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HomeMy WebLinkAboutVPCMinutes_2010_02_221 Promotions Committee Meeting Minutes – February 22, 2010 City Hall Present: Victoria Blatchford, Rob Peterson, Lynn Darnall, Zeno Wicks III, Tom Jones, Catherine Grandorff, Didem Koroglu, Jerry Miller, Bob Johnson, Jeff Weldon, Bridgit Burghardt, Al Heuton, Deb Garbers, Tom Richter and Jan Brockel. •Chairperson Blatchford called the meeting to order at 12:18 • January 25 Minutes: Wicks motioned to approve, Darnall seconded. Motion Carries. • Financials: Wicks motioned to approve, Johnson seconded. Discussion: Burghardt informed the committee the funds for the Swiftel Thunder Go Kart Race have been returned as the event is not taking place this year. The event was cancelled due to not being able to secure the sponsors needed to make the event happen. They are planning on coming back in 2011. The funds have been added back into the financials. Blatchford mentioned the Third B Tax was up for 2009 over 2008. Weldon added that is in part due to the efforts of this group. Motion Carries. • Visitor Industry Role in BEDC/Chamber Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy: Heuton provided the committee with a handout explaining the visitor’s role in the economic development strategy. Heuton will be presenting to the City Council and is looking for feedback. There is a coordinated delivery approach with the BEDC, Chamber, CVB and Events co-located. The offices serve as: information clearing house/central information center, referrals, coordinated visitor program, notify business community of future scheduled events, include a Brookings Community Guide in convention bags, and create opportunities to market the community to people and business and recruit conferences that build awareness of Brookings. Visitor Industry Primary Goal is to generate a positive economic impact for the community. Specific desired outcomes include: create awareness of Brookings, quality of life enhancement and sales tax generation. How does the Swiftel Center proposal/HVS research overlap with BEDC’s economic development strategy? Event demand is projected to grow in three areas: meetings and conferences, conventions and tradeshows and banquets. Conferences and conventions of most interest are those that have a direct correlation to our economic growth strategy, i.e-conferences related to industry growth areas that would bring business contacts to the community. A need exists for high quality/state-of-the-art meeting space attached to a hotel with a restaurant to be competitive in the recruitment process. Discussion continued regarding sales tax generators. Several factors contribute to the increase in 3rd penny taxable sales: increase in households, increase in the number of SDSU students, increase in the number of commuting workers, increase in the day visitors, increase in overnight visitors, restaurant choice and consumer habit changes. Conclusions: more detailed information on visitor attendance, travel and spending habits would be useful. Regardless of the lack of information at this stage, the visitor industry is an important component of the community’s development strategy. Short term gain is important. The visitor industry easily represents a multi-million dollar industry for the community. Intermediate gain produces additional benefits in terms of resident attraction and leakage reduction. However, the longer term impacts that could be derived through a strategic use of visitor promotions funding and efforts is clearly much greater in terms of a coordinated approach that can assist future workforce and industry growth or recruitment. High quality conference space and a conference management program would contribute to this longer term goal. Wicks mentioned regarding university conferences, every professor is a member of an organization. The Student Union is the only place to meet, and there are parking issues and the building is booked. Wicks questioned if we have asked the question of where is the best place to put high quality meeting space. Discussion continued into if the focus is high quality conference center or hotel, there are a variety of places to look at. Wicks mentioned it is a good presentation, not sure if it answers the council’s question. Blatchford mentioned it was brought up at the last BEDC board meeting, but did not have a quorum to take a position. Heuton continued that the board has not taken a position, and they have a lot of priorities. We are in agreement we want to grow the visitor segment. Miller mentioned that when you go to a convention, there has to be a hotel, high tech, a restaurant and pub. It has to all be in one place. Darnall mentioned that it seems like we have pondered to long. We need to take the 1st step. Weldon explained there are design considerations that need to be addressed. Wicks added that parking could be a nightmare. In March, there is a concert and the State Hockey Tournament. Blatchford referenced the Rushmore Civic Center. During the Black Hills Stock Show, parking is an issue. They work with business and run shuttles. Grandorff questioned what kind of conventions would be coming? If high-tech, Innovation Campus, this might not be the best for basketball, but it is a different purpose. Blatchford mentioned that in 2007 the VPC provided a letter of support, questioned if this is something the committee would be interested in? Johnson motioned and Jones seconded to provide a letter of support. Discussion: suggest waiting until after receive update on the Swiftel Center expansion. Johnson withdrew the motion. • Planning Session Discussion: Burghardt explained the committee received a list of proposed planning session discussion topics. If there are additional topics you would like to cover, please let us know. Information for the planning session will be provided at the March Visitors Promotions meeting. Blatchford questioned if the date has been set? Burghardt explained there were a handful of committee members who have not yet responded. Burghardt will resend the email regarding dates available. As of today, April 7th has the most committee members available to attend. Weldon questioned if there is an analysis after the event, to see if the applicant meets the application? Burghardt explained there is a post evaluation that is due 60 days after the event. The information regarding actual economic impact and how the event preformed is included if the applicant reapplies for funds. Weldon requested to have a report included each month with performance measures. Burghardt will start including the report in the monthly packets. 2 • Branding Update: Brockel reported that we received the logo and brand identity guide for the logo. We expect to receive the final report this week. Koroglu added the task force and subcommittee met on Friday and discussed the next steps. North Star provided the top ten next steps, have not made a decision. The brand manager was the largest part of the discussion; the group is looking at creative solutions. A soft rollout is planned for the Chamber/BEDC meeting. The logo is not the focal point; we are trying to make things happen correctly. We have received the logo on cd, and people can start using for pens and such. Once the guide is available, we will start implementing onto websites and letterhead. Discussed having a landing page as we can not update all of the websites immediately, the landing page would allow people to go online and see the brand and have some background into the project. Blatchford continued as far as websites, BEDC is the quickest to change. The Chamber will be collapsing their website into brookingssd.com. We need to figure out who is going to mange the brand. Blatchford added that key stakeholders will use first. There are a couple of different options as far as the logo. Businesses want to start using the brand. The taskforce of Lisa, Bob and Didem will be getting together and deciding priorities for the next six months. Weldon questioned if we are going to have to hire someone? Blatchford responded this person will have to be the police of the brand as to how to use it, which is the easy part. 70% will be to sell the brand to different organizations and to tell them why they should use the brand. If done correctly, the brand manager will work themselves out of a job. Adding an additional person would be ideal. Weldon questioned if funding is moving more to staff vs. visitors? Wicks responded the city told us to do this; we allocated money towards the project. Weldon mentioned the city paid $60,000 for the study. Wicks continued we have a mission to use our budget. Blatchford added if we can prove a need, we can justify asking for additional funding. Koroglu explained that Bob Otterson suggested we might be able to find someone looking for work, wanting to build their portfolio. We could explore offering free housing, and they would benefit through experience. Blatchford mentioned having an SDSU student through an internship, with a professor. The challenge is we need to have consistency, so we do not loose the brand. Blatchford explained the Resolution comes up this year, and this will be part of that discussion, the contract with the Chamber is also coming up. The brand is the basis for our promotional plan. Bob, Lisa and Didem will help with the plan, as they are the experts. Blatchford continued it would be detrimental to let the brand go quiet for six months. The brand manager has to have a marketing background. Weldon questioned if this would be a full-time job? Blatchford answered that the job description looks that way. Miller questioned the rollout. The Register is putting together a shop-dine-play ad. They are buying flags, where are we in that? Is the Unity Campaign a good place to rollout? Koroglu explained that the taskforce discussed the option. The campaign is catering to a specific brand, and the way it is designed, it may not be the best place for the logo to be rolled out. Question into if the poll banners will be used just this summer? Miller responded the Register is buying them for this year. Weldon mentioned they have not told the city when they want to reserve the polls. • Convention Report: Garbers reported all of the Promotions money has been used. Thank you. There are so many bids right now, can not keep them straight. Wicks mentioned if something great comes up; don’t be shy about funding if it looks like a winner. Garbers questioned if the opportunity arises, can we come back to the board for funding? Convention injection to CVB will be added to the March agenda. Garbers added the funds CVB used is paid directly to the facility or shuttles, the money go back to entities. Blatchford added the Visitor Promotions pays the organization; the money given to Deb gets spent in Brookings. Garbers mentioned the conventions keep coming; with out funding there is a shift in services. When tournaments come up, they require more money. Blatchford mentioned we may want to look at how often we give funding to an organization. Wicks mentioned other boards have set up a system that gives money for three years in diminishing amounts. They have to show how they will be sustainable. Wicks questioned if we could give all of the money from the tournament fund to the CVB, as the purpose is to generate money. Garbers added we do not need to give the tournaments the amounts they have been receiving through the applications. Blatchford suggested we look at this during the strategy session. Blatchford continued the Chamber has had a discussion of when the CVB commits funds, who is responsible for those funds. Grandorff exits • Swiftel Center Expansion Update: Tom Richter, Executive Director of the Swiftel Center provided the committee with an update on the expansion. Construction on the facility started in the fall of 1997, opened fully January 2001. The building was opened as it was finished. Events and event days saw a peak in 2006. The majority was due to Daktronics training as this was before Daktronics built building 6. In 2006 Daktronics went through a software change, which required them to hold a number of trainings. This did not affect the impact for attendance for the year, but it did affect the number of event days. As far as how to calculate event days, a circus is a one day event, but counts for two event days. Every time clear out the building is an event day. The Rodeo is one event, but each performance is an event day. The expansion is something that has been talked about since day one. Currently average 100,000 visitors each year, in 2009, the number was just under 100,000. Parking is occasionally a concern. For example, on March 12 there is a large concert as well as the first day of boys state varsity hockey. Both facilities will be maxed out. Future expansion is driven by: office space, storage concerns mainly in the arena, kitchen area, and convention/conference meeting space and ballroom. One thing the expansion will do is clean up the east side of the Swiftel Center. The dirt piles will be convention/hotel parking. The dirt will be moved to north of the Larson Ice Center. The ballroom has high ceilings with retractable walls. It can be broken down into 6 smaller rooms. The Venuworks study survived meeting planners, and that is where the dimensions came from. Wicks questioned if there is a liquor license available? We are at our max with liquor licenses and convention center licenses. Weldon added if get the resolution revised, there will be a restaurant license. If 60% of sales come from food, it could get a restaurant license. Darnall questioned if we have an unlimited amount of beer and wine licenses? Weldon responded yes. Richter continued that the meeting planners surveyed desired or demanded an attached hotel. Right now, the Swiftel Center passes on events because the facility is booked or 3 the event just won’t work. The VenuWorks study looked at attracting conferences and other arena events. Some would be smaller concerts, as well as state dart and pool tournaments. The sky is the limit, but right now we do not have the right kind of facilities, or the right kind of space. More hotel rooms will help to get to the next level of state high school tournaments. Richter continued as to why the Swiftel Center is the right location for the facility. They are located off of the interstate and Highway 14, draw a lot of out of town attendees. Arena events attract 50% of attendees from outside of Brookings and Kingsbury counties. Conference attendees stay 3-4 nights, as arena attendees only 2% stay overnight. Most conference attendees will stay overnight. Upgrades or remodel is included in the expansion. Tom Jones questioned how to answer if a hotel owner calls asking about the expansion? He had a caller that was concerned there would be too many hotel rooms? Wicks mentioned Heuton referenced the occupancy rate at 42%, full on weekend. Jones mentioned he thought the occupancy at 42% was low. He thought the number should be 20-25% higher. Richter added he believes the number should be closer to 65-67%. Wicks responded that Heuton’s numbers are calculated on state funding. Richter explained that weekends are busy, a lot of weekends the hotels are at capacity. Most of what the expansion would attract would help the weekday occupancy. Weldon mentioned the hotel will be a business decision by the hotel. If it is not here, this project will not go. Blatchford questioned how plan to grow kitchen business? Richter responded it depends on the partnership with the hotel. Blatchford mentioned the need to discuss how they will manage the food. Weldon answered those are variables out to the partners, looking to craft the best scenario. Richter added the quality of product and service they have to work hand in hand. Name brand hotels have ways to attract business; they and the Swiftel Center will have to work together, even if the two entities are managed separately. Miller questioned if this is a 2012 project? Weldon responded 2011 for a decision. Would like to have up and running in 2013, by the time the hotel makes a commitment and builds, it could be 2 years. Richter explained they are not going to stop booking business and that may extend the remodel/construction a bit as they will have to work around events. Richter continued that it seems like everyone agrees we need a facility. The City Council gave the go ahead to start negotiating with hotels, there is interest out there. Weldon mentioned the City will not own the hotel. Miller questioned if the expansion will be funded the same way? Weldon answered it would be the 2nd penny just like before. In 2013 the old Swiftel debt is expired, the total dollar debt service will drop. Blatchford explained the $300,000 subsidy is just like we are doing, a commitment to get economic impact. Darnall added build it and they will come. Miller questioned the size of the ballroom compared to the Shamrock? Richter answered the Shamrock ballroom is 6-7,000 and in an L shape. This will be similar in size, but will be one large room. The Swiftel ballroom was bumped up to 12,000 square feet as it lined up better vs. 10,000 square foot. • Miller motioned to adjourn, Johnson seconded. Meeting adjourned at 2:30p.