New TDC Marketing Committee = New PCBDaily Contributor

I was notified this weekend that my service is no longer needed on the Bay County TDC marketing committee. I guess they know where I stand, and have decided that my suggestions and directions are not in the best interest of the Bay County Tourism industry.

Therefore, I am pleased and honored to announce that I will now have time to serve as a contributing author for the PCBDaily.com news site. Thanks to Jason for inviting me on board.

While Bryan Durta will continue to be the “TDC Watchdog,” reporting all the facts, I look forward to adding suggestions and analysis regarding Bay County’s Tourist Development efforts.

I will also have the opportunity to be the “Trash Reporter,” reaching the large PCBDaily.com audience regarding the conditions of our beaches.

The new committee will be announced at Tuesday’s TDC meeting. Only 2 members, Russ Smith and Phillip Griffits, Jr. will continue to serve on the committee.

I welcome all members of the community to contact me to discuss concerns, issues and ideas regarding tourism in Bay County. My email address is Kirk@KirkLancaster.com

Fix our Beach, THEN advertise.

Here are the thoughts I summed up for the TDC board after comments Tuesday.
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1. Advertising Budget

We should not advertise until the “product is fixed.” What is wrong with our product?

* Lack of Cleanliness
* Lack of Safety
* Lack of Proper Marketing Research distributed to all Tourism Businesses
* Lack of Sports Complexes to meet Demand
* and above all – A broken image. Our current advertising cannot improve an image. An image must be improved by providing a great product and service… which starts with clean, safe beaches.

I realize Mr. Rowe and Staff are aware of many of these issues and are working to improve them. But if we put our advertising budget into our problems, they will be resolved more quickly.

Another problem I have with spending tax dollars on advertising – no matter what event or message you promote, you’re going to be held accountable by the community. If you quit advertising, and just provided infrastructure support, marketing research and public relations, no one could blame the TDC on problems such as Spring Break disasters, drownings, etc. Can you imagine having TDC meetings without people like Charles Mason, Bryan Durta and myself because we have nothing to complain about? ;c) Get rid of advertising, replace it with tangible research and infrastructure, and get rid of complainers.

So, if we did not advertise, how would we promote our destination?

a. Market Research. This is being done with our existing guests (400 surveys per month), but much more could be accomplished in this area. Imagine giving a report to all local businesses that show who is most likely to visit, where they live, and how to reach them. Then let the hotels, condos, restaurants, fishing boats, retail, attractions and events do their own advertising.

b. In-house creative: Imagine the CVB/TDC offering a beautiful catalog of stock photography and video of Bay County that small businesses could use in their own advertising.

c. In-house Public Relations: I am thankful there is now an in-house marketing team; they should be able to handle Public Relations.

d. Most Importantly – provide a reason for our guests to return home and say “Panama City Beach is a great place to vacation.”

But since we do have an agency, and we are advertising and outsourcing Public Relations…

* Please hold our agency to REMARKABLE standards. The White Sale did not provide remarkable results, and quite honestly, wasn’t even remarkable out of the gate. It was status-quo. Mr. Yesawich said that himself, basically, when he said others are doing “coupon / value / sales” campaigns and it worked for his clients in the past.

* Please consider that we pay this agency hundreds of thousands of dollars that go out of Bay County into Orlando’s economy. With an in-house marketing team, and the ability to outsource tasks (website development, photography, video, press release writing and distribution), we do not need to spend that kind of money on an agency when we have such a small budget. Perhaps one day when our beaches are clean, beautiful, and Richard even has a little problem filling up all our new sports arenas… then we can afford to invest in advertising

2. Trash

I am thankful you realize this is a serious problem. The method we use is not working, and the county should review other options.

My comment I say often about our beaches and trash … “Do you think Buddy Wilkes lets someone walk through his park with a glass bottle? Do you think he lets a diaper sit around in a public space? Are there cigarette butts everywhere? Is there trash floating in his wave pool? Of course not! So why can’t we protect our beaches just as a private attraction would protect their park?”

We must implement a process of prevention instead of cure when it comes to trash on our beaches. When/if the time does come to discuss new trash ideas, I request that I am notified so I may either assist in planning or pitch my own proposal for beach cleanup.

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I also made comments in the meeting that $6 per website visitor is too much to pay for our particular tourism industry. I have seen great numbers of people seeking information online for Panama City Beach, and a proper ad campaign can drive thousands of visitors to a PCB vacation website for $1-2.

TDC Meeting on Tuesday – to Discuss Budgets, Fun!

With the off-season pretty much here, regular TDC meetings will begin ramping up yet again. Although this meeting has been called a “special” meeting, I think you’ll start seeing these agendas more often.

At the meeting Tuesday, budgets will be discuss for Panama City Beach, Mexico Beach, and Bay County. Also, discussed will be fiscal year 2009/2010 TDC Plan Ordinance.

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TDC Meeting on Tuesday August 12th – Agenda

Tuesday should be an exciting day of reporting and presentation. We should see some final numbers on the success of the Summer White Sale campiagn, reported in the News Herald this morning as a success, and we should hear about the fall marketing plan.

Seeing over $500,000 in “free national media attention”, it was reported that the Summer White Sale campaign was a success. With over 60,000 visits and almost 20,000 coupon downloads, the campaign is still producing consumers with coupons at local resorts and attractions. Bed tax collections are up 2% from the same period last year.

The agenda is after the break.

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Did the Summer White Sale Hurt Local Businesses?

There was a “letter to the editor” published in the News Herald on July 18th from Reggie Lancaster talking about how the Summer White Sale didn’t help local tourism, but actually hurt the existing businesses.

Quote:

Few people have more of an appreciation of what our Tourist Development Council members do than I. I spent 11 years on the board and chaired it for four years and have fond memories of serving with some great people. I would like to offer some constructive criticism to the advertising agency and the board in regards to the current advertising effort referred to as the Summer White Sale.

Although well intentioned, I don’t believe the advertising campaign produced the desired results. Instead of enticing new guests to come to Panama City Beach, it largely accomplished offering reduced rates and incentives to guests who already had reservations or at least plans to come here. Consequently, while everything else in the country was going up in price, we were reducing already stressed profit margins in the accommodation industry.

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Special Trip on the Pier Park Express TODAY at 11am

Ok, I realize this is totally last minute, but as I know that tons of people are looking here almost every minute of the day, I figured I’d put this up anyway.

Today, the Pier Park Express that is leaving from Walmart going to Pier Park at 11 am will play host to the singing Red Hat Ladies as entertainment and Julian Bennett as narrator.

Some of the items of historical interest will be the Petticoat Junction, Miracle Strip Amusement Park and The Hangout.

Again, remember that rides on the Pier Park Express are only 50 cents.

Panama City Beach Needs more Branded Hotels

Kaoru Chikushi from HVS International wrote a piece on Panama City Beach that was published on HospitalityNet.org titled The Need for More Branded Hotels in Panama City Beach, Florida.

You should read it, but I’ll summarize it here.

Chikushi estimates that approximately 7 million visit Panama City Beach each year with around 250,000 spring breakers and 15,000 “snowbirds”. Again, not sure where the numbers came from, but 250,000 sounds much more realistic that the “millions” others in the media tout.

I was glad to see Chikushi references Panama City Beach as “once known as the Redneck Riviera” and describes our area as being in an “era of transformation.” Signaled by the new airport and Pier Park, she finds justification in Panama City being named the #1 place to own real estate in the next 5 years (the Business 2.0 article).

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Destinations around the country searching for tourists

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” has been swapped for “do Vegas right now.” According to the New York Times, the slogan was swapped for something that had a stronger call to action.

It is no secret that the cost of living is going up in real time. With gas prices here quickly approaching 4 bucks a gallon, the cost to travel is also quickly becoming a huge deciding factor on where people are going, if they are going at all.

In the New York Times article, Urgency Replaces Subtlety in Summer’s Struggle for Visitors, the second destination mentioned as making a change in their advertising direction was Panama City Beach. Peter Yesawich was quoted, “There is a palpable nervousness on the part of everybody in the industry.” “We’ve seen some of these conditions individually,” Mr. Yesawich said, referring to problems like high fuel prices and reduced capacity on airlines, “but never all of them at once.”

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Do families spend more on spring break than spring breakers? – Survey Results

At the request of the Panama City Beach Tourist Development council, The Klages Group put together a visitor profile survey to compile information about who is coming to our beaches. The report is on Quarter 1 2008 and is compared to Quarter 4 2007.

I’ve emailed and asked how to the study sample was chosen and asked how the data was collected. Having taken a class on survey methodology in undergrad school, I have some experience with this and am interested to see their reply. I had heard that their study sample was just under 500, but I want to know how the sample was chosen.

The entire study is available for download after the break.

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Panama City Beach TDC CVB Strategic Planning Process Outline

I was able to get my hands on the Bay County Tourist Development Council Panama City Beach CVB Strategic Planning Process Outline. It spells out where we are wanting to take Panama City Beach over the next couple of years and how we are going to get there. Following are excerpts from the document with the option to download the whole document at the end.

In January, the Bay County TDC initiated a strategic planning process to help chart the course for the Panama City Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau in coming years.

Building off of the initial work conducted, the CVB developed four key initiatives and potential funding strategy to serve as the framework for discussion as the initiatives are explored and articulated in advance of the final plan. This document includes the initiatives, as well as the notes from the retreat.

In June, a final strategic plan will be presented to the TDC for adoption.

Key Initiatives:

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