Board of County Commissioners

to the Manatee County Tourist Development Council meeting for June the 15, 2026. Uh we are going to get started today with a pledge of allegiance and invitation from Pastor Dirk Rogers of Roser Community Church. Sir, if you'll just come on up to the podium. stuck in the chair. I >> pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Will you join me in prayer? Father God, we thank you so much for this opportunity to gather together. In your infinite wisdom, you chose to create us as a community where our diversity is both our strength and our challenge. And so, Father, we ask you today to do that creative work of making the one out of the many. And as each person here from their perspective contributes from their background and their experience that you would work together your will. We would become that community that enjoys your creation, raises our family safely and does your will here on earth as it is in heaven. Father, we pray for each individual participant here because while they are here discussing public matters, they all have their private lives, challenges of their own in health and relationships and other circumstances. So, Father, we pray for additional grace for each person here who has been willing to invest themselves in public life as they live their own lives. Grant them a blessing for that participation. And so, Father, now we dedicate these conversations to you. We ask your spirit to work through them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. >> Amen. >> Very nice. >> Thank you very much, sir. So, now we can move on to the meeting minutes from April 27th. Uh, I am entertaining motions for approval or discussion if anybody has any. >> Motion to approve. >> Second. >> All right. We have a motion and a second. Uh, and now we can go ahead and vote. All in favor, please say I. >> I. I. >> I. >> All right. And that passes unanimously. And now we will move on to our public comment portion. Uh, do we have any public comment here in the room? Seeing none, I will close public comment and we can move on over to our TDC ordinance revision and our presenter is Elliot Fouchi. >> Uh thank you, Commissioner. Uh good morning, everybody. Uh this is uh as you all know, I went over the uh one on-one with you all over the past two weeks. Uh this is what I call housekeeping. Um uh the the ordinance is required uh for the clerk of the court to pay our bills essentially and it's defined into what I call buckets. Uh so each bucket has a maximum uh budget amount based on board of county commissioner uh approvals. So, as you go through the buckets, anything highlighted in red, uh, is what you're making recommendation, uh, that will eventually go to the board of county commissioners in August. Number five is just an attorney housekeeping thing, uh, that it needs to show in here that the TDC did uh, make some sort of a recommendation. Uh, and then if you look at exhibit E, it just revises everything. I'll give you one hypothetical. If you know part of the responsibility as your tourism bureau is to market and promote the destination. If the bucket for marketing and promotions could not exceed 5 million and the TDC recommended to the board of county commissioners uh that it wanted needed to be 6 million. It needs to be reflected in the ordinance. Uh what we try to do is uh based on the um uh the the budget amount that's projected we try to go higher than that uh based on projected revenues. So we don't need to continue to come back every year. So hopefully your recommendation and with board consideration in August that maybe we don't go and amend this for 2 three years. Okay. So with that everything is highlighted in red. Um, that will change and I'm here to answer any questions, Madam Chair. >> All right. Do we have any questions or discussion from our board members? >> Madam Chair, >> Commissioner Diggins. >> Yeah. >> Elliot, um, have the revenues gone down? >> I I don't know yet. Uh, it's probably going to be flat if anything. Remember, we're dealing with a six penny now. >> Um, so it's it uh once we get through this year, we'll be able to go year to year. Um, it was probably projected a year ago that we probably hit that 38 to $40 million in revenue. Um, uh, right now the market's flat coastal Florida. So, um, really not sure, but um, I always say if it's 2% down, that's flat to me, or 2% up, as you know, long- winded answer. Um, keep in mind too, uh, we we we we could always come back quickly. If the TDC and the board want to do a project that is tourism tax eligible that's not defined in a bucket, then we would come back and add it. don't know what kind of project that is, but just always know that that um the the last attorney that revised this whole ordinance made more of the buckets universal, so we don't need to continue to do public hearings. >> Okay. Thank you, Alex. >> You're welcome. >> Any other thoughts, discussion, questions? >> We need to make a motion that we >> can >> motion to approve. >> All right. So, we have a motion to approve uh by by Mr. Wick. Do we have a second? >> I second. >> All right. A second by Mr. Deruso. Uh, all right. Let's go ahead and vote. All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> All right. And that is approved unanimously. And now we can move on to a research methodology and quarterly report from Downs and St. Germaine. M. >> Madam Chair, if I can just reintroduce uh Joe St. Germaine. Uh you all met Joe uh about a year ago. Uh he is the owner of uh Downs in St. Germaine. Uh Joe's approaching his 20th year uh doing what he does uh as a I call statistician uh a a a research expert uh especially in destination marketing. He serves 15 other clients around the state of Florida. So, he may be the biggest research firm in Florida, if not close to it. Um, and quite candidly, the last few TDC meetings, um, there's been just some questions on how, um, down St. Germaine comes up with the research, uh, that they put on paper for us. So, I thought it was prudent just to to ask Joe to come back and make sure that every TDC member clearly understands how he comes up with the numbers that he comes up with. and then he also may talk a little bit on how we survey or what we call interceptors as well. So, uh, thank you for from from for coming all the way from Tallahassee to be with us this morning, Joe. Really appreciate it. >> No, it's it's it's my pleasure. Again, Joseph St. Germaine, president of Towns and St. Germaine Research and and I appreciate the time. Um, I will get into some of the January through March data and some of the some of your visitor data, but as Elliot mentioned, I just wanted to start with method. And there's like an hourong version of this presentation and then there's like a five minute. So, we're going to keep it the five minute like 30,000 ft, but then I will open up to questions before I get into the data. So, I just want to kind of keep it fairly high level, but also give you a sense of of everything. Um, as Alia mentioned, I'm going to start with how we collect the data. Um, we have Intercept interviewers throughout the county. Um, they are not out literally every day, but they are out every week on weekdays, weekends. We're trying to make sure we get a representative view of your visitor. Um, we are at a variety of locations, whether it be beach areas, um, resorts and hotels, the SRQ airport, public spaces like his downtown areas, but also gathering spaces, restaurants, attractions, things of that nature. Um, so that's where we're collecting our data. Overall, we have to get we we get over 200 surveys a month, over 600 a quarter, and then over it ends up being about it's over 2400 for the year, but it ends up we tend over because we'd rather miss on the side of too much as opposed to not enough. Um, when Isaiah has been here, he's largely giving you the monthly breakdowns. That's where we're really largely looking at metrics. I'm going to show you some of the data from our quarterly reports, which gets a little bit deeper dive into the visitor visitor data. Um, now calculating your visitor estimates and the spending estimates and things of that nature. I'm going to start that now. Again, keeping it very high level, but we'll open it up for questions. Um, overall, we're going to utilize a myriad of data points to understand what your occupancy rate are. Um, whether that from your hotels or vacation rentals, things of that nature, we can gather your occupancy rate. And then we also use data such as the numbers of days in a month or a quarter, etc. um length of stay that we get from our surveys, travel party size, and also the number of vacation rental units and hotel units you have. And that gives us an estimate of the number of visitors who are staying in paid accommodations. From there, we take our data from our surveys. From our surveys, we know the percentage who are staying in their paid accommodations, the percentage who are staying who are visiting but staying in second homes or maybe staying with friends and family, but also day trippers. So, that's how we come up with the big visitor number. I won't go too far into this. I mean, in general, as you can imagine, people staying in paid accommodations, they spend more money because they're spending money not only at hotels, but throughout the community. Um, those staying with in their second homes and those staying with friends and relatives, they still uh bring a lot of money to the community. They're not paying the bed tax cuz they're staying in their second home or they're staying with their friends and family, but they're still spending money at restaurants, um, shopping, attractions, things of that nature. and they tend to stay a little bit longer than those saying paid accommodations historically. And then finally, day trippers. Those are the ones who tend to spend less money just because they're in the market for a shorter period of time. By definition, they're staying less than a than a full 24 hours and some of them are only coming for a few hours overall. Um, so that's how we calculate the visitor number. And then, um, with the data that we collect in the surveys itself and other data sources that are available to us, we estimate the overall spending. So again, that is 30,000 ft of there's a lot more granularity to it, but I did want to open it up for any questions before I just I'm not going to go through this whole quarterly report cuz that would also take about an hour. But um I did want to stop here to see if there's any other questions that people have about the method, how we collect it, cuz I think this is um as Elliot mentioned, this is an important part for us. We just want to make sure everyone understands and and and uh uh kind of kind of it I can clear up any um questions you may have. Any questions? >> Just >> if if I may. >> So, if I understand you correctly, so you have people that come to the island basically talk to day trippers and uh could be at a Publix, could be at a public beach, place like that. >> Yeah. >> How sorry, how many how many people are there that actually come? >> How many in terms of our interviewers? >> Yeah. >> Um, right now I believe we have three. I need to check. I'd have to check with the catarina. Um because we have we have some on the island and and some in the Bradenon area. So it it it depends on and so it's like we're not canvased at every place at every day, but we have a sampling plan to make sure we get we get to all pockets of the county. >> So are they coming out on the weekends, the midday? >> Uh weekends and and midday. And um following up up from this, if we if you wanted a schedule to give you an idea of that, I could I don't have that in front of me, but I could provide that. And I'm sure it's extremely accurate. Your predecessor, the company previous to you, they actually would send out a questionnaire basically through email to the individual hotels asking how much a night, how long they stay, >> etc., so on and so on. Isn't that basically the same information you're gleaning from your surveys? >> Well, actually, that that's a good question because there's two parts of this. Most of this comes from the visitor surveys, but we are sending out that email um monthly at least at least we have been since since we started and >> I have not received it. >> Okay, I will check that with with ECAT Arena. Um those have now admittedly those are one of those things as we made the transfer sometimes they end up in spam and certainly um but yes, but we're not only using those data sources, we have other data sources to understand like the occupancy, average daily rate, revar, things of that nature. So we use that as one input but we try to use as many resources we can as a as a research company more data is better data cuz I think if you get multiple data sources you get closer to the truth for lack of a better phrase. >> Thank you very much. >> Just a question u what about the other third party reports uh do you use the third party reports or just the survey makes the analysis of your numbers? >> Uh any any that are available to us we will definitely utilize. I know I was talking with Colby about Zardico but before this and and that is something that as we've at as we've been here almost a year now collecting data because June will be our when we get when we give you the June report be the first June over June uh kind of a thing that is something that we are we are trying to implement as much as we can like right away at the start we want to get our feet on the ground see what the data looks like and also understanding what systems and data points they have in place and as we as we have now and moving forward we'll implement more of those because we want to sure these data pieces are speaking um to each other. I I think that's important part of the process. >> Is there any reports for uh like vacationer who comes in here as a second home like they have investment home or they come in for long-term in a snowbirds or whatever. Do we have a reports anything like that or uh is just a something that you gather data from surveys? >> That is something that we could provide. I I I'll say this. We we provide a monthly report, a quarterly report, and we will provide an annual report once we get that, we're going to put that on the on the fiscal year. Um but then if this board or Elliot or the team wanted a report on snowbirds or report on um folks staying with in in second homes or what have you, that is something that we can provide. We're not going to be able to get enough data on like a monthly level, on a quarterly on a quarterly level that may be a little squishy just for that specific population. Um but in an annual level we'd be able to provide those things. Admittedly um we always kind of rely on board members or or the team themselves to tell us where to look. Um because there's an infinite amount of potential reports we could do. So if there is a certain thing um let's say I'll use your example. Let's say you wanted you wanted a snowboard report. We could provide that um based upon based upon what we have. Um and that again as part we just kind of consider that part of our charge to you. We just want to kind of know what the question is so we can kind of look in the data because that's the nice thing and Elliot's mentioned it a few times. He's like I can't wait till we have a full year of data because then we can really kind of dig a little bit deeper than than we could at the start. >> Undistrict. Thank you. >> Uh Mr. Diggins then Mr. Duso. >> Thank you Madam Chair. Uh Joseph um Isaiah's been briefing us every every meeting now and I'm I usually ask him some questions. Um, what's the what do we do with this data? What what's the usefulness of this data to Elliot and his company, Elliot and his staff? What I don't I don't really understand how we use this data. >> I I mean, I'll I'll jump in how I believe it's used and Elliot, if you if I missed anything, let me know. I mean, I I always I always think with the visitor number, the direct spend, and things of that nature, that gives you a sense of the role of tourism. it can be used very much in advocacy and things of that nature. Um, and then we look at the data itself and in a little bit I'll go through some of the data points that we're getting from these. I know with with what Isaiah has been showing you, it's been monthly reports that are largely those metrics. Uh, what I'm going to show you today is a little bit more visitor behavior, not all of it, but some of it that helps Elliot and them team basically better market. you get a sense of why they're coming, what they're doing when they're here, um how they plan their trip, what is their uh uh something we're adding soon is a a trip planning cycle. Um and I know based upon some feedback, we're adding an open end just to be like how what are the words people are using. Um but the short version would be to better understand your visitor so you can market to that busier. And I don't know if there's anything you'd like to add, Elliot. >> Uh it's paramount. I've been here long enough where we didn't have a research firm. I wasn't the director and you're just you're you're just casting a net hoping you'll catch a visitor. The uh couple examples, economic stimulus is really important that it shows >> tourism is the the how valuable it is to a community. >> Uh because we as residents, not all of us, but some of us would rather not have visitors come in, right? So we have the roads, the restaurants, the attractions to ourselves. um the the average daily rates and occupancy is really important because as those average daily rates go up, it helps us sharpen our target market. Like I've always said, if I if I can if I'm selling a Maserati, I'm not I'm probably not targeting somebody that can only afford a Chevy, you know. So, it's really important that that uh Joe and his team help us first and foremost establish our target. We've always been very targeted in our uh marketing and promotions. We don't cast that net out. There's there's two exceptions to that comment. Um we have two mature markets. It's New York, New York first and foremost in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So, that's the only two markets that you'll see uh traditional advertising be in. You'll see some uh uh some out of home, whether it's radio or a little bit of TV or some uh in-game awareness. You all see pirate games and I'll get texts saying, "I see the logo on there." And what that's saying is, "Hey, you know what? We know you know about the Bradenon area. We know you know the characteristics. We know you've been here before. Don't forget about us when you're ready to plan your next vacation. Everything else is digital. So when Colby or Kelly buy it, before they buy a digital, they they zero in on the listenership, the viewership, mainly the viewership, on the demographic to make sure it aligns with our target. So all that is even the key words through interceptors uh helps to find the artwork that's created for the target. Um, and I'll close at this. Um, Dr. Walter Clayis, uh, uh, the the the previous research firm used to always tell me that artwork is so important that if it doesn't resonate in front of the target in 3 seconds or less, you'll lose them forever. >> But if it resonates in 3 seconds or less, they're likely to dive in further and then you got them. So, um, uh, marketing is very artistic with a little bit of science. Obviously, we're talking about the little bit of science right now. Hopefully that answered your question. >> Yes, Dan. >> Thank Thank you very much. Um, one more question, Joe. You do have the interceptors and you do a an email, things like that. What is your sampling size after you do that? Because you have to extrapolate that sampling size into something that's meaningful for Elliot staff, right? >> Yes. And what is that sampling size? >> It is at least 200 surveys a month, at least 600 a quarter, and at least 2400 for the year. So, um, the reason we try to do the visitor behavior on a quarterly level, cuz that way we have at least 600 surveys. That's going to put our sampling air roughly around a little bit over 4%, basically. That's your plus or minus there. Um, in our uh experience overall, whether it be working for government entities, uh, private boards or what have whatever, our goal is at least having 400 during a during during a period of time because that's a sampling error of plus or minus 5%. That number it the reason we try to aim there, it's a matter of budget because to get twice as precise, your sample has to get four times as big. So that >> that starts to cost a lot of money um, frankly. So we, you know, we want to make sure the juice is worth the squeeze on that. But then also that level precision is a level that most um boards are comfortable with. So that's why that's why we aimed on at about 600 every quarter. >> Thank you. Thank you, madam. >> Mr. Duso. >> Oh, and then Mr. [clears throat] >> uh thank you. I think we have been very educated on the science kind of behind the surveys. The only question that I had kind of in the past, I think it goes back a couple months ago, was would it be a valuable resource to add some other third parties um that do do reporting in the hospitality industry? You know, obviously Smith Travel Research, uh Co-Star, uh CBRE, uh AirDNA. How much do how much would those third parties help kind of solidify some of the uh you know, some of the reports that are being generated? I mean, to Elliot's point, um, this is critical to our industry to be able to go backwards and make sure that the marketing and everything that we're doing as the as the TDC is having the effects that we that we really want it to. And my my simple question was, would that be helpful to add some of those resources? I think it's a fairly nominal fee to run Smith travel reports once a quarter or something like that. So, >> no, it's a good question. I mean the the one thing I will say we already have our occupancy study but we also utilize a key data but we also have access to to co-star as Elliot mentioned we we work with 15 other other counties within the state of Florida plus Maine and some other places. So that is something that we have access to. So it's it's something that that that we that that we can we utilize because that's something that we as a market research firm in in tourism, we utilize it to help understand because the questions we get from a board member like yourself is like how do we compare to other markets and things of that nature. So so we we look at that ourselves. Um because ultimately and we're utilizing as many data points as we can to make sure we're getting as a precise number for you as possible. >> Yeah. And I think simply that was kind of the question. I mean, should we look at adding it? Cuz I haven't seen any of the Smith Travel reports exactly that to see how we're, you know, how we are comparing to our competitive markets. >> If I can color commentate here, >> um, and I respect your your questions or comments, Tony. >> Um, we have enough of data for our marketing people to do their job. Hands down. Uh, we're accredited. We understand best practices. Um, I've had marketing people on my team want more platforms, more platforms, more platforms. And sometimes you you get so topheavy in research and then you run out of advertising money, it's almost like what's the point? Even if we had Smith Travel, we wouldn't share that with the industry anyway. Um, so Joe can um, and I've told Joe when we hired him, he can sign up for pay for any platforms that he needs, but basically he has a scope and a contract with us with what we need from a data standpoint for for us to be able to do our job. Um, and he's done it effectively. Uh, and keep in mind too, you you we're a less is more kind of a mindset, right? And uh and what I mean by that, we're not out looking to break tourism records every year. And I've said it to y'all in the past, and this sounds maybe ignorant, but if if the stakeholders, TDC, and the border county commissioners want us to try to break tourism records, you've probably have the wrong tourism director because it's important that I understand the mindset of the residents that live here first and foremost. So, if we can moderately bring in visitation, and keep in mind, we're not the end all. We're not the ones that are breaking the records. It's everybody uh marketing aside from us. Um, and it's been effective. You can look at uh since we launched the brand in 2011. We've broken tourism records, not on purpose, every year except 2017 co and then we slid a little bit uh this this year as well, give or take. So, we're very comfortable um with the research that he's providing. Not that um we're not listening or fluid. Um and of course, like we all do, we have those conversations one-on-one, >> Madam Chair. >> Yes, Mr. P. >> Does uh traffic flow come into this at all for on the weekends because we get a tremendous amount of traffic coming down Manatee Avenue and coming down Golf Drive. Is that got any input into your uh factors? >> It it's not an input into our calculations currently, but if if there's a way to quantify that, we're we're happy to kind of utilize it. Especially even if it's like a from a directional basis, like if you had a sense of like, hey, there was I'm going to make up numbers now for the sake of it was 10,000 this year and it was 20,000 the next year. You know, does our numbers justify those things? And admittedly, um th those things are a little bit trickier just because it's like is it a local? Is it a non-local? So it's like that's why we don't use it as a a very important data point as important as some of these other ones. Like when we someone stays in a hotel, we know they stayed in a hotel, that kind of thing. But anytime we have access to that data, we have used a lot of utilized it before, especially like if someone has asked us to be like, hey, can you estimate what this event brings to this area or something like that, that's where it tends to be um useful cuz if like again making something up, if you had like a big bonfire on the beach one year and next year you want to see what it was and you looked at traffic, that would at least help you understand it with something that's a very specific thing. Visav like some of the things we're looking at now are like countywide visitation, which is just a little bit different. So, if if that's something we could always always use, but it tends to be most useful for a very specific event or things of that nature. >> Sure. I uh Googled the Department of Transportation to find out the amount of traffic that goes east and westbound from Gulf Drive to 75th Street. I was floored. On a 24-hour basis, they rated a 200,000 to 300,000 vehicles a day. Yeah. >> In 24 hours. So, I was just thinking, I know for a fact I've seen Manatee Avenue backed up to 53rd. I mean, just both lanes, people trying to get on the island. The same thing with Cortez. And hopefully with a new bridge, that'll be a >> that'll help out quite a bit, too. But, uh, just a lot of traffic. >> Yeah, for sure. >> Commissioner Diggins. >> Sorry. Uh, no, you're good. Eric got me thinking about something here. We have a license plate reader, um, on Manatee Avenue and also one on Gulf Drive. So, every every vehicle that comes into Homes Beach, those only two ways other than a boat, um, come into Homes Beach gets read. Um, I do have quantitative numbers for you. Um, not not quality. They're quality. >> Right now, I hear you. >> Okay. Uh, 5 years ago, we had 25,000 vehicles enter and leave um, Homes Beach via Gulf Drive or Manatee Avenue. Right now, during peak season, it's up to 36,000. I tend to think the the amount of uh, people living there hasn't changed that much or the people visiting there uh, staying in a rental hasn't changed that much. the contractors probably there's more more contractors because of the hurricanes. So, the reason the traffic's increased so much, I believe, is day trippers >> coming from all the development out east and they're they're looking at that beautiful beach. And I think if there is a way to uh to get a quality metric from that, I think it would help us a lot because at some point the island is going to get saturated with the vehicles because we only have a finite amount of roads on the and right now like Eric says, we we both live on Gulf Drive. We can't even get out of our driveway half the time. So, so at some point we're going to have to do something with the amount of vehicles there. And I think it'd be worth it, but again, I'm not I'm not asking Elliot to spend more money doing it, but I think there's there's some value to it. >> Gotcha. >> I take I take partial credit. Sorry. I take part credit for that license plate reader. When the chief came and said, "Hey, can we put that on your sign?" I said, "Sure, load it up." And all those cameras going um north and south are right on our sign. >> So, a question about day trippers. So when we are capturing day trippers in in the surveys, are we counting in county day trippers as day trippers or not? >> No. Good question. Let let me just say one thing on on the license plates and then I mean the one tricky thing about license plates for the overall picture is you have about half of your visitors flying into the destination. So it it it it would be a useful data point, but it is it also wouldn't be like fully like integrable to to your to your point on day trippers. Um basically the first question is to paraphrase, do you live in Manatee County? If you live outside of the county, um you're considered a visitor. If you live inside the county, you are not. And then they're basically we basically say, hey, thank you for your So if you have someone who's traveling across the county, but it stays within county lines, that would not be considered a visitor. and then they would not be considered a part of this study. Doesn't mean they're not important to your economy or any of those things, but like we have to draw some fairly distinct lines to make sure we're all talking about the same thing overall. Good question. >> Thank you, >> Madam Chair. And I think you just hit it. Um I live in East County. I think some people on Anamaria look at me as a day tripper. Uh or uh >> like today. >> Yeah. I mean, seriously, when when you gave me the pleasure to to speak to your board, we had talked about that is uh you know, tourists, tourists, day trippers, and I said, "Well, how do you look at me, somebody who lives in East County, coming on and off the island?" >> Um, I think in regards to the amount of cars coming on and off the island, uh, Eric, that may be we're going to pose that question to FDOT, uh, because they are both state bridges. Um that may be the most efficient way um instead of uh you know trying to look at uh Joe doing it. Uh and then number two is we collect the data. I don't know what you do with the data because it's a reality. And I think it was I think it was Dan. Uh the the difference for a guy that's lived here for 30 years is when I moved here, the population in Manatee County was 220,000 people. In probably four to 5 years, we'll be at a half a million. The length of the beaches haven't changed to reflect that. Okay. So, we all acknowledge that. Yeah, we have a challenge for cars to come on and off our barrier islands. Uh we just the three cities and the government continue just to work together to enhance multimmodal transportation on and off the island. And I'll keep beating that drum. This TDC and the border county commissioners took that huge huge step to start the water ferry operation um to start enhancing multimodal transportation. Uh uh is that the end all? No. There's still a lot of work to do. Will we ever get there? Don't know. Um, easier said than done, but we got to keep hacking away at it. >> All right. Do we have any other questions on methodology, or can we go ahead and move on to the visitor tracking report? >> All right. >> Let's move on. >> Oh, this is just going to be a broad overview, a handful of data points. The full report's longer. I will say if you have more questions, just ask. Send it through Elliot. They'll send it to us. We stand behind anything that we do and we want everyone to to feel like you can use this and make better decisions and if it's something that I can't figure out right away, we'll figure it out. And so ju just let us know what the question is. We'll go from there. So wi with without further ado, I'll go this is going to be a visitor data from the January through March uh 2026. So kind of your your some some of your some your some of your high times. So again, I'm not going to go through every data point here. Um we spent a little time on methodology, so I'll skip that slide. Um the economic impact summary, this is kind of like, you know, Isaiah has been here. If you take your January, February, and March reports kind of put the put these together. Um you have over 600,000 visitors, over 776,000 room nights, and over 633 million indirect spend overall. Again, you've been getting some of this data, so I'm not spending a I don't want to spend a ton of time here. Um but th these are in your quarterly reports. That way, you have this on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. Again, you don't have an annual report yet, but we'll we'll be doing that as we move forward. Um, this combined lodging comes from uh the variety of data points that we mentioned, but you know, during during during season, you have nearly 77% occupancy. Your average daily rate was over 300. Again, a reminder that is hotels and vacation rental data. So, that's kind of combined together. So, I know um ju just something to remind you as we go through. And here's just the breakdown of what hotels and vacation rentals look like in the quarter. Again, I know Isaiah covers some of this in the monthly, so I'm not spending a lot of time in here. What I really want to do the next section of our report of the quarterly reports are we're kind of highlighting um some of your visitor data just so we can do a little bit deeper dive and then I won't go into the detailed findings which is a data a slide on literally every data point, but let's just look at your visitor profile in January through March had you almost 30% of first-time visitors. I think with most of our clients a good quarter is 20 to 25% range. That's good to see a lot of first-time visitors. median household income of over 135k. That's a little bit higher than we see in we see in some destinations. At the same time, January through March, especially in Southwest Florida, tends to be a high season. So, as average daily rate goes up, income tends to go up. Length of stay was around 6.4. That includes those staying in second homes and with their friends and family. As I mentioned, they tend to stay a little bit longer than those staying in paid accommodations. Um, in January through March, you had about half of them were couples skewed a little bit older with a median age of of 60. The one thing I want to note with median age, that doesn't include children. We're not interviewing seven year olds. Just so just so whenever you see a median age, that is of folks 18 or older. Um, and and in that data, we get the age of the person we're interviewing, not the whole travel party. So that tends to even itself out, but just a note whenever you're looking at it. And a travel party size of of just under three, about 2.7. Again, you had a lot of couples overall. That's that's why it tends to be a little bit lower than three. Um, one of the notes that I want to note is like where are people recalling advertising when they were here? Um, one of the things I want to mention, recall I think is an important word because the we ask them what ads or promotions do you remember when they were here? um search engines, social media, going on vacation websites, um OTAAS, things uh travel blogs, TV or radio. That's that's a lot of data there. One of the things I try to say to everyone on this list, notice there isn't like one or two things that are reaching out to 50% of all your visitors. It's just a reminder of importance of being multimodal in your marketing. There isn't really a singular silver bullet this day and age. We are we are not a mon really not much of a monoculture anymore. So we're in multiple places. So it's important to be as Elliot was talking about your digital. It's important to be in multiple digital places because wherever people go is different. Um visitor origin markets at the top includes all visitors at the bottom. Those staying in paid accommodations as Elliott mentioned um New York City was number one in January through March followed by Minneapolis St. Paul, Chicago, Pittsburgh rounding out rounding out the top four. Um, the one thing that we'll notice, and this is coming from someone who grew up in Minnesota, it's not surprising in the January through March, you have a lot of folks from the Midwest and the in the Northeast. It's especially when you get to February and March, again, I it's just it's been cold for so long. Just the idea of getting out of that is is is so important. So, um, but you still do have a you do have about 6% of your visitors coming from Florida and Canada was at was at 4% January to March. uh a lot of things when it comes to Canada. I'm not trying to spend a lot of time on Canada. Um they're traveling less to Florida overall, but they haven't stopped traveling. They're not talking about it as much because they're not as excited about coming to the US, but it's not like they're not coming. So, while it's lower, it's not like it's not there overall. Um as I mentioned earlier, you have about in January through March, just over half your visitors drove. Um, but you have about 30% coming into SRQ, but you also have significant percentages coming into Tampa and Orlando overall in terms of getting here. Um, what do they do when they here? They eat out, they go to the beach, they shop, they spend time with their friends and family, and then a myriad of other categories, but those top four are really kind of the the core four, if if you will, of what what they did in January through March here while they're in the county. Um, one of the things that we we've we we've included is a question on like if they took a business trip, did they extend their business trip? About one in four in January through March did extend their business trip. So, um, as someone who has to do this travel a lot and sometimes just has to get home, that's actually a fairly significant percentage overall. But at the same time, when we look at the leisure versus a business breakdown, especially in Jan's remarks, leisure is is leading the way. You know, I know you have that new convention center. So, I think that will be something that may change over time. Um, but leisure is still vital, especially in January through March. And the final slide I'm going to talk about today before I open it up to questions again is satisfaction and attention to your return. This is your report card. This is the how did we do in terms of satisfaction with their trip overall. Um, 98% were either completely satisfied or very satisfied with 87% being completely satisfied. Anytime you look at these satisfaction metrics for a board, I always say your goal is to increase that top percentage the most is because those are the folks who are going to go home and tell the story about their trip to the area. Um, and so when we look at that likelihood of returning being 94% are very likely. These numbers overall for that top box, if you're in the high 70s, low 80s, given what I've seen in other counties, um, that's a good numbers to be in the high 80s and low 90s. those are significant and and one of the things I want to mention to that because anything anytime that happens that's not just about the marketers bringing folks to the area the boards who are running I mean this is a testament to the entire tourism community because if you don't have good folks on the front line they don't want to come back the the devil's in the details when it comes to satisfaction and and intent to in intent to return and you folks are are are coming up um aces in in that regard so again there's a whole bunch more data there. Um when we do these um after after I came down here for the marketing summit and some of the feedback from this board, we are updating the questionnaire a little bit to get like an open end so you can get some more like hey what are the what are the your visitors saying and then we're adding a couple tweaks and then what when we present on uh when we have this quarterly report we'll try to focus on this data so you can see some of the metrics but also some of the visitor behavior because I know the metrics are always important but it doesn't always tell you probably the whole story that you're trying to hear. So, um, with that, I will once again open up to questions that anyone may have. >> Commissioner Diggins. >> Yeah, this is for both Elliot and Joe. Um, are there any other beach communities and counties like Manatee County around the state that we could compare how we're doing to them? Is that is that done at all? I can't share it because just like I work with a lot of folks in Southwest Florida. So, it's like I can tell you in general like like I did like hey compared to where we're seeing across the state but I couldn't show you a slide that shows you you compared to Sarasota over Fort Myers what have you. Um at the same time a lot of it's public record but that's something I just like if I had the same question in another county I'm not going to tell them your data. I I would I respect that. But but it's but generally when we give these presentations, I try to give you a sense of what I'm hearing or across the state without noting explicitly what it looks like in other >> but you're saying our numbers are pretty good. >> Those numbers specifically are are are very high especially, you know, in January through March. Um you don't have low rates, you know, compared compared to the rest of the year. And that's always a thing. Anytime you have high rates, expectations go up. So it's harder to be satisfied with intent to return, things of that nature. But but those are those are good figures. But again, I can't I can't show you the exact numbers compared to other counties. >> Okay, I respect that. Thank you. >> Other questions. >> All right. >> Thank you very much. >> Thanks, Joe. >> All right. Now, we can move on back to Elliot uh with an annual sponsorship for a multicultural event. really happy. Uh Joe will be able to give us uh uh yearbyear um starting in the August meeting probably. Joe. Yeah, it'd be great. So, I thought I'd come here instead of looking down the bowling alley uh trying to talk to everybody. Uh really appreciate it. Gosh, it's cold in here, isn't it? I think Chris Kohhan's trying to freeze us up. Um but we appreciate his hospitality. Um the uh last year you all recommended and the board approved the multicultural event at Lecom Park. Uh that's this month. You see the one pager. Uh drill down a little bit. We um we have a little different mindset than a lot of convention and visitors bureau around the state. Um sometimes we don't get caught up all the time in room night generation. uh a lot of times and I think the riotta is probably one of the best examples even though it does stimulate room nights. Uh but what what the Bradenton River Walk regata what the main objective was if you're if you're trying to redevelop a community particularly a downtown area then our role should be to try to push revenues into that corridor during shoulder seasons when we're able and the regata let's just call it $8 million in one A comes right into that urban core Palmetto in Bradenton. One day money's dropped and they're gone. And what it does second is it introduces somebody who never cared to go into Palmetto or Bradenton. And when they get there, they go, "Oh, wow. I didn't realize there was this beautiful riverwalk. Didn't realize there was this theater, this art center, this Bishop Museum." all the assets that the TDC and the board has invested in. Remember, uh there's research, you know, firsttime visitor to the Braden area, and that's countywide is likely to return within 12 months, 94% of the time. Okay. So, so this is another very very smaller example. You all recommended 50k last year. I should have asked for it for multiple years. Um uh but I make more mistakes than do good things these days. Uh this we're trying to feed a corridor that's trying to go through redevelopment village of the arts uh the craft uh breweries etc. all around Leecom Park. I call that the book end of our of our redevelopment from Leecom Park to the convention center and everything in between. So if we could push some revenues for this small event uh into that corridor and give that retail one more push then I think it makes sense. Now beyond based on your recommendation beyond this year then we would recommend to go from 50 to 25 and then the third year maybe 25 or zero because we really want events to Tony and I talked about it last week that you know it should be three years is the event going to work is it sustainable or not and if it's not then let's get out and let's go find some other events. regata is a whole different dynamic, the big signature event. You're always going to support them somehow someway. Um, so it is, as you can see, the multicultural event led by the Black Chamber of Commerce. And um, with your recommendation, uh, we would go to the board sometime after recess and uh, uh, for the $50,000 and then based on the board's approval in the next two-year budget, we would build that in. But but the following year it would be my recommendation that we bring it down to 25 as well. I'm just going to share one couple more tidbits. We're looking at restaurant owners will tell you that their business is off about 30% across the board. Okay, there's a lot of reasons for that. Uh that probably means their retail is right around 20 20 to 30% off. So, we're we're scrutinizing, especially out here, that uh Bridge Street, uh Pine Avenue, uh the shops right across from your city hall and Homes Beach. Um, might we need to s support through their their association, their merchants associations to do small events throughout the summer into the fall to push money into those corridors to help sustain those corridors, especially with the economy fluctuating uh uh consumer confidence like a yo-yo. So, we may come back in August or October uh to see if you all want to consider that because that's part of the charm that we have the characteristics of Anamaria Island is the small businesses, the boutique shops. Uh that is just the icing on the cake uh for that. So with that, um I'm asking for a recommendation for the multicultural event uh at Lecom Park and then obviously like I articulated uh the second year if the board of county commissioners uh do approve it as well, we would we would cut that sponsorship in half to 25. >> Any questions? Any thoughts? >> Elliot, a question on marauders. uh like what are they sponsoring in this event? >> Uh they're just the they're providing the space of Leecom Park. They're not putting any cash into it. Uh I think it it integrates well with the Marauders. I think they average between 700 and,00 a game. Uh I don't get to too many games. Uh but it's uh it you know any kind of promotion coming out of my baseball world just does really stimulate uh the the uh attendance at that game and the traffic. Um, and it gives one last push, you know, before you get into the debt of the summer season, uh, for that retail. Um, I quite canilally I wish we had more time to work with small nonprofits to really help create and maintain events, um, during shoulder seasons because it's really, really important. And remember, once we get them there, the first time, uh, they're likely to continue to come back and, you know, you've saw a little bit through, uh, um, down St. Germaine's research. So, is that like they going to do like a fun fair or something like that? >> Yep. Multiple activities and talent that they'll hire surrounding before and after the game uh uh for this event. >> Yep. >> Mr. Diggin. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um Elliot, when do you think this will happen? The actual event >> in June. >> In June. >> Um I I uh Oh, is it July? Is it on the one sheeter? It says June, but it says June, but there's no date. So, >> yeah. Uh, let me see here. Yeah, I don't know why uh the the chamber. Yeah. Uh, do you know I've had uh it's in July. I can I can follow up with an email for everybody. >> All the planning has already been done then pretty >> correct. Correct. Um, once again, I I thought it was a recurring sponsorship. >> Okay. >> So, I'm being uh reactive here. Um, so if um uh yeah, it's I thought it was recurring. So it was a one time last year. So I'm asking for a second time and then year two we would we would cut that in half and then based on on board approval we would just continue to lock it in. >> Okay. >> I'm not clear what the reason is to cut it in half next year. uh because um you want the nonprofit to continue to find private partners and not always have the mindset not this particular but uh but but any nonprofit organization we have to have partnerships with the private sector and not just lean on the government dollars year in and year out is is is our what our objective has always been. >> Thank you. >> Yes. And Elliot, just first of all, I mean, I think this is exactly what the the CVB and the tourism board is about. Um, just coming from, again, it's about being diversified, right? As we study the budget here from direct marketing, promotion, sports, arts and culture. Um, you've historically done such a great job of being diversified. And I'll be honest with you, coming here from California uh many many years ago, these events uh that you have was really one of the the first things that opened my eyes to everything that's going on in Manatee County. And these events are crucial uh to continue to attract tourism. um you know, historically going back to World Rowing Championships, World Golf Championships, uh World's Strongest Man, and you know, so so the more that we can do this and I and I completely support your uh your vision of having kind of like a three-year sponsorship uh to these types of events so that you know the events that can be established and sustainable by themselves can continue to grow so that we can do more, right? like you, we only have an allocated budget to the amount of these events that we can do, but these events are an unbelievable highlight to our community. The only thing that I ask is can we can can we make sure that when we do this that there's a great marketing push not not necessarily from us from from the TDC's budget but you know when when you put this make sure that these events are getting highlighted out there on you know on the different media outlets with the newspapers and the the local ads but even maybe you know some press releases uh to put them out there because I mean I think this is press release worthy you know when we're talking about the the history of the nine doubles and you know I to know a little bit about my son actually works with the Marauders now. So, I kind of was uh you know learning a little bit more about this, but I think it's I think just a great event. I fully support it and I fully support the uh you know kind of the three-year cause. So, uh yeah, they will be creating awareness. We'll push it out with social media as well. So, uh we'll make sure that they do a press release if they haven't already. Um yeah, without the marketing, what's the point, >> right? [laughter] Yeah. Any other thoughts or motions? >> Time for a motion. A motion to approve. >> Second. >> I second it. >> All right, we have a motion and a second. All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> All right, and that is approved almost unanimously. We have we have an absence. Uh, all right. So, now we can move on to the Intercolgate Women's Lacrosse Coaches Association. >> I I I don't even know the acronym. uh commissioner >> the IWLCA. >> Yes. Uh this is uh what I call the epitome of [clears throat] uh of the kind of business that we want on the mainland. Uh this event has already happened. So I think I've I've told y'all individually. Uh there's two reasons. Uh one uh not only am I playing catchup, but but more importantly, we don't want to ask for the money if we feel like we can fit it in our current current budget. Uh, and if we can't fit it into our current budget, then we're going to ask for the money. Um, and um, so with that, this is the biggest amateur tournament uh, that you'll see uh, in our community uh, for the year. Uh, we utilize IMG Academy, Premier Sports Campus, and the uh, Sports Plex up in Tampa. Thank you, Kirsten. Kirsten, raise your hand. Kirsten is the the champion of bringing this event to our community. Uh you could see it's a three-day tournament, 500 teams. Uh you can see the ROI. It's it's a great deal. Um I'm going to ask for a recommendation of 150,000. Uh you can see the uh uh the economic impact of 75 million. Uh that's just uh really good. Now, the icing on the cake is you can go 3/4 down the page. Uh now that we have a convention center, uh Kristen and her team have worked hard to uh bring the coaches conference uh to the convention center that's been in St. Petersburg as well. So, we we've always wanted to be able to bid on on those supplementary uh coaches referee events and uh so now we'll be able to do that as well. um with your recommendation uh we did get a partnership with Visit Sarasota because they do get bleed into Sarasota County. We do have a partnership obviously with Visit Tampa and then the Florida Sports Foundation through grant dollars as well. Uh this event uh the next three years you could see 26 27 28. So, I would ask um for uh with the recommendation that um we'll go we would go to the board asking for that money as long as this lacrosse women's lacrosse takes place in our region. And the time of the year is November. So, it is really really important to give those mainland properties a push. Uh the I75 corridor properties, the urban core, etc. Like I said, this is the epitome. I wish we had about six of these a year. Um, the other one [clears throat] is, uh, this upcoming weekend, the Super Copa soccer. Uh, Kristen and her team worked hard on that as well. So, got some really big events coming in in a time that the mainland community really needs it. So, with that, I'm here to answer any questions or seek a recommendation. >> Any questions or discussion? All right. I'm entertaining motions. >> I move the motion. A second. >> All right. Okay, we have a motion and a second. All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> That is approved unanimously. And now we have uh an annual update on Sunshine Law. >> Yeah. Uh thank you for that last recommendation. Uh this is just housekeeping uh for those of you who have been on the TDC for a while. Gosh, I think uh it's neck andneck with Jaten and Eric as our most senior TDC members. Uh yeah, so we Leanne, we'll have to research uh that. Um, but it's just a reminder. Um, just uh just uh review the me memo. It comes out from the county attorney's office. We're all in the sunshine. I'm in the sunshine. So, I think most importantly, when I have one- on-one meetings with you, uh, I'm saying it in the public that if I speak to one of you, I sure don't tell anybody else on the TDC the conversation that we have. Uh, it's really important. It's just just a reminder. Um, and I know you in you all adhere to the sunshine law as well. So, it's just an FYI. Um, if you have any questions, uh, obviously you can get with me, but, uh, I know you all don't have any questions about it. Um, uh, Madam Chair, if I may, uh, just to let, uh, introduce my staff real quick. Yes. >> Um, since aside from Commissioner Whitmore, um, uh, it's all our staff. So, um, um, Kenan Singleton, our communications manager, uh, Olivia S, uh, George is, these ladies keep changing their names cuz they're all getting married. Uh, is our global affairs manager. Uh, Kirsten Love it, uh, is with our our sports sales team. Colobby Gase is our marketing and communications director. um recently from Arizona State University. Uh Canon Hobic, he's uh going into his junior year in marketing. Uh and then Britney Krauss, she changed her name on me, uh is our marketing manager. Um in the back there, uh is Justin Intorcia. He handles all of our um contracts and many, many other things. When I hired uh Justin, I said, "By the way, you're going to read for me, you know, and he does that really, really well." Uh most of you know Jane Roberts, 30-year plus veteran, uh our chief financial officer, Leanne Keeling, uh my executive assistant. Out of that, we have one, two, three, four, oh, raise your hand. University of South Florida graduates. Um so they are a hub there. So, um they uh uh they are my expertise um as I'm trying to um kind of do a job as a tourism director. So, uh thank you all for being here. With that, that is my report. How you like this? I like this little face to face interfa interaction. Thank you all for your support. >> Thank you all very much. And now we can move on to new or old business from any of our members. Mr. Diggins, >> of course, um we uh in our last commission meeting, which was last week, um we turned down a contract, um was going to rebuild the the shelter over ferry, not a fairy, a trolley stop right in front of the Publix. Um we thought the contractor was charging way too much money for it. Um and somebody on the board said, "Hey, can you ask TDC if they could help fund that?" So, I didn't mean to surprise anybody with it, but this all happened within a few days. So, is that something that would qualify for? >> We could check. Usually, uh the the federal grants um allocate money for that. So, I I'll check with Chad Butso, who oversees MCAT. Um uh and then if if it's not uh if there's no federal funds for that, then let's take a look at it. We'll we'll read the law. Um, I know we've talked about trolley stops. >> Yeah. >> Islandwide over the years because I think based on each Carol may have been on RTDC. Each municipality has a different mindset of the style of the trolley stop. Not that that's a bad thing, but uh yeah, we'll make a note of that and uh we'll research that. >> Yeah, Homes Beach puts a cover over them. It's made of wood, so it's it's kind of >> which we embrace. Uh not only the rain, but the sun. Keep the people out of the sun. The last time we rebuilt one, it cost 27,000 and the contracts came in at 102,000. >> And I know that there was some money allocated for ADA upgrades from the federal government. So, uh, Leanne, we'll make a note of that. We'll follow up with you, sir. >> Okay. Yeah, because it's it's a very popular stop and it's right in front of Publix and we know the sun is beating on us. But thank you, Ellie. >> Yes, sir. Tony, [clears throat] >> I just have a huge congratulations uh to a fellow board member here um Cedar Cove. Uh as you know, I got I follow the hospitality industry. They won a Traveler's Choice award with Trif Advisor, top 10% in the world uh for Traveler's Choice. So that's, you know, this this boutique uh this boutique resort on Anamaria Island is being recognized all over the board. Congratulations to Eric and Adrian. Your team