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)

Strategic Planning Session for new Panama City Beach web site

The Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Tourist Development Council has retained the services of Jennifer Barbee Inc. to build the new VisitPanamaCityBeach.com web site. Thursday, January 8th from 1 to 3 pm a public meeting will be held at the Bay Point Marriott with representatives from JB Inc. and YPartnership to solicit public input.

I’ve added this to the calendar in the sidebar.

You can be sure I’ll be there.

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

TDC to Discuss Bed Tax Increase on Wednesday – Agenda

Wednesday, the Tourist Development Council will discuss the possible bed tax increase.

The TDC will hear a presentation from Marty McDaniel, the chairman of the Revenue Enhancement Committee and Peter Yesawich from YPartnerhship.

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

Special Called Meeting

AGENDA

COMBINED BOARD MEETING

Bay County Tourist Development Council

Panama City Beach Convention &Visitors Bureau, Inc.

Panama City Beach

Wednesday, December 17, 2008 1:00 p.m. Council Room, PCB City Hall

I. CALL MEETING TO ORDER

II. ROLL CALL

A. Invocation

B. Pledge of Allegiance

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

IV. PRESENTATIONS

A. Presentation of the Recommendations from the Revenue Enhancement Committee, Mr. Marty McDaniel, Chairman, Revenue Enhancement Committee

1. Presentation of the Trends and Status of Destination Marketing, Mr. Peter Yesawich, YPartnership

2. Presentation of Capital Projects, Mr. Dan Rowe, President

B. Presentation by Mexico Beach Community Development Council, Mrs. Lynn Marshall, President

V. BOARD DISCUSSION

VI. AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

VII. BOARD ACTION

VIII. ADJOURNMENT

Cruizin Hot Rods Roaring Through Panama City Beach

The monster motors are loud, very loud. The 25 inch slicks on the back barely grip the pavement under the strain of 500 horses of power under some of the hoods of Panama City Beach’s visitors this weekend.

Robert “Rakes” Parish said that we’ll see over 3000 cars at the Emerald Coast Cruizin Classic Car Show tomorrow. “You won’t be able to move, there will be cars lined up with only five feet apart filling up this entire field,” said Tommy with TCG Productions, the sound and light manager on site this weekend.

“We have people from all over, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kansas, Missouri, Texas, Illinois, everywhere to come to this show,” said Parish, “people come from all over to show off their hot rods.”

The hot rods are everywhere, and their owners, typically middle aged consumers with good incomes are filling up our condos, hotels and restaurants. They are driving money into our economy during one of the slowest weekends of the year, and notably one of the most beautiful.

Many of these cars have 10’s of thousands of dollars invested in them with everything from custom engines, custom body work, to fully restored classics.

“Last year was a huge success with over 50 cars that sold at auction,” said Rap Peavy, owner of Big Boys Toys on Thomas Drive, across from the Navy Base, “this year, as of right now, we have over 80 cars registered. We expect more to show up tomorrow.”

Show activities around the beach have been going on all week with tomorrow to be the huge show. The gates open early in the morning and the action will be taking place all day.

I’ll be out there, be sure to say high if you see me. This is a great event, and great for our area. Local businesses, be sure to support this event, we need stuff like this to make it through our shoulder seasons.

See ya at the show!

TDC Approves working with MTVu for Spring Break

The Tourist Development Council approved moving forward with MTVu for promoting Spring Break 2009. I guess at this point, it is too late to “go back to the drawing board.”

Here is the evolution of how it all went down.

The original MTVu proposal included a 10 day village with 8 concerts over 4 days, 300 30 second TV ad spots, 10 million online impressions, a database by which to collect user contact info (mobile numbers, email addresses, etc.), and a few more things.

The whole proposal was discussed during a marketing committee meeting and overall a motion was made to approve moving forward, but with the stipulation that the TDC wanted the price to be lowered to $200,000 (stemmed from what some believe as an effort to come up with less co-op money).

When MTVu heard about this, they weren’t that happy and came back with a proposal that was just more than half of their initial proposal for 20% less money. Of course, that wasn’t gonna work for the TDC. After calming MTVu down, Dan Rowe, et.al. was able to negotiate 250 30 second TV ad spots, 10 million online impressions, database collection, a 10 campus kick-off tour featuring Panama City Beach as a spring break vacation destination, featured premium placement on the MTVu hub page (what does that mean??), and a link back to the micro site (from where???).

Dan explained that some of the benefits of working with MTVu include that they are regulated by the FCC, they have a brand to protect, that they do NOT advertising any alcoholic products, will not publish any film/pictures of alcoholic related activity or drunk students, and that they are good for our image and our initiative to vacation responsibility.

The board stressed their desire to not spend more than $150,000, and that the rest MUST come from co-op sponsors. Staff (Dan and co.) have so far received commitments for co-op in the amount of $50,500 and anticipates that number to grow as we come closer to spring break. All additional funds generated will go first to operational costs associated (costs can be up to $90,000 above and beyond the $150,000 – someone correct me if I’m wrong here), then go to paying the TDC back for the initial $150,000 investment.

This year, compared to last year, there are actually three categories for co-op sponsors:

Lodging – hotels, condos, resorts, etc.
- There will be two levels of sponsorship opportunities, premium and all the others. Premium will be limited to 6 advertisers and will have premium placement on the main lodging page, and all the others will be on a page linked to through an “all offers”, or “all other offers” text or graphic link from the main lodging page.
Food/entertainment – restaurants, bars, clubs, etc. For this category, there are unlimited opportunities available, for premium and otherwise. The premium sponsors will have the opportunity to have their specials, etc. broadcasted to the TDC database via text messages (that is supposed to be geo-targeted).
Retail/attractions – the new element (can’t beleive this never existed before), includes retails stores or services such as Victoria Secrets or California Cycles. This category will have the same premium “text message” opportunity as the food/entertainment category.

There are a lot of cool things that can be done with text messaging marketing. I’m not sure the geo-targeting aspects are all they are cracked up to be as they require to user to have an application up and running on their phone in order to receive messages, and I’m not sure that students will be walking around with their phones open and an app running, or if they’d even start the app in the first place.

Also, with doing just plain text message advertisements are still limited to 160 characters per messasge, which can get used up pretty quick.

Can this be done without MTVu, I’m sure of it. However, at this point, what are the alternatives? I don’t know, and neither does the TDC. I’m sure they would be open to suggestions of anyone that could come in, set up a whole online marketing campaign with millions of impressions, put on a fairly large scale show with several concerts, incorporating a variety of web and tv posibilities and do it all for a package price. Anyone?

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.

TDC to Discuss MTVu and New Web Site Presentations

The TDC meeting scheduled for Thursday at 2pm in the council room should be very interesting to say the least. On the agenda will be to discuss the MTVu program and hear from the interactive agencies bidding to build the new “Panama City Beach” web site. I fully expect the meeting to be long and arduous and some tough decisions to be made.

I also assume there will be tons in attendance, so come early.

I will be making live updates from my cell phone using the lovely Twitter service, so be sure to sign up and follow pcbdaily. And be sure to set up your mobile devices if you don’t want to keep checking our twitter page.

——————————————————-

AGENDA

COMBINED BOARD MEETING
Bay County Tourist Development Council
Panama City Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau, Inc.
Panama City Beach
Thursday, November 6, 2008 2:00 p.m. Council Room, PCB City Hall

I. CALL MEETING TO ORDER

II. ROLL CALL

A. Invocation
B. Pledge of Allegiance

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. BOARD ACTION ITEMS

A. Discuss and Consider for Approval Coastal Planning & Engineering Invoice #81029, Invoice #81030, and Invoice #81032, Mr. Dan Rowe, President

VI. BOARD DISCUSSION ITEMS

A. Review and Discuss mtvU Program, Mr. Dan Rowe, President

VII. INTERACTIVE AGENCY PRESENTATIONS AND BOARD DISCUSSION (Order of Presentations Will Be Selected at Random)

A.    JB, Inc.
Presentation by Ms. Jennifer A. Barbee, Ms. Annette Gilespie, Ms. Kim Powers, and Ms. Marianne Cushing
B.    Miles Media
Presentation by Mr. Roger Miles, Mr. Ryan Nance, Ms. Elena Prostova, and Mr. Scott Templeton
C.    SimpleView
Presentation by Mr. Kevin Bate and Ms. Cara Scholke

VIII. AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

IX. ADJOURNMENT

Revenue Enhancement Committee to Meet Wednesday

On the agenda for the November 5th meeting will be to discuss the “capital priorities outlined in the strategic plan.” The agenda looks very skimpy, but the conversations should be good. See ya Wednesday!

AGENDA

REVENUE ENHANCEMENT COMMITTEE
Bay County Tourist Development Council
Panama City Beach
Wednesday, November 5, 2008 1:00 p.m. Board Room, Visitor Information
Center

I. CALL MEETING TO ORDER

II. ROLL CALL

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

IV. DISCUSSION OF CAPITAL PRIORITIES OUTLINED IN STRATEGIC PLAN

V. AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

VI. ADJOURNMENT

Download the pdf.

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