TDC Meeting – To Discuss Bed Tax Collection Allocation

On the agenda for the regularly scheduled TDC/CVB combined meeting for Tuesday, March 10 at 9 am is an update on the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour, and the review of allocation for the Tourism Bed Tax Collection. Hmm, I wonder what that means.

You can download the agenda here. Or, you can view it below:

AGENDA

COMBINED BOARD MEETING
Bay County Tourist Development Council
Panama City Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau, Inc.
Panama City Beach
Tuesday, March 10, 2009 9:00 a.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 February 10, 2009, and February 16, 2009 Meetings

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. PRESENTATIONS

A. Update on AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour, Ms. Alison Shapiro, PR Manager, AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour

VI. BOARD ACTION ITEMS

A. Discuss and Consider for Approval Financial Statements Dated January 31, 2009, Mr. Dan Rowe, President
B. Discuss and Consider for Approval Coastal Planning & Engineering Invoice #90214, Invoice #90220, and Invoice #90267, Mr. Dan Rowe, President

VII. BOARD DISCUSSION ITEMS

A. Review of Allocation of the Tourist Development Tax, Mr. Dan Rowe, President

VIII. PRESIDENT’S REPORT

IX. CHAIRMAN’S REPORT

X. AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

XI. ADJOURNMENT

Panama City Beach Spring Break more Family Friendly than Ever

Spring Break 2009 on Panama City Beach will be more family friendly with regards to outgoing marketing efforts than it has been in several years, if ever. This year, there is a greater emphasis on attracting families to our destination and activities planned reflect trying to cater to this market.

Each year tens of thousands of spring breakers descend on our beaches to enjoy great weather, shopping and tons of activities that our area’s businesses put on for this highly consumptive crowd. This business is essential to the primary industry in our area, tourism. Local businesses depend on this to jump start their revenue for the year. It has been argued in the past that families have greater spending potential than college kids, therefore have a greater capability in pumping money into our local economy. I totally agree with this, but I don’t agree that we can just shut down college spring break and expect the families to just show up.

This process must be gradual and will take time, but the effects will be lasting. Starting this year, the Panama City Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau is spending money on marketing to the family demographic. In the next three years, we’ll see this category trend in the same direction that will ultimately lead to a family friendly destination where parents will feel safe bring their kids to the beach again. Now, that’s not to say that we won’t see college kids doing keg stands on the beach any more, but the level of occurrence will be less.

With the growth and fertilization of Pier Park, finally families actually have something to do here in Panama City Beach. In addition, activities are springing up left and right, with the help and creativity of the CVB’s staff. I frequently receive emails from Susan Estler, Director of Marketing for the Panama City Beach’s Convention and Visitor’s Bureau of great ides that they are coming up with to help tell the nation about our area. They are moving in the right direction with momentum picking up each week.

Two weeks ago, Daytime, a show geared towards daily lifestyles and entertainment content was in Panama City Beach for a long weekend experiencing everything from para-sailing to shopping and dining in our area. With cameras in tow they braved the chilly weather with one of their main hosts, Cyndi Edwards. Aired on their network will be five 3-5 minute segments that will serve as an expose of what makes Panama City Beach a great place to vacation.

Also new this year is an expansive campaign with Southern Living including an online sweepstakes driving families to our shores, weekly radio “Beach Report” on stations throughout the southeast and a series of family Focus Concerts at Aaron Bessant Park (tentative right now, but should have more details soon).

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.

TDC Meeting Agenda – Discuss Bed Tax Collections, Sports Marketing

Tuesday’s combined Panama City Beach Tourist Development Council/Convention and Visitors Bureau (TDC/CVB) should be a good one. With presentations from Ellen Killough of the Visual Arts Center and Emerald Coast Cruizin, we should have a better idea of how some events went last year and what we are to expect this year.

The four board action items include consideration for approval the financial statements, Coastal Planning and Engineering Invoices, funding for the Northwest Florida Fly-in Visitor Survey, and enhancements to the Clerk of the Court’s Tourist Development Tax.

We’ll also see an update on Sports Marketing Activities and regular marketing activities, along with an update on the new web site.

You can download the agenda here, or view it below.

AGENDA

COMBINED BOARD MEETING
Bay County Tourist Development Council
Panama City Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau, Inc.
Panama City Beach
Tuesday, February 10, 2009 9:00 a.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 17, 2008, and January 12, 2009 Meetings

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. PRESENTATIONS

A. Visual Arts Center, Ms. Ellen Killough, Executive Director
B. Emerald Coast Cruizin’ Event, Mr. Robert Parrish

VI. BOARD ACTION ITEMS

A.    Discuss and Consider for Approval CVB/TDC Financial Statements Dated November 30, 2008, and December 31, 2008, Mr. Dan Rowe, President
B.    Discuss and Consider for Approval Coastal Planning & Engineering Invoice #90118, Invoice #90119, and Invoice #90143, Mr. Dan Rowe, President
C.    Discuss and Consider for Approval Funding the Northwest Florida Fly-In Visitor Survey, Mr. Dan Rowe, President
D.    Discuss and Consider for Approval Enhancements to the Clerk of the Court’s Tourist Development Tax Collection Efforts, Mr. Bill Kinsaul, Clerk of the Court

VII. BOARD DISCUSSION ITEMS

A. Update on Sports Marketing Activities, Mr. Richard Sanders, VP of Sports Marketing
B. Update on Marketing Activities, Ms. Susan Estler, VP of Marketing

VIII. PRESIDENT’S REPORT

IX. CHAIRMAN’S REPORT

X. AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

XI. ADJOURNMENT

Bring on the hike

In response too a letter to the News Herald editor on Sunday January 11th:

For years, the Bay County Tourist Development Council has discussed increasing the bed tax from 3 cents to 5 cents, and finally the motion was made and passed to do so. The timing couldn’t be more perfect. Now more than ever we need to be using every resource possible to increase awareness of our destination. With increased inventory and overall traffic down, now more than ever we need to be sure that vacationers and tourists alike know that our little slice of paradise is here waiting for their arrival. Thus, when the Bay County Commission meets January 20 to give final consideration to the issue, I urge a “YES” vote to increase the bed tax collection from 3 cents to 5 cents.

The idea of raising taxes during a recession is gut-wrenching for some, but for this specifically, there is no reason to puke – we’re only talking about 2 percent! And, we’re not talking about 2% on hundreds of thousands of dollars, the average rate increase a visitor to our area would experience is around $20. $20! Opponents make this increase into a huge number that would serve catastrophic results to our area during an economically failing time. This just isn’t true.

Look, I don’t like taxes being raised as much as the next guy, but we have a growing area and are on the cusp of being nationally and even internationally recognized as a world-class desination and we need to be sure that we are financially prepared to take full advantage of this. Furthermore, our competition has higher overall revenue/visitor AND a higher bed tax, not to mention lifeguards (a whole ‘nother can of worms) putting them at a competitive advantage. I’m not even mentioning the other destinations in other parts of the country that have a higher bed tax affording them great marketing and beautification capability.

The author in the letter states that we should promote that we are the lowest bed tax collector. I can see the ad now: “Extra, Extra, read all about it! Panama City Beach is offering $20 discount for every $1,000 spent – Vacation in Sunny Panama City Beach Florida and save an Andrew Jackson that won’t even take you to the Grande Movie Theatre anymore.” Yea, real clever, that’ll work. (please note the sarcasm)

As a destination we have to look at this as a business decision. This is not emotional. We simply have to analyze the balance of risk versus reward. If the reward is greater than the risk, we need to increase the bed tax – and in this case, the reward far outweighs the risk. We stand to gain many more visitors to our area by increasing the bed tax, ergo increasing our ability to enhance our visibility to the vacation traveler than we stand to lose from an average increase of $20 per 1 week stay. You always have to spend money to make money – anyone that is a business owner knows that. I mean, this is a no-brainer.

Recently it was estimated that the new airport will bring approximately 500,000 new visitors to our area. There are varying factors in making that estimation a reality. One of those factors is ensuring that travelers in the cities that will have direct flights to PCB know about us. Direct flights are great, but you have to MARKET to those visitors or they won’t even know the flights are available. Marketing is expensive – very expensive, and we need to have a dominant presence in our new feeder markets. People don’t realize how much an infusion of 500,000 NEW visitors to our area would change the dynamics of our local economy. Everything here would pick up – restaurants would stay at capacity during peak seasons, there would be long lines at the movie theatre, you would have to search for a parking spot at your resort, etc. And, yes, these are good things as it will mean our area is booming! That’s right, I said it – booming. And that’s just with the airport.

2008 was a pretty good year for events. Panama City Beach has grown tremendously and is truly on the path to becoming a real destination resort town. With Pier Park alone, we have been placed on a map that we’ve never before been on. In addition, with the great events that we had last year and the promise of more to come this year, we will become a stronger destination each year in the future. We need to upgrade our facilities. We can’t keep doing the same thing year after year and expect the same results. There was a quote in Rowland’s first issue of 850, which debuted last fall: “If you are doing the same thing this year you were doing 5 years ago, you’ll be out of business in 2 years.”

The quote said “out of business,” “not your business will be slow,” or “you won’t be doing that good,” but out of business. We cannot go out of business in Panama City Beach. Our whole local economy depends on it. Sure it would be great to have some other industry here that supported us in addition to tourism, but there isn’t, and we need tourists to come to our area. We need them!

I totally agree that a complete and total overhaul needs to be done on the current collection methods. One person managing the collecitons and tracking down those who aren’t paying just isn’t enough. I mean, just look at the IRS? They employ like 700 billion people. We need to have a team working on our local bed tax collection – funding cannot be an issue, it needs to be worked into the current operational budget – this is one area we can’t skimp on. This is just another risk versus reward scenario. The funds that we will be able to collect will more than pay for the increase in operational budget and we will have a more efficient system that is ready to handle future growth.

Furthermore, we need to enforce the tax collection with swift and strict consequences if you do not pay. The criminal justice system uses deterents to persuade criminals to not commit crime – if you steal a car, you go to jail for X years. So, if you don’t pay your bed tax, you are fined $1,000 for the first infraction, $2,500 for the second infraction, and $10,000 for the third infraction. If you don’t pay your fine, a temporary injunction will be placed on your business license and you will not be allowed to operate. If you are not a business, a lien is placed on your property. Sounds severe? You bet, but some people need the threat of consequence in order to obey the rules. Sad isn’t it?

Another part of our area that is lacking and in need of improvement is our beach sporting facilities. We have been counseled by Richard Sanders, our Director of Sports Marketing that as other destinations are spending millions in improving their sporting facilities they are becoming a more attractive tournament location for their events. These events pump millions into our economy every season and if they go away, we will hurt. If you don’t beleive me, just wait and see – this isn’t something we can overlook. Not to mention that we were counseled by an independent third party that an increase in facilities and sports infrastructure was required to remain competitive and that if something wasn’t done immediately, we could be at risk of losing events now.

The author of the letter to the editor mentions that if the need was so great for increased sporting facilities then it would be a money-making opportunity for a private developer, therefore seemingly disqualifying this as a valid need. Now, this is just ignorant and plain untrue. What the author fails to recognize is that the increase sporting facilities will not benefit one entity directly (a developer, etc.), but our destination as a whole, therefore it would NOT be a good money-making opportunity for a developer. In fact, a developer wouldn’t touch this with a 20 foot pole – why would he? Public sporting facilties should not be privatized if they effect a destination as a whole.

Commissioners, I urge you to consider the future of Bay County in your decision tomorrow morning. From one business owner to another, we need to make a good business decision and provide a vehicle to generate more money to grow our area. We have an opportunity to give our area a shot in the arm that almost no other destination has at this time. We can continue to grow, thrive and bring our children into an area that we are all proud of, an area that we grew through our good business decisions, an area that is alive because we chose for it to be, or we can watch it slowly wither away and die. This is a long term decision and we need to think about our future.

At tomorrow’s meeting I urge you to vote yes for the increase in bed tax from 3 cents to 5 cents.

SUNCARD Signup Friday, January 16

Panama City Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau To Host Winter Guest “SUNCARD” Sign-Up on Friday, January 16

SunCard Program Caters to Winter Residents by Providing Discounts and Offers at Participating Beach Businesses.

Panama City Beach, Fla. – The Panama City Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau will once again host its Winter Resident SunCard sign-up day on Friday, January 16th offering winter resident’s complimentary coffee and donuts while they register for the SunCard.

Hosted by the Convention and Visitors Bureau, winter residents from Canada, the Midwest, Northeast and other parts of the United States will be treated to complimentary coffee and donuts from 9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. on Friday, January 16th. The Visitor Information Center is located at the corner of Hwy 98 and Hwy 79 in Panama City Beach. Additional complimentary coffee & donut days are scheduled for January 30th, February 13th & February 27th.

Through March 30th, Convention and Visitors Bureau personnel are on-hand to issue the official Winter Resident “SunCard” to new winter residents and repeat winter residents during regular business hours, Monday through Sunday, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Panama City Beach winter residents can use their free SunCard throughout the area for value added programs and discounts at participating restaurants, hotels, and other area attractions and events.

“The purpose of this program is to extend a warm welcome to all our winter residents and let them know how much we appreciate them here in Panama City Beach,” stated Dan Rowe, President and CEO of the Panama City Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau. “We look forward to rolling out the welcome mat on Friday to our seasonal guests.”

The annual SunCard program will run through March 30, 2009.

For more information, go to visitpanamacitybeach.com or call 850-233-5070.

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 Narrows Pool Down to Three Website Companies

Friday, during a special workshop the TDC’s Interactive Committee, Marty McDaniel and Buddy Wilkes, whittled the 6 companies that submitted Requests for Qualifications (RFQ) down to their top three.

The six companies that submitted RFQ’s are as follows:

Simple View Inc.
Jennifer Barbee Inc.
Miles Media
Cyber Sytes
The 543 Group
Ypartnership

Susan Estler, VP of Marketing for the CVB recommended Simple View, Jennifer Barbee, and Miles Media as the top three that had the capability and capacity to handle the interactive needs of Panama City Beach.

According to Ms. Estler, Simple View had excellent references. All of their existing clients were extremely satisfied with their performance, and to date, Simple View has yet to lose a client. Their client list spans from Ft. Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Scottsdale, Park City, and tons more. One of the more important issues discussed was the database that will be amassed with this new interactive initiative, and Simple View assured us that the database that is created using our initiatives will, indeed, be ours (well, the CVB’s). This is a huge issue with our current agency, Miles Media, which we’ll discuss in a moment.

Second on Ms. Estler’s recommendation list was Jennifer Barbee, Inc. Jennifer Barbee is a newly formed interactive marketing agency that comes from very well developed roots. Jennifer’s position was secured in this list because of her background with USDM, who is considered somewhat the industry standard in interactive marketing. The database issue is not existent as the data amassed will belong to the CVB. As an added bonus, Barbee uses the same database system as the CVB, further easing the movement of data from the agency to the CVB. Her experience and work portfolio is in line with what the CVB is looking for, in fact, so much so, that the only reason she is in second is because of her company being in its infancy.

The third on the list was Miles Media. Miles Media is the current interactive agency holding the reigns of the CVB web site, VisitPanamaCityBeach.com, and there are several issues with this relationship, with the major issue being who controls the database. Marty McDaniel and Buddy Wilkes both agreed that in the past, Miles Media has been very uncooperative in sharing the database that the Panama City Beach CVB marketing efforts has generated. That is to say, they will not let us have the database that, essentially, we paid for through our marketing efforts that they deployed. Miles Media’s excuse is that all of the user data that all of their campaigns generates is shared with the Visit Florida database and that once it enters that database, it belongs to that “domain”, and can’t be given out to individual clients. I would agree, that the Panama City Beach CVB should not be given access to a database that includes data from campaigns or efforts that are other than their own, however (and this is a big however), there is no reason why Miles Media can’t distinguish the difference between “our” data and the data of someone else’s marketing efforts. Further more, if they are submitting the data to some “master” database, then there is no reason that they can’t duplicate “our” data so as to keep it segregated. If they can’t, I would submit that that is their problem, not ours, and they just need to figure it out. As the contact database administrator of over 750,000 contacts, I can assure you that if I told the principles of my company that I can’t distinguish the difference between different databases within the database, I would have been fired a long time ago.

There are nifty things called computers and programs that allow people to do cool things like organize data however you want, need, or desire to based on whatever you want.

As indicated by the committee members, the database issue in the past with Miles Media has been unsolvable. The committee felt that moving forward, Miles Media would continue to be unwilling to change their approach on this issue. The committee members decided that it would be prudent to ask the question up front whether Miles Media would be willing to share with the Panama City Beach CVB the database their marketing efforts generate, and if the answer was still no, they would be moved to position 4, and have virtually no chance on continuing to be the interactive agency of record. At this point, Cyber Sytes would replace Miles Media in position and move to position three.

You don’t have to be told that it was decided that Cyber Sytes would be in position four. It was agreed upon by all present that Cyber Sytes has a very talented team and in the last two years, they have made very positive movement by way of bringing on talented graphics arts staff and have grown professionally and artistically. They have become virtually THE web design firm in Bay County, and have been recognized for this. However, the committee agreed, they just didn’t think Cyber Sytes was “ready” for the CVB.

The process moving forward will include a special meeting to be called sometime in between next Wednesday’s meeting (agenda forthcoming) and the next scheduled meeting to hear presentations from the top two agency picks, Simple View, Inc., and Jennifer Barbee, Inc.

I will, of course, be covering these meetings, so stay tuned.

TDC Director Dan Rowe to Host Friday at the Beach

Panama City Beach, FL (September 2, 2008)— On Friday, September 12th, join Dan Rowe, Executive Director of the TDC/CVB, at the Chamber’s monthly Friday at the Beach for a special presentation on the 2009 Convention & Visitors Bureau Marketing Initiative. Net-working at the event, held at Edgewater Beach Resort, begins at 7:30 am with the presentation running from 8:00 to 9:00 am. This Friday at the Beach is sponsored by Edward Jones Investments, Comcast and Thunder Beach Productions.

Friday at the Beach is designed to share ideas and opportunities that will affect the beaches area and local businesses. Each program presents community and business leaders in a casual, “face-to-face” setting. This event is open to the public at no charge, however RSVP is required. Please contact Bertie Reynolds or Joyce Kidd at The Greater Panama City Beaches Chamber of Commerce, at (850) 235-1159.

TDC ditches their brains, gets bested by competition

Perhaps this post isn’t necesary, but I feel it prudent to underscore Bryan’s comments and insight into the current actions of the TDC.

An interesting point is brought up, and that point is: why are we just now discussing the budget?

We had all summer with little or almost no activity regarding public TDC meetings. It seems that there was ample time to discuss these issues and more. Is there a reason the TDC meetings come virtually to a halt during the summer months? This is the time we need to be discussing everything and making changes on the fly as needed.

Continue reading “TDC ditches their brains, gets bested by competition” →