCB?

First things first, the new website is now live, check it out here. It’s colorful, comprehensive and light years beyond what the old site was capable of ever achieving. But does it aid in the TDC’s overall goal of rebranding Panama City Beach? Well, maybe not all by itself but as a central component to a whole plan, I think it might do the trick.

During Tuesday’s TDC/CVB meeting unveiled was the highly-anticipated summer campaign. This campaign has been much ballyhooed for the entire off-season, but on Tuesday we actually got to see some of the campaign in action which can all be summed up in one word: Rebranding. Everything within the program is used as a tool to rebrand Panama City Beach as a clean, fun and family-oriented vacation destination. I mean, take a look at the upcoming 30 second commercial ad.

It is without a doubt the best representation of Panama City Beach I’ve ever seen. It’s clean, beautiful and really showcases what’s best about the beach. In fact, you see a nice shot of Pier Park, Shipwreck and what it might be like to visit PCB. Susan Estler, vice president of marketing, said they went from one end of the beach to the other to really give people an experience of PCB. And that’s not stock footage you’re looking at, but real people on Panama City Beach. The activities look exciting, the weather looks great and the voice over talks about Doctors and Lawyers as if to say, “this is what you’re missing by believing PCB is the Redneck Riviera.”

The campaign includes components like a video competition, social media networking, microblogging, but the majority of the efforts will be targeted cable advertising that will be geared towards driving people to the website. Together, these two components (TV and website) should, theoretically, provide potential tourists with enough images, video and interactivity to make them rethink their preconceived notions about our great city as it re-announces itself as the “Real. Fun. Beach.”

The launch date for the campaign is slated for Memorial Day, or at least the days preceding it (May 18 it is set to begin). Now, before you criticize the date saying that Summer is already on us and it’s too late, consider this: The TDC/CVB is strategically tying its launch date with a holiday to help drive people and create a buzz. This holiday strategy will also be the tone for the big “Real. Fun. Contest” which will allow people to determine their beach personality (are you an “after dark shark” or a member of the “sandy bottom bunch?”). The contest is set to coincide with the 4th of July. What should also be considered is although you might think this launch date is a little late for summer, it is just the right time for the new airport. In a year from now people will be flying into Panama City Beach from places that, prior to, may not have known we existed outside of Spring Break. The marketing and advertising campaigns have this in mind. Mike Bennett acknowledged this; “with the new airport coming,” he said, “we have one chance to make a great impression.” And that’s the plan, give a new first impression of Panama City Beach. In fact, the TDC and CVB have already shared in-depth talks about airline advertising including an early jump on advertising through new the on-plane wi-fi systems announced recently by Air Tran.

What may surprise you most about the summer marketing campaign is that its all been done under budget. It should be noted that they own the website, the images, the video–even the b-roll and got it for around $250,000. Coupled with the other marketing dollars spent, that leaves $1.5 million of the marketing budget remaining. After a motion by Marty Mcdaniel, the board decided to meet again before Memorial day to negotiate applying more budget money towards summer marketing, focusing more effort on the tourism window of June and July.

That same budget will be used in Fall and Winter campaigns as well. The opening talks did not go into detail about the Fall and Winter campaigns but did acknowledge a need to frame the time of year rather than focus primarily on events. “We’ll have marquee events,” said Dan Rowe, “but we want to encourage marquee reasons to get away. ‘the weather is good…let’s go.’ [to Panama City Beach].”

All these efforts are betting on the new brand, betting that a new Panama City Beach can be presented to the world and the world will accept Panama City Beach as something other than a Spring Break destination. They’ve set the groundwork for that brand with the new campaign and, theoretically, the world will see us as a “Real. Fun. Beach.” The question remains, though the world may see PCB anew on TV spots and online, what will they find when they actually get here? A new brand is different than a new image…but that’s a topic for another post.

All in all, the campaign should do well. The “Real. Fun. Contest” should create a genuine buzz. I, for one, am excited and encouraged by the efforts being put forth.

More News: March Bed Tax numbers are down from 2008 but up from 2007. Optimism is abound for April’s numbers after the successful Jazz Festival and Skim Jam. Year-to-date (Oct-Mar.) the numbers are up 1.2%.

CVB is spending $65,000 to aid in the enhancement of the beach providing additional beach safety signs and working with Boomer Aviation for flying billboards announcing double red flags. They are also working on a texting program to alert vendors and contributors about flag changes.

Website, Summer Marketing and The End of Spring Break?

The Website is coming! The Website is coming! I’m totally excited, the city is excited and, with an ultra-comprehensive summer media marketing campaign, everyone will be excited. . . or theoretically persuaded to be excited… about the new PCB website. The socially interactive site is determined to rebrand PCB using promotions like a video competition, social media networking, microblogging and even username and passwords for local business to update their individual pages.

Marketing dollars are being spent, in partnership with Buffalo Rock, to drive summer bookings and launch the new branding campaign. Buffalo Rock will provide large exposure in the form of Pepsi wrappers, shelves and displays throughout the Southeast. This is only a portion of the whole plan. The rich media campaign will focus on promoting Panama City Beach as a destination using the message “Real.Fun.Beach.” and saturate the target market with repetitive engagement.

Who’s the target market you ask? Well, based on reports from Y partnership, the TDC’s advertising and marketing partner, the primary targets are Atlanta, Birmingham and Nashville and the media mix for the campaign breaks down like this: 40% cable advertising, 30% online, 24% outdoor and 6% magazine. That means television promo ads on stations like CNN, ESPN and others. That means a greater internet exposure from previous years (around 7-9% in past years) and a stronger focus on the market. All this to channel tourists to a website packed with enough umph to make them want to visit our great city.

The money spent and future spending has been validated by the Klages report numbers from the previous quarter. While other destinations throughout the state are in the red, in nearly every category Panama City Beach is up. Based on the Klages report, total average daily hotel rates so far are up from last year’s numbers by 12.4%. Last year’s total economic impact was $975,379,655.00 and winter 2009 numbers are already up 9%. That’s some tasty cream.

But not all the news from the meeting was good. Previous marketing dollars, specifically Spring Break, took complaints from the audience. Several community members spoke on behalf of distancing PCB from spring break entirely. It is well documented that Spring Break complaints are an annual occurrence; every year SB happens and every year people complain. But this year’s round of complaints hit hard with passion. Mark Canfora, a local businessman, actually came to tears and bashed the Lil Wayne concert and charged the artist with provoking the spring break incidents throughout the beach.

Jennifer Etheridge, a member of the sales team at Ocean Villa, said some of her owners were considering suing the city of PCB for negligence because they couldn’t rent their rooms. The sentiment was felt by some of the board members as well, focusing their attention on MTVu rather than spring break as a whole. Andy Phillips said, “Spring Break will be here whether we throw a million dollars into marketing or nothing at all.” He added, “I think MTV was a waste of $150,000. Plain and simple.” MTV met their contractual agreement, generating the amount of web impressions, unique visitors and television promotions as promised, but turned out to be difficult to work with as a partner to the TDC.

An example of the relationship was the show “Wasted Memories” which was supposed to be a show that followed Spring Breakers around and at the end of their stay tested how much they remembered. The show turned out to be completely different than what was promised and is still a PR nightmare for a beach trying to change its image. But, amid all the anger towards spring break, most beach businesses did well financially. Mr. Phillips acknowledged this by saying, “It is a double-edged sword and a difficult process.”

The board leaned heavily towards not spending money in the future on the likes of MTV, but recognized how what was learned from the experience of working with them would help in the use of summer marketing dollars.

In related news, Dan Rowe, Chairman of the TDC went up for review and received a 7% increase in salary. Based on the committee’s review parameters Mr. Rowe scored “very effective” on a scale that ranged from ineffective to outstanding. Good work, Dan. Can’t wait to see how the summer campaign turns out.

Click Here To Download The Focus Group Presention

Click Here To Download The Summer Media Plan

Condo Auction in Mexico Beach

Ten condominiums in the prestigious and new Tranquil Harbour community on Florida’s beautiful Mexico Beach will be sold by absolute auction (regardless of price) on Saturday, May 2nd. The beautifully-designed units will be auctioned by The National Auction Group, Inc. of Gadsden, Alabama, an elite team of highly-trained specialists in the marketing of one-of-a-kind, high-end properties. The company has established a significant track record in recent months, selling more than $87 million worth of condos on the Gulf Coast from Panama City to Gulf Shores since last May. Also to be sold separately on auction day are a dozen lots on beautiful Cape San Blas.

Situated directly across from the Mexico Beach Pier, Tranquil Harbour consists of two three-story towers with all units enjoying mesmerizing water views. Options include two, three and four bedroom units. Each of the 10 condos is beautifully-designed and richly-appointed with the first class amenities one would expect at such a superb resort community. Featuring unique designs that are both attractive and functional, all units come with an assigned boat slip with quick access to the Gulf, as well as covered parking and expansive storage areas.

Tile floors and granite countertops add special touches of quality while the over-sized, open rooms with crown moldings and nine-foot ceilings offer plenty of windows to take full advantage of the wonderful vistas. In the kitchen are top-of-the-line GE Profile or equivalent appliances including microwave, self-cleaning oven, dishwasher and side-by-side refrigerator, as well as an undermount stainless steel sink. All condos have solid core interior doors, designer light fixtures, ceiling fans in living rooms and bedrooms and high quality faucets and plumbing fixtures.

Bathrooms feature framed vanity mirrors, a separate shower in the master baths, cultured marble vanity counter tops and tubs and raised height cabinets.

Located on the Florida panhandle, Mexico Beach is a community on the edge of the Gulf of Mexico but miles from anything else. Along this stretch of scenic Highway 98, there are no high-rises and no rush-hour; just breathtaking views of sea oats, white sand and the emerald Gulf water. You may stop for a family of beachgoers crossing the road, but never for traffic lights.

Visitors take part in swimming, kayaking, fishing, recreational diving, eco-tours or just plain old relaxing with a beach chair and a good book. When it comes to supper time, if you haven’t caught your own dinner, you can visit one of the many restaurants, either on the beach or across the street.

Nature lovers relish the bird watching and aquatic animals. Look for bald eagles in the winter months and loggerhead turtle hatchlings in the late summer. Dolphins dive through the waves all year long. Visitors can also explore the shops of Mexico Beach for souvenirs, artwork, antiques and fine clothing. For golf enthusiasts, St. Joseph’s Bay Country Club, just to the east of Port St. Joe, offers 18 holes of challenging play.

The 12 residential lots are on Cape San Blas which is located between Port St. Joe and Apalachicola and has been called one of America’s “Top 10 Beaches.” Several of the lots are located directly on the Gulf of Mexico amidst spectacular sand dunes and have breathtaking views of the aquamarine water that is unique to the Florida Panhandle.

“For someone looking for a good buy on a vacation get-away, business retreat or resort rental property, the condominiums and facilities at Tranquil Harbour offer an extraordinary opportunity to the discriminating buyer to purchase luxurious and picturesque accommodations on Florida’s Emerald Coast,” said William Bone, president of The National Auction Group, Inc.

The properties will be open for inspection by appointment beginning April 17th from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. by calling 1-800-503-0010 or (256) 547-3434. Beginning April 17th, call on site at (256) 504-5201 and (256) 504-6858. Those bidding on the condominium units will be required to pay 10% on auction day and must have $5,000 in certified funds for each two bedroom unit; $10,000 for three-bedroom units and $15,000 for the four-bedroom units. The Gulf front and Gulf-view lots will require $5,000 each. The auction will take place at Tranquil Harbor which is located at 101 36th Street in Mexico Beach.

Click Here for a printable fact sheet

Breakers get Drunk, Trash Our Beaches

The Tourist Development Council was appalled Tuesday at their regularly scheduled board meeting by the pictures of trash all along our beaches taken a mere 24 hours before. Andy Phillips rode about a 5 mile stretch Sunday and Monday cataloging how the College Spring Break crowd values our beaches. I was appalled as well, but not surprised.

Same argument, different year. I hear you businesses that rely on these numbers, but I just can’t help but be disgusted at how they completely disregard our environment. What’s that you say? A few bad apples don’t ruin the whole bushell? Well, it’s more than just a few, and they may not ruin our beach, but it sure is nasty, nasty indeed.

The TDC members were disgusted too.

As Phillips flipped through the slideshow, you could hear audience members ghasp. Some of the pictures were simply unreal in the concentration of the trash. Our white sand was peppered with the likes of blue, white and red beer cans, boxes and bottles.

One TDC member, Mike Bennett said “trash is good, it means there are people on our beaches.” Good point, Mike, but trash on our beaches is never good. If there is this much out there, then someone isn’t doing their job.

Kirk Lancaster, from KeepTheBeachClean.com was in attendance with 10 college kids from Michigan who care enough about the environment to actually spend their spring break time on the beach handing out plastic bags and picking up after their drunken peers. Brianna Drake shared in the meeting that she had expected to clean up a mess, but didn’t expect it to be this bad. One of the other things she was surprised to find was a complete lack of any sort of “keep the beach clean” marketing campaign. She expressed that the absence of such marketing probably reinforces to the college kids that they can just drop their trash where they please and that it will be cleaned up for them to use the beach again the next day. This is the wrong message and we have to be proactive in informing that we expect nothing less of visitors to our beach to clean up after themselves and put trash in its place.

Of course, this is all fine and dandy, but if the cans are overflowing, where are they supposed to put their empty cans and boxes? The TDC moved to immediately place an additional 400 blue trash receptacles along the beach, almost doubling the number along our shores. This will help, but isn’t enough. Also discussed was creating “stations” at each beach access that had basic information on keeping the beach clean and a trash bag dispenser that would be replenished daily, or as needed. These would also be placed at resorts with the bags supplied for the resorts to replenish.

Brianna explained that many of the breakers her crew encountered were more than willing to take plastic bags and use them.

Discussed also was fining resorts and hotels if they didn’t keep their stretch of the beach clean. “The Hiltons do a great job of keeping their beach clean at the Holiday Inn,” said Phillips, “everyday by 6 pm, when all the spring breakers are gone, their beach is clean.” Most of the other “hot-spots” are still filthy. The Holiday Inn has their own crews out all day doing maintenance clean-ups and does a final sweep in the evening.

Yonnie Patronis said in every high traffic beach he has visited around the world, there has always been crews throughout the day cleaning up the beach. “This isn’t just something we can do once a week, or even once a day, we’ve got to have someone out there all the time.”

Whatever the solution is, we’ve got to pump some more money into this. This isn’t a year ’round problem, it is concentrated during the spring break period, the highest traffic period being only two weeks long.

The motion was made and approved to increase the funding to the beach maintenance program from $150k to $250k and use the increase to add the additional 400 barrels, draft a proposal for a keep the beach clean campaign, notify properties that they are launching a new initiative and need cooperation, and begin an awareness campaign on the beach.

In other news from the meeting, the TDC is quite unhappy with YPartnership and their seemingly inability to create a “wow” campaign. Two months ago, I attended a Marketing Committee meeting and it was as if the Agency showed up to guide us to create the ideas. I was astonished at how little they had brought to the table.

TDC Approves Resolution for 5th Cent Bed Tax Use

In what was quite possibly the quickest TDC meeting that I’ve ever attended, the Panama City Beach Tourist Development Council unanimously (with the exception of Buddy Wilkes – who is out of the country) approved the adopted resolution to the use of the 5th cent of the bed tax. The tax increase is up for vote by the Bay County Commissioners tomorrow morning.

Florida statute mandates that TDC money levied through bed tax collections cannot be used “seat-guarantees”, but can be used for marketing purposes. Spefically with the application proposed, the money will be used for cooperative advertising with the low cost airlines targeting potential visitors to our area that would use the low cost carrier(s) that would fly into our new airport. If the increase in approved tomorrow this will allow 15 months of time to market to future potential feeder markets and hopefully give a low-cost carrier additional incentive and comfort in coming to the new Panama City Bay County International Airport.

Bay County Commissioner Mike Nelson, who is also a member of the Tourist Development Council said that he thought this would be much more acceptable to the County Commission.

One of the stipulations to the resolution is that at the end of 5 years, the TDC would need to come back to the County Commission to vote on the 5th cent again, otherwise, it would expire.

Bed Tax Collector's Office to Get 2 More Full-Timers

Today’s TDC meeting resulted in the Bay County Clerk receiving approval for increased funding to pay for 2 additional full time staff to help in the collection efforts of the Bed Tax. Currently there is one full time person dedicated to this effort. Recently there has been much debate on whether to increase the bed tax from 4 to 5 cents with the increase from 3 to 4 cents being passed just four weeks ago.

One of the huge debates was based on the current collection methods of the bed tax and how revenues could be substantially increased if collection methods were made more efficient and work was done to see who wasn’t paying. Bill Kinsaul, Clerk of the Courts, this morning stated that this effort was just too large for one person, but with the addition of two others full time that they could dedicate man-power to spend time “in the field” doing audits and investigating those not paying.

Also, with the increased funding they will make software improvements that will allow them better reporting, analytics and overall data streamlining. The current funding was 2% of the 3 cents levied and it was increased to 3% or the 4 cents levied.

Emerald Coast Cruizin reported on the success of their event noting that 3,009 vehicles registered for the show this year. This number is 748 more than last year (2007) or an astounding 33% increase. In 2005, when this event first started, 535 cars registered indicating a tremendous growth and popularity. This is a family-friendly event that brings people from all over the place and provides a clean environment to bring the kids, be outside and have a great time. I brought my boys this past year and they loved walking arond and looking at all the cars.

Dually impressive was the show tickets bought; 6,742 tickets were sold. When combining the number of attendees through ticket sales and attendance by registrants (averaging 2 per car) the total event attendance rang in at 12,760 people over the whole week.

Alabama was the largest feeder state at 581 registrants with Louisiana, then Georgia and Mississippi coming in next at 542, 391, 371, respectively.

Now, if I can say something, coming from Jason and not Panama City Beach, PCBDaily, or whatever other hat I may wear: We need to support this event. Whether it be through giving them more money from the CVB, local businesses buying ads and contributing sponsorship dollars or what, we have to come together as a community on this. This is one of the only family events that you can bring the kids, have some festival food and walk around in the beautiful November weather Panama City Beach is so well known for. Plus, it is cheap. I had the unique opportunity to play a small role in this event this past year and witnessed local businesses shying away from any type of monetary support stating that they would see the business from this event anyway, why should they pay for an ad or sponsorship at some nominal level. That’s just ridiculous. Why wouldn’t you support something like this if you are given the chance. You wouldn’t work for free, would you? Well, that’s what the Parishes have been doing. In fact, it cost them money to put on the event – out of their own pocket! Next year, do the right thing and support this event. I’ll get off my soapbox now.

The Visual Arts Center will be hosting an exhibit titled Norman Rockwell’s America this summer from 6/12/09 to 8/9/09 (8 weeks). Norman Rockwell’s art was often critisized in its time for portraying an America that was in essence a fairy tale, in that the scenes that he painted were not realistic or could not really be found in America. Well, artist (please forgive me, I didn’t get his name!) noticed in many of his photographs that he was indeed capturing America as Norman Rockwell saw it. The exhibit this summer will feature his work, which are modern day interpretations of popular peices from Norman Rockwell. And, the real treat is that they will be right next to the original Rockwell peices that they are interpretted from. Many of these peices have never been on loan out from their owners for public viewing. I personally think this is a huge addition to what our summer visitors can do while they are here, and I was a little dissappointed in the level of support that the TDC showed.

Susan Estler and Dan Rowe underscored their emphasis on family spring break in the spring break marketing efforts and made mention of a few national media plugs discussing this point, including an AP article written and an upcoming interview with the Atlanta Journal Constitution. I’m very interested to see the outcome as we are just weeks away before the spring break gates flood open.

New Summer Marketing Campaign to Brand "FUN"

“Best dang beach vacation ever. Period.” – Funculator – Funtastic – These are some of the ideas that came out of the brain-storming session yesterday with regard to the summer marketing campaign. The “brand” for this summer is FUN with an emphasis on creating the perception of value when vacationing on Panama City Beach.

Last year’s Summer White Sale, touted as wildly successful was surely a media ploy in that the actual results were not actually wet with success, but the image of the whole campaign from a PR perspective certainly was. Featured in the likes of the New York Times and other coveted news publications, the estimated value in PR placement was in the hundreds of thousands. However, the actual deals were nothing to call home to mom about. As pointed out by Bryan Durta, “The deals that were to be had were nothing more than what you could find on the rack cards or local discount books.”

This year the marketing committee wanted to place an emphasis on value enhancement rather than discounts. The idea is to create incentives that didn’t give the appearance that we were a discount location that would in turn devalue our image. By placing an emphasis on increased value, i.e. getting more for your money, instead of saying 20% off, we look bettter.

I agree with this, but the only question, and this resounded in the room yesterday, was how do we do this and give (as Hoot Crawford so famously put) everyone a fair shake. What is the best strategy for being sure everyone can benefit from this outside of just a few select hoteliers, attractions and restaurants? Well, that seemed to be the presiding issue and concern. In fact, for quite some time, there was quite a bit of discussion as to exactly how to handle this very issue until Marty McDaniel stepped in.

Marty is the new Director of the TDC and kindly reminded everyone that the details are just the details – we still need a big boom, a hook that people will grab on to and follow to Panama City Beach. We’ve got to have a very powerful message that will capture the attention of visitors and potential visitors. Whatever we do has to be revolutionary. If we can come with something that is WOW, it will work.

YPartnership wanted to brand “FUN”, with maybe a Funculator on the main page of the visitpanamacitybeach.com web site that could calculate how much ‘fun’ you would have on your trip here. The idea is to emphasize more fun, more beach, more entertainment, more summer for you, etc.

At the end of the meeting, YPartnerhship left with some ideas as to what direction we want to go and hopefully enough amunition to come back with something great, because we need it.

Ideas for the New Panama City Beach Web Site

The new web site for Panama City Beach should be pretty sweet. Ok, now that I’ve secured my insecurity regarding my terminal uncoolness, lets get right down to it.

Participants heralded from all walks of the hospitality and tourism industry in PCB. The audience was spotted with community leaders such as Jack Bishop and Buddy Wilkes and the little guys such as individual condo owners, and was chaired by Jennifer Barbee from JBInc.

The idea behind the meeting was to brainstorm with the local tourism industry on what they liked and disliked about the current web site and what their expecations were with the new web site.

Some of the ideas were:

Come up with a categorization process or criteria for events posted on the events calendar. CJ Ryan had mentioned that there is a distinct difference between events and specials and that should be discerned on the calender. There was actually a lot of discussion about the calender. I agree with CJ, and disagree at the same time. I think there should be a discernment between events and specials (meaning 2 for 1 drinks and where ever), but I don’t see any reason why they should not be on the same calendar. I think anything dated should be in the same place so the user doesn’t have to look in multiple places to see what is happening on what date.
One of the participants suggested having a Craig’s List of sorts for PCB where travelers could post their needs and resorts could respond. I don’t see how this would work, logistically.
Using Niche content – users would arrive at the site and gently be asked a series of questions so the site could get a feel for who they are. After a few questions, the user would be directed to a series of custom pages that would be populated based on the answers to their questions. I’ve seen this before and it is a very powerful way of guiding the user to the parts of the web site that would best convert the user into money. These processes usually include pretty detailed site flow traffic. This would enable us to tweak all the varying elements of the site to make the presentation more effective. We need to be moving in this direction.
Part of the previous section includes feeding the user accommodations options based on their input. Other suggestions included a way for people to search by varying criteria such as “indoor pool”, or “pet friendly”, etc.
There was discussion about offering package deals
The audience talked about having an online booking engine. There are good arguments for and against this as it effects the varying aspects of the local tourism industry in myriad ways. Jennifer ultimately said that having a booking engine on the actual destination site historically hasn’t been real effective but was willing to explore that option further.
It was discussed to tailor the events calendar based on user input – again, going back to the Niche content.
Discussed was user-derived content such as photos, e cards and video. This could possibly include a user generated content community. Another local site has done this and the execution was done very well. I think this is a necessity as we move forward. We need to seriously consider having a user community where people can create profiles, chat in forums, IM each other, and post pictures and video. It wouldn’t be very difficult to implement a verification, screening, or moderation process to ensure that less favorable or unsuitable material wouldn’t make it live. People are dying to post their videos and picture of the beach in a place that others that share their same passion can view them. The trick is marketing the whoopsidoodle out of it and consistency.
Of course, the whole site would need to be set up with RSS, with feeds specific to all the varying categories of content, maybe even custom feeds generated on the fly based on user input (is that possible? surely some genius can figure that out).
Online chat was suggested where visitors could chat with a live person about the area.
Video based promotion and a web cam. The TDC/CVB currently has a web cam but is cannot be viewed from the visitpanamacitybeach.com web site, it goes through WeatherBug, or something like that. Also talked about was “man-on-the-street” video covering happenings in Panama City Beach. This is great, but one has to be careful to not make it TOO “man-on-the-street”. The News Herald is guilty of often posting videos that are so terrible that you can’t hardly tell what they are saying. Sorry NH, but you’ve got to buy a better video camera, a microphone, and some skills! I still love you guys though.
Capability for the vendors to login and manipulate their information on the site, i.e. pictures, copy, specials, etc.
Continue meeting in workshops to keep up with industry needs.

All in all, there were some great ideas and a good platform has been made for a great web site. Jenn Barbee is sharp and I’m excited to see what we get.

Download her presentation (3.9mb)

TDC Meeting Agenda – Beach Renourishment, PCB Fest and More.

Up for discussion and approval will be the funding for the Panama City Beach Renourishment Engineering and Modeling Report, Consider for Approval Panama City Beach Turtle Watch Program Description and Budget for 2009, and an update on the Panama City Beach Seafood, Music and Wine Festival. I assume they’ll be talking about this year and what’s planned for next year.

The full agenda is below, or you can download the pdf.

AGENDA

COMBINED BOARD MEETING
Bay County Tourist Development Council
Panama City Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau, Inc.
Panama City Beach
Monday, January 12, 2009 1:00 p.m. Council Room, PCB City Hall

I. CALL MEETING TO ORDER

II. ROLL CALL

A.    Invocation
B.    Pledge of Allegiance
C.    Approve Minutes From the December 9, 2008 Meeting

III. REQUESTS TO ADDRESS THE BOARD ON AGENDA ITEMS (3 Minutes)

IV. UPDATE ON BED TAX COLLECTIONS, Ms. Charlene Honnen, Tourist Development Tax Specialist

V. ELECTION OF OFFICERS

A.    Chairman of the Board
B.    Vice Chairman of the Board
C.    Secretary/Treasurer of the Board

VI. BOARD ACTION ITEMS

A.    Discuss and Consider for Approval CVB/TDC Financial Statements Dated September 30, 2008, and October 31, 2008, Mr. Dan Rowe, President
B.    Discuss and Consider for Approval Scope of Work and Fee Proposal for Panama City Beach Renourishment Engineering and Modeling Report, Coastal Planning & Engineering, Mrs. Lisa Armbruster, Sustainable Beaches, LLC
C.    Discuss and Consider for Approval Panama City Beach Turtle Watch Program Description and Budget for 2009, St. Andrew Bay Resource Management Association, Mrs. Lisa Armbruster, Sustainable Beaches, LLC
D.    Discuss and Consider for Approval Coastal Planning & Engineering Invoice #81242 and Invoice #81243, Mr. Dan Rowe, President

VII. BOARD DISCUSSION ITEMS

A. Update on the 2008 Panama City Beach Seafood, Wine & Music Festival, Mr. Jack Bishop, Eventertainment, LLC
B. Update on Marketing Activities, Ms. Susan Estler, VP of Marketing

VIII. PRESIDENT’S REPORT

IX. AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

X. ADJOURNMENT