SM2 Panel Discussion and Q&A Transcript
2012-13 Series in Regional Collaboration—Produced by SRQ Media Group
“Collaboration in Regional Tourism, Arts and Conferences”
Date: Thursday, May 16, 2012 (7:30-9:00am)
Moderator: Katie Klauber Moulton, President of the colony Beach and Tennis Resort
Opening Presenter: Jeffrey Mayers, General Manager, The Resort at Longboat Key Club
Panelists: Elliott Falcione, Executive Director of the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau;
Jim Shirley, Executive Director of the Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County;
Virginia Haley, President of Visit Sarasota County
Wes Roberts: Good morning everybody. I am Wes Roberts. I’m the publisher with SRQ Media
Group. You all know us primarily through our magazines: SRQ magazine, ACCESS, LUX and SRQ
Daily; A whole range of publications and events in the community. SM2 is one of the exciting
programs that we’ve launched, and the subject for today is attracting the next decade of tourists.
The challenge, of course, is that as beautiful and spectacular as our community is, as our water is, as
our sunshine is, there is a lot of work to be done to make sure people keep coming, enjoying and
discovering. Tourism is big business for our region and that impact isn’t just in the dollars visitors
spend, but also the opportunity for them to become residents one day. Nothing sells our area better
than seeing it from the eyes of a tourist. Tourism is big business for our region. And that impact isn’t
just in the dollars visitors spend at our accommodations, attractions, retailers and restaurants, but
the door it opens for them to become a resident one day. Nothing sells our area better than seeing it
from the eyes of a tourist. Our panelists are leaders in our region in the development of successful
tourism-they see firsthand what works and what doesn’t. Today we’ll see our region from their
eyes—and gain a better understanding of how we will attract the next decade of tourists. And, what
that growth means for our hospitality industry. We’ll be looking at more hotels. The long discussed
potentiality of a conference center. What do local attractions and art organizations need to do in
this day and age to make sure they’re at the forefront of the new wave of tourists. And perhaps,
most importantly, what are ways for our two counties to collaborate on a regional agenda. Before
our dialogue begins in earnest, I’d like to welcome our elected officials: Manatee Commissioner,
John Chappie; Sarasota Commissioner, Joe Barbetta; and Longboat Key Vice President, Dave
Brenner. To me, it says a lot about elected officials to have them attend an event like this. We
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recognize our sponsors for their support and vision in helping us launch the SM2. They realize that
by bringing together leaders from Manatee and Sarasota Counties for lively discussion on important
topics, we can make change. Our titan sponsor is SRQ Airport. Thank you so much. If you haven’t
pledged your support for the “Do You SRQ” campaign, there are “Do You SRQ” forms at your table to
sign up—as a company and as an individual. In addition, we recognize our Platinum Sponsor Sign
Zoo, our Collaborator Sponsors Seaside Bank and CS&L CPAs and our event sponsor today, The
Resort at Longboat Key Club. The Resort at Longboat Key Club’s new General Manager, Jeffrey H.
Mayers, agreed to be our opening presenter today. Prior to his appointment at the Key Club, he
served as the Task Force General Manager at The Renaissance, Las Vegas (I wonder if he’s worked
with Jeanne Corcoran, they overlapped) and the General Manager of Sawgrass Gold Resort and Spa
in Ponte Vedra Beach. As General Manager, he established key relationships with the PGA Tour. He
also served as Area General Manager for two Renaissance Hotels in Mobile, Alabama, where he had
oversight of two major renovation projects, one of which was recognized as “Hotel Opening of the
Year” for Renaissance Hotels. Jefferey Mayers, if you could come up.
[Jeffrey Mayers, The Resort at Longboat Key Club]: Thank you very much for coming this
morning. I’ve been here for a little over six months, and I must say that of all my travels and places
that I’ve been fortunate enough to work, that this is just a wonderful area, and with tourism we
have a wonderful opportunity. A little bit about The Resort at Longboat Key Club…we were
purchased by Ocean Properties from Lowe Real Estate Development back in early November of last
year. We are very proud to be a sponsor this morning for the Tourism symposium. Ocean
Properties currently owns five hotels in the area; two in Lido Beach and two in Longboat Key, as
well as the Courtyard in Bradenton. Ocean Properties is very much invested in this area. The
ownership is really committed to being good corporate partners and doing what’s right for our
community. They’ve already started to invest and provide the resources to refurbish The resort at
Longboat Key Club, and will continue to make investments as time progresses. Personally, I want to
thank Virginia Haley. Virginia has been very helpful to me in my transition and my role as general
manager, bringing me up to speed on tourism in our community and providing me with great
statistics, that I thought it would be really great to share with you today to show you what tourism
does for our community. The tax dollars generated by our visitors is essential to our state and local
government. Sarasota visitors’ state and local tax contributions in the 2012 calendar year were
$82,697,511. That is a staggering number when you think about it and what it does for our
government. The revenues generates by our visitors also provide tax savings for the citizens in our
community. Last year, the savings for the average resident household was $489.00 in state and local
taxes. Also, tourism is essential to our local economy. Nearly one in every five individuals who
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work, are either directly or indirectly related to tourism. It is estimated that 20,498 of our fellow
citizens in Sarasota County are employed in the tourism industry. This represents a growth of 3.8%,
year over year. The total number of visitors to our community in our community in 2012 was
4,680,800. Of that amount 879,300 were in paid lodging. 747,00 were visitors and over 3 million
came her as day-trippers. The impact of tourism touches many of our citizens and businesses,
which really rely on visitors throughout the year. Visitor spending in Sarasota County alone
accounted for $1,169,866,000. Staggering when you think about what that does for our community.
One can only imagine the impact we would feel in our local economy if our visitors’ spending was
substantially less. We all went through the troubling times back in 2009-2008. So we’ve been there
and we understand what that’s all about. On the other hand, just imaging the impact in our
economy if this number was substantially higher. One thing that I’ve learned also is the tourism
impact in the real estate market, particularly Longboat Key. I can’t tell you the number of visitors
that come to our community and end up buying real estate, because they end up falling in love with
the area. Bringing people to our community and showing them the arts, culture, quality of life and
everything that we have to offer can really enhance the real estate market. In closing, it’s essential
that we continue to have the support of our local government and business leaders to advocate
tourism and provide the resources in this very competitive industry. While the economy has
continually shown signs of improvement over the last three years, it is essential that we continue to
advocate tourism and educate our citizens. Initially, we need to develop synergies with our
neighboring counties. I’m really glad that our friends from Manatee County are here with us today
to drive business to our areas, which are mutually beneficial. Thank you for attending this event
today. I really believe this will generate some great conversation, and I’m looking forward to the
panel. Thank you very much.
Wes Roberts: Now we’re ready to get the panel discussion underway. I would like to introduce our
moderator, Katie Klauber Moulton, who will guide the discussion. Our goal is to engage lively and
substantive discussion on the topic of the tourist, and who better to do that than Katie. Katherine
“Katie” Moulton has served as President of the renowned Colony Beach and Tennis Resort for more
than 25 years. Before that, she worked as a food facilities design consultant with Cini Grissom
Associates. Katie has dedicated herself to her industry and community, serving as the pastchairman of the Florida Lodging Association and the Sarasota Chamber of Commerce. Other
organizational involvement includes board positions with the Florida Council of 100, American
Hotel & Lodging Association, Tampa Bay Partnership, University of South Florida’s School of Hotel
and Restaurant Management, Sarasota Economic Development Corporation, Tourist Development
Council, Sarasota Convention and Visitor Bureau, Sarasota Schools Business Advisory Committee,
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Girl’s Inc., and Florida Winefest and Auction. As a Florida Supreme Court Certified Mediator, Katie is
able to offer an expert understanding of the issues and stakeholder positions when applying
alternate dispute resolution to virtually any business conflict. Please help me welcome Katie.
[Katie Klauber Moulton, Colony Beach and Tennis Resort]: Thank you for including me in this.
I’m semi-retired, but as most of you know, once you’ve had a taste of the industry it’s hard to step
away from it. Especially, when you still live, play and sometimes work in the community. There is so
much that you see on a daily basis that is impacted by our tourists and our visitors. I look around
the room and as you were all coming in, I was excited to see such diversity in the group that’s here
today. We have real estate, construction, economic development, chambers; we’ve got our
government officials. I think everybody understands how important tourism is. David Brenner,
thank you for all that you do for us on Longboat. We have never had a commission on longboat Key
that understood tourism the way that this particular commission does. As we go through our
rehabilitation at the Colony, we couldn’t ask for better partners than we have. I remember getting
calls regularly from Publix and CVS asking about the traffic pattern and arrival and departure
patterns, because they would schedule their staffing and their deliveries based on our business. You
understand the impact we have on a small community, but you look at it on a global basis as well. In
the beginning of the year, some of the most important investment conferences and tourism
conferences take place. Reports that come out this year are showing such excitement. There is no
question that we are on a very serious upswing right now. Most of the pundits out there are saying
we will have growth in the tourism market, at least through 2017. We have a window here in
Sarasota that is very important to us to manage and to take advantage of. I hope our officials will
help us, as some opportunities come up the pipe, to build some new properties, to expand our
attractions, our theatres, and help get these things moving as quickly as we can so we don’t miss the
window. Just yesterday, VISIT FLORIDA released its first quarter report. Thank you to our local
newspaper for making it headlines today, because not everybody in the community loves the
tourism industry. They don’t like traffic; they don’t like to have to make dinner reservations; they
don’t like to have to park in the parking garage. They’d rather park on the street. The fact of the
matter is this community as a whole needs to understand the value. One of the items that came out
of it that stunned me so much was that the first quarter of 2013 was the largest quarter in tourism
history in the state of Florida. What does that say about our recovery? We’re on our way, the
growth is stable, and were in a position to really become the number one destination globally. I’m
not going to change my mind on that, because I believe Florida really is the best destination there is,
and I’ve traveled many places around the world. Another statistic that came out of it is that for
every 85 visitors, one tourism job is created. That’s a big deal. Not everybody hears those statistics,
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and not everybody lets it sink in. it truly is something that can take your breath away. The data that
defines the indirect spending and jobs is important. When you look at the indirect spending, I love
what Jeff said about the sales tax. Think about the $82 million and how sales tax is generated, and
how that affects our infrastructure, healthcare, and so many other things that make up our quality
of life here so great. Thank you, again, to all the traffic going and coming across the bridge. To that
Michigan license plate, thank you very much. Please don’t go home so soon. So on that note, let’s
jump right in to the panel discussion. The first thing that I wanted to ask the panelists is to give a
brief introduction and to then to share one of the greatest misperceptions about making successful
regional tourism happen. Elliott, start us off.
[Elliott Falcione, Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau]: Elliott Falcione. I’m the
director of the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. We’re a department of Manatee
County government. We’re structured differently than Virginia’s 501 C6, but we do partner in a lot
of different ways. I think sometimes, in regards to partnering, that is has some cache to it. I think we
as destination marketing organizations need to understand that operating convention and visitors
bureaus separately, being so close, really helps optimize the operation. It focuses on serving your
stakeholders in your backyard. You partner when you have the advantage of stretching your dollar
in the marketplace. Europe is a prime example. If we lived in Germany or the United Kingdom and
we were coming to this beautiful destination, we’re coming to the Sarasota-Bradenton area. We’re
probably not coming to Sarasota or Bradenton, because that length of stay is a lot bigger. So, it
makes good sense to partner from that standpoint. Where I would say we drop the gloves is the
drive market. We’re competing state wide for that business. If we live in Orlando and want to go
somewhere for a three-day weekend, we’re going to go to either Siesta Key or Lido or Anna Maria
Island for that weekend, but probably not all three. It’s important that we convey that. It’s
important that our industry and our elected officials understand that were having dialogue
constantly. There’s constant transparency. Two brands are different. We have two different
communities with contrasts. I think that’s a benefit. What I’m most excited about where we live is
we are geographically positioned better than any other two county areas in the state, because you
have 2.5 million people north of us, and you have that Mickey Mouse scene 100 miles away. You
showcase that. That’s my answer to your first question.
[Virginia Haley, visit Sarasota County]: I think one of the things people don’t understand is that
the move towards regionalism really began with tourism. We understand the necessity. We’re very
competitive in Florida with other destinations. On the other hand, we work together as the state of
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Florida to promote the whole state, and then as Elliott said, duke it out for where they go within the
state. I look at my organization, and my founding board 30 years ago, included the general manager
of the Hilton on Longboat, which is in Manatee County. We’ve been on the road. We have war
stories going back years with the two destinations. I think there have been a lot of cases where
we’ve been able to stretch those dollars and match the competition that we face from the betterfunded communities, such as Pinellas, St. Pete, Ft. Meyers, Sanibel, and we’ve been able to parlay
our money to really do more. Katie, you mentioned the record setting season that Florida had. They
were talking about a four percent increase in overall visitation last year. Ours was 5.1 percent, and
we’ve been seeing consistently that our part of Florida has been trending even better than the state.
So, we had the best season we’ve ever had last year, and we just topped that again this year.
[Katie Klauber Moulton, Colony Beach and Tennis Resort]: Virginia, can you take 30 seconds
and explain where your funding comes from?
[Virginia Haley, visit Sarasota County]: Our funding comes from the tourist development tax in
Sarasota and Manatee County, set at five percent over and above sales tax. Those funds are used in
Sarasota County tourism promotion. We have a contract with Sarasota County government to do
that. It funds cultural tourism grants to about 30 different arts organizations in Sarasota. It helped
to rebuild Ed Smith Stadium to redeem spring training. It helped us with the construction of the
Nathan Benderson Park, the Aquatic Nature Facility. I would hate to see where we would be
without our #1 beach ranking for Siesta. That beach is kept in pristine shape thanks to the tourist
tax funding and the major beach re-nourishment projects like the one we’re slowly working on with
Lido. The money that’s collected for tourist tax has a wide number of uses, both in promotion and
balance with product development.
[Katie Klauber Moulton, Colony Beach and Tennis Resort]: But at the same time, its regulated
by legislative ordinances. We try to protect that money every day in Tallahassee because they’d
love to use it for other purposes. The bottom line is, fortunately we have been able to protect it for
the special uses or tourism promotion and beach maintenance.
[Virginia Haley, visit Sarasota County]: One other thing that we have that we’re very proud of,
and that is actually written into our contract with Sarasota County is, we must always raise a
minimum of 10 percent of our contract from the private sector. So, again, it ‘s really rolling out
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programs that you validate by the industry, and I know that you guys do a great job with that to. So,
you’re tied to the industry and providing value for that money invested.
[Jeffrey Mayers, The Resort at Longboat Key Club]: I think the misperception is that if you open
your doors, visitors are going to come. The state of Florida is so diverse—everything from the Keys
to the panhandle, Orlando, South Beach, etc. But that’s not necessarily the case. Visitors have many
options. They can come to Florida; they can go somewhere else, like the Caribbean, or some other
location that’s really good for them. What does it take to find a visitor? What does it take to reach
somebody and get them to come here? What does it take for the community to provide the quality
of experience to bring our visitors back? I look at tourism and it’s not just individuals in the tourism
industry that impact our visitors. It’s people in our community that impact our visitors. So, really
understanding what it takes and obviously having a comprehensive marketing approach really
positions our community to be competitive and bring people.
[Katie Klauber Moulton, Colony Beach and Tennis Resort]: Back in the dark ages when I was
really active in our resort, there were years when we would partner with The Resort at Longboat
Key Club or the Hilton, and we would be traveling over seas or to trade shows, there was an interim
period where a previous management group to Ocean Properties decided they didn’t feel that this
cooperative approach to selling the destination made sense for their property. Unfortunately, for
our staff it was difficult too because they all traveled together, they were on the same flights; they
went to the same shows. Why weren’t we selling the destination? I think we lost attraction for
Longboat Key during that period. Ocean Properties has been spectacular. They understand and
embrace the importance of the global perspective of tourism in the community. I thank you very
much for that. Jeff comes with amazing experience. He’s been in destinations like this before, where
we have to work together to maximize our value when we’re on the road.
Jim adds a totally different perspective to this, yet is completely and totally integrated to the world
of tourism and tourism development. We look at heads and beds in the hotel business. He has to fill
a lot of seats in this community. He has a lot of galleries to support, which are just as important. He
has a lot of performances to support, and what he’s done in the last few years with our arts
community is remarkable. Thank you so much for the efforts that you have made, and we look
forward to hearing your comments.
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[Jim Shirley, Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County]: Thank you. It is a bit of a different
perspective, but I think even more of a perspective than one would think initially about the
importance of tourism. There is no doubt that in this community and in this region, one of our
major anchors of tourism is “the arts”. What do people do when they get here, and why do they
come. We found a couple years ago, the alliance did a study and spoke to the vast majority of our art
patrons that are here, and asked hem why they came here originally. Almost never was the reason
“the arts”, because they didn’t know it was here. Something else brought them here—some other
tourist factor. And then they found out that we had this incredible arts community in Sarasota and
the Gulfcoast region, and they came back. First, maybe the next year, and then six months later, and
then they bought a second or a third house and they became anchors of the community. They did
that because they could become so involved in the thing that they love—“the arts” and this beautiful
place they live. But if we didn’t have the key elements of tourism here, we might not get those
people here the first time. All the arts and cultural organizations are working on building new
audiences—building younger audiences. If you look at the audiences that our typical arts and
culture organizations have today, it’s an older audience. We need to work hard on attracting that
next generation of supporters, because nothing is guaranteed. But I think the wonderful thing that
we’ve found is because of the strength and the richness of “the arts” and culture community we
have here, once they come her and see what this magnificent place is all about, its hard to get away.
They keep coming back. I think the strength of “the arts” helps build tourism, but we wouldn’t have
“the arts” that we have without the tourist industry and the work of all of us making that happen.
[Katie Klauber Moulton, Colony Beach and Tennis Resort]: I was on the TDC for more years
than I can count. “The arts” grants come through the TDC, and we review those on an annual basis.
And the process that arts organizations have to go through in order to quality for the grants is
extensive. Jim and his team work very hard to make sure that those programs are going to
contribute to our tourist activity. We know that we need to fill beds in the off-season and that leads
me to my first question. I’m going to start with Jeff, who helped me to write this question. We have
our peaks and valleys—we all know them. We’re going into the summer season and we know how
to fill the rooms during peak season—we get that. My question to all of you is what do we do about
those bottom 50 days? What strategies and tactics are we using to try to build that business
underneath it all? I want to say that we all know sports tourism is a hot topic. Let’s get outside
sports tourism and tell us what your doing to help us to fill those bottom 50 days and the ones
around that?
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[Jeffrey Mayers, The Resort at Longboat Key Club]: What we face here is pretty much what is
faced in the state of Florida. The fact is we don’t have an influx of visitors coming from outside of
the state. What we do at The Resort at Longboat Key Club and what I have done at other resorts
that I’ve worked at in the state of Florida is take a look at those segments. Those that might have the
feel of the resort experience or the destination experience and go out and focus on those pieces of
business that make sense. Seasonally. The other thing is that we have such a huge drive market,
and when you think about it, for example, Tampa. Think about the number of people that live there,
but don’t have to drive far to go on a vacation—or, maybe it’s Orlando. I look at South Georgia,
down. That is the target market—families that make sense that come to our destination. To Katie’s
point, I’ve always looked at our business and though if you can solve the 50 days when you have the
most demand, there’s a strong likelihood that your business will be successful.
[Jim Shirley, Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County]: I think some of the things that are
happening in sports right now will lend to some of the type of answers that we really need to be
exploring. For example, the Sarasota Music Festival starts next month. 870 room nights in June, just
with the people participating in the festival. That doesn’t count the families coming to visit. I think
of one the creative things they’ve done this year is the Pan Am Swimming Games coming up at the
same time. As a par of that offering, they offer discount tickets for the swimmers coming from
Central and South America to come to the music festival if they want to get involved. They have had
a surprisingly large response, because a lot of people from South America and Europe love “the
arts”. You’re bringing in a high level of individuals who are participating in those events. We need to
be leveraging “the arts”, and we need to be leveraging our sports activities in collaboration with the
other events that we have. I think that we have an opportunity to really collaborate heavily with all
of our assets here and use them to work with that next generation, because the next generation is
not going to be just the opera. I think that is a good example of collaborative efforts that is coming
up soon.
[Elliott Falcione, Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau]: Virginia had mentioned it
earlier. Pinellas County puts about $18 million into the market place for marketing and promotions.
Lee County puts $14 million in. I think combined, we’re probably at six and a half in marketing and
promotions. The thought is, if you pump equity into Orlando metro, Tampa, St. Pete and as that
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influx of visitation is coming into that area, you’re creating awareness of your product through that
outlet. That’s just one tactic that will help drive visitation to your destination. Second, diversify—for
many years, our accommodations did not have relationships with European tour operators. We
were going to consumer shows throughout Germany, creating awareness of beautiful Anna Maria
Island and there was no relationship with a tour operator to book the destination. Now, we’ve been
educating the accommodations and we’re starting to get contracts going between our
accommodations and the European visitor. I think we all know the European comes for holiday
between August and January 15. It is vital to sustain an influx of visitation on a year round basis. As
Jim had mentioned, those signature events are essential to drive business. We can’t forget about the
stay-cations. Lets continue to remind our visitors to go to local places like Siesta Key for a four-day
vacation. Lets keep our dollars in the community, because it’s a great place to vacation as well.
[Jim Shirley, Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County]: If I may comment, I want to
congratulate Bradenton and Johnette in particular for the work you’ve done on the Riverwalk. I
think this is something that is really vital for us as a community and you as community leaders to
understand. It can’t be just about the Convention and Visitors Bureau, or the arts group. Those are
great things, but we have to invest in our asset. I know it was an investment on the Riverwalk, but
what a tremendous attraction for this region. All of a sudden, it’s not all just in one spot in
Sarasota—it’s more within the region. It adds to the overall ambiance of the region. I applaud you
all on that work up there, its fantastic. We as a community have to remember that we have to invest
in the things we have strength in. We can’t just sit here and assume that we’re always going to have
a great arts community. I look at what Florida Studio Theatre did building their new theater, adding
capacity to what we bring downtown. Those are the types of investments that we have to look at as
a community and I think the Riverwalk is a prime example of that.
[Katie Klauber Moulton, Colony Beach and Tennis Resort]: Virginia, before you answer, I’m
going to tie in the next question. All three panelists mentioned international visitors; we’ve had
Germany, the U.K. and Canada as our top three during the summer season for a long time. What
changes are we seeing in the driver market internationally? Will they continue to help to grow this
off-season business for us, and what are we doing to try and compete in those new markets?
[Virginia Haley, visit Sarasota County]: I think that we saw an interesting change in this last
quarter, even though its not off-season, that reflects the growth of the south American market to
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Florida. We actually saw a slight drop in SRQ use, a drop in Tampa use, but a spike in Miami. Your
starting to see the South American markets discovering the area. They’re nowhere near the number
that you see in Miami or Orlando, but we’re starting to see those smaller numbers. The other thing
that we’ve seen is that while you have the economic recession in the Euro zone, we still have a solid
core of visitors who are comfortable and like the Florida experience, and who are concerned about
some of their traditional alternatives. They’re a little worried about Greece. When you see rioting in
places like that, it’s generally not a good thing for tourism. When you see bombings in Turkey, and
the challenges in Egypt, you tend to see visitors returning to safer places. Being in tune with those
visitors is vital to us. Investing in those visitors has been really important, because it builds the offseason. If only we could create two Saturdays in a week during the summer time. What most people
don’t realize is that in July, often times, we have the same general occupancy that we have in season,
its just Friday, Saturday, Sunday. That’s something that we really need to look at with the drive
market is trying to get an extra day, and if we can add an extra day to that weekend stay, we would
see a huge economic impact.
[Katie Klauber Moulton, Colony Beach and Tennis Resort]: Are you seeing the hotels,
restaurants and arts venues helping you by providing some offerings and coupons? What are you
doing to try to get that extra day?
[Virginia Haley, visit Sarasota County]: For us, part of it is trying to educate the visitor of all the
activities once they’re here—educating the industry. When I hear someone is working three jobs
and they’re going to community college at night, but they’re at the front desk in August, telling a
visitor there’s not much to do, that tells me that I have a problem. That’s why we have invested and
are rolling out that visitor information vehicle to not only drive around the county and provide
information to visitors, but stopping by the smaller mom-and-pop front desk to let them know
what’s going on. If they can share that information with the visitor’s, National research has shown
that you can get an extra day and an extra meal before they go home.
[Katie Klauber Moulton, Colony Beach and Tennis Resort]: Elliott, before I ask you to respond
to this international change that we might be seeing, let me add another question to that, which
Virginia made me think of. Who is our competition for our visitors? Is it just Lee County and
Pinellas, or is it Spain, South Africa, or some place in South America? Where is our competition, and
how are we dealing with it today? How are you trying to attract these other global markets?
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[Elliott Falcione, Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau]: First of all, you have to live
and die by research. If you start getting into the subjectivity, you’re going to fail. We’re blessed to
have research data services contracted with both convention and visitor’s bureaus, and we lean
heavily on that. In the state, the Bradenton area is the biggest competition in Sarasota, as well as
Pinellas County. West Palm Beach shows up as competition as well. I think the key to the European
market is good public relations efforts. Fifteen percent of the passengers coming into SRQ are
international. Don’t forget about Scandinavians—they love coming to Florida. The population of
Scandinavia is really small. When you look at a company like Germany with 80 million people, you
wonder where to put your equity to get the strongest ROI. We’re starting to see Europeans buying
online more, and I think that’s their comfort level with the destination that they’re familiar with
already. It’s hard to segway from a tour operator, who provides customer assurance. I think strong
PR efforts and social media is gearing up hard for European countries as well. We just started our
German Facebook about a month ago, and we’re excited about that.
[Jeffrey Mayers, The Resort at Longboat Key Club]: Because I work at a resort, it’s a little bit
different as far as who our competition is and whereas, your CVB’s primarily compete against other
counties, I take a look at those hotels in those locations that we compete against and the type of
visitor that would come to our resort. What I find is similar to CVB’s, but hotels in Collier and
Pinellas County are typically who we go up against. How we position ourselves is extremely
important, as well as how we market ourselves. We want to make sure we’re reaching the right
groups and, just as importantly, that we’re delivering the right message. That’s what differentiates
us in our success.
[Katie Klauber Moulton, Colony Beach and Tennis Resort]: Jeff, have you seen any new global
markets opening up for you?
[Jeffrey Mayers, The Resort at Longboat Key Club]: No, I think it’s pretty consistent with what’s
been said. We do have a young lady on our sales team that focuses on the overseas business for
hotels here in the Sarasota area. Traditionally, it’s the same markets.
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[Katie Klauber Moulton, Colony Beach and Tennis Resort]: Jim, Palm Beach likes to say that
they are the number one arts destination in the state of Florida. How do you feel about that?
[Jim Shirley, Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County]: The real strength that we have here
in our arts and cultural assets is the grants, and what they do is they take money that has come her
from outside this area, and they help invest in one of our strongest assets. We have a lot of great art
and culture in this community: The Ringling Museum, the Sarasota Orchestra, etc. You just don’t see
this in Palm Beach or anywhere else to be honest. What does that do for us beyond here? Exposure
in International markets, for example. The Sarasota Opera is reviewed every year in five different
languages. People that are into the realm of opera, I don’t care where they live in the world, I
promise you they know about Sarasota Opera. By 2016, they will be the only opera company in the
world that has played all the Verdi operas. If your in the opera world, that’s an important thing for
you. You talk about high-end tourists, when these people come to town, they spend a lot of money. I
see John Tischer in the room. Last year, John and his group, The Artist Series, put on a concert at the
Sarasota Opera House that was picked up by National Public Radio, and was broadcast nation-wide,
because of the quality of that particular event. Next month, the Sarasota Ballet is performing at the
Kennedy Arts Center in Washington D.C. People from all over the world will be visiting Washington
D.C. during that time, and they’re going to get a chance to see something from the Sarasota Ballet. I
think what we need to realize is that a big part of our investment needs to be in our strong assets.
The reason that Sarasota is a Number one arts in Florida is because we have great art here. These
organizations put a tremendous amount of money, energy and effort into it, and one of the things
that helps leverage our tourism is that these folks have marketing budgets too. They spend a lot of
money marketing their product, not only to the Sarasota area, but all over the country. We’ve
talked to Rick about the Chicago market. We’re doing a program with Virginia right now that
started out with some private funding, and we’re all working hard on it. We’ve been advertising in
the Chicago Symphony Orchestra playbook all season long about Sarasota and “the arts”. We need
to get that name out there to leverage the strength of these great organizations we have. It’s a really
important piece—a part of the toolkit. It has much greater reach than most of the things that we
could push out there because of the strength and the quality of what these folks produce here.
[Virginia Haley, visit Sarasota County]: I think what Jim speaks to is a key part of the strategy.
Just think about the clutter of messages that you have and the advertising that’s all around you.
How do we cut through and really get to the message we want to convey. Several years ago we
started working with the arts groups, in bringing art critics to town. They weren’t necessarily
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writing travel pieces, but you had Time Out London coming here to write about the Sarasota Ballet.
That gets our name out there. It is a general awareness, and you’ve got to build one that. Then we
can go in with traditional sales and advertising and close the deal. We need to have that general
awareness out there first and build on that as we go along. That’s why we’re jumping on the Nik
Wallenda situation. Here you have what will be the greatest, non-sports, live broadcast in the world.
He will be training for two weeks ahead of time, and it will be in Sarasota. There’s a steady stream
of media. He will then be going with us to London and New York to help us sell Sarasota. It’s really
jumping on those opportunities and using social media. A lot of people in our industry were really
downplaying the significant of social media as word of mouth, which is the most powerful
recommendation there is. You see, even in our statistics, the significant growth we’ve seen in the
last year and a half, and the importance of social networking sites and review sites. There’s nothing
better than taking the word of a total stranger on where to go on vacation. The importance of Trip
Advisor, one third of our visitors are looking at those sites now and making their final trip
decisions.
[Katie Klauber Moulton, Colony Beach and Tennis Resort]: Talking about marketing, I want to
give a shout out to Georgina Clamage, who runs the Longboat Key office for Michael Saunders.
Michael Saunders is on the road many days a year. Her message is not necessarily about selling two,
three and four millions dollar homes. She’s selling Sarasota for us every single day. Her
partnerships around the world give us marketing for our hotels, restaurant and arts facilities. They
also send out weekly or monthly newsletters selling Sarasota as a destination. One final question
we can’t let go without bringing up is about the conference center. This has been on the radar since
I was in high school, which was a long time ago, and here we are today still without a conference
center. The question is, can it be a reality? What are our barriers to having it? How do we sell it to
the community knowing that the issue every time is that it will cost the taxpayers? We just had the
closing of our Sarasota-Manatee facility. What can we learn from that? I’ll start with you Elliott.
[Elliott Falcione, Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau]: We have a small conference
center in Palmetto—a newly renovated $6.5 million facility, paid by tourism tax proceeds. It’s a
beautiful facility and we will continue to struggle to drive in out-of-town business until we get that
adjacent hotel. There would be no better place to have a convention center than between the Ritz
and the Hyatt. We all know that, but Katie is right, t he government is going to have to pay for it.
Understand that there will always be a cost to operate that. You build convention centers in your
community to drive in a few dollars annually. You can’t look at the books; you’ve got to look at the
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economic impact. That’s why governments own 99% of the convention centers worldwide. That’s
why it’s very difficult to run a private sector convention center. We gave it a good run, and we wish
it the best.
[Virginia Haley, visit Sarasota County]: It’s not just the conference center; you must have the
hotel. Look at successful destinations, such as Ft. Lauderdale. They have struggled year after year
losing their shirts with that facility, because it had no hotel. It looks as though finally they put the
deal together. The community has to understand there are two parts to the package. You also have
to have the marketing. You’re really looking at sales force to be in Chicago, to be in Washington, to
be in New York, in this incredibly competitive area. But it also can bear great fruit. If you have that
facility with the hotel in a logical place, like the Quay, and you put in that investment to market it, it
can really bring new business into this community.
[Katie Klauber Moulton, Colony Beach and Tennis Resort]: Jeff, you’ve been to this rodeo before
in other communities, what are we looking at going forward? How can we get this done?
[Jeffrey Mayers, The Resort at Longboat Key Club]: In business, you have to take risks. If you
take a look at Sarasota, in order for us to be competitive, we have to have the resources to bring the
business in. If you take a look at the amount of meeting room space we have in Sarasota, compared
to larger destinations, we’re losing market share to these other destinations. I’ve seen convention
centers that lose six to seven thousand dollars a year. You can’t look at it as, what am I losing? The
question is, what am I bringing in in tax dollars? So I really think that we have to make a smart
business decision and take some calculated risks. If we level the playing field with what we have
around us with “the arts”, the water and the destination, there is no reason we can’t be in a
competitive environment in the convention market.
[Jim Shirley, Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County]: I’m not the expert in this area, but I
have been to a lot of conventions in my life. I think one of the handicaps we face is that we’re 60
miles south of Tampa. I’ve got a 32-year-old son that goes to the most different places for meetings
and conventions. We want to think about what we need to do to bring in the younger generation. If
we’re not bringing them here then they won’t come here. I think a well run, well-planned
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convention center, properly sized with the right expectations could add greatly to our future. I think
we really need to examine that—I don’t have an answer. I do know that my son thinks differently
than I do, and his generation will, so we need to be aware of that.
[Katie Klauber Moulton, Colony Beach and Tennis Resort]: For the next part of our program,
I’m going to ask Jacob to come up and lead us with a couple of questions.
Jacob Ogles: Can I have a round of applause for Katie? This is a very complicated and important
topic, and I think you did a great job keeping our panelists on topic. You guys did a great job
contributing to the conversation. I want to start by asking, is there any tweak in the balance of
public investment in sports, arts and beaches that you would make? Should we be diverting some of
the money away from one of those areas and put it towards another to strengthen it? I’ll start with
Jim on this one.
[Jim Shirley, Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County]: All the money clearly needs to go to
“the arts”. I think that is an age-old question in this community. It’s not money we’re spending, it’s
money that someone else if bringing here to help us. The more we bring them here, the more
money they’re going to use to help us. We need to really focus on that.
[Jeffrey Mayers, The Resort at Longboat Key Club]: I would use the word divert. You have
tourism tax growth, which you take and reinvest in growing segments, like the sports segment.
Keep in mind, about 82% of our visitors that come here come for vacation. Also, we have great
partners. The Sports Foundation in the state of Florida has provided a lot of equity to support our
tournaments. They share in our sponsorship dollars. The airport has been a big partner with us, not
only in the leisure side, but in the sports segment as well.
Jacob Ogles: What is the greatest challenge in creating more airlift into SRQ? Do we see more direct
flights and airlines continuing into our destination in the future?
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[Virginia Haley, visit Sarasota County]: I had a recent experience that really made me appreciate
what it’s like to be in Mr. Piccolo’s world. We were working with an airline on a promotion that we
were investing in substantially. It was incredibly successful. We drove great numbers; they drove
decent numbers. Our follow up conversation was, we’re not sure of the status of the flights, and if
we’re going to keep them on the same schedule or not. So something that’s proven successful and
drives people onto the flights and into the destination, but you’re not sure if you like it, because you
might need that plane to go to some Caribbean destination to do a checkmate of one of your
competitors. It’s the most illogical business I have ever seen. You’re looking at decisions that really
aren’t reflective of the local market.
[Elliott Falcione, Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau]: The airline business
continues to merge and get smaller. There are only a handful of carriers that exist out there.
Virginia is right. I don’t know if there was an airline that came into SRQ and lost money. They make
money, but they may be apt to go somewhere else to make more money. That’s the kind of world
we live in. We know that we have one of the most beautiful airports in the United States. How great
it is to walk in 20 minutes before your flight leaves and just get through the whole process. We have
to work together as a community to make sure the community knows the non-stop flights that exist
out of that airport, and tell that community to book as well in advance as they can. I think we’re a
little bit of a sleepy community that waits until the last minute, and those cheaper buckets of seats
are already sold, and the perception is that SRQ is $200 more than Tampa International. On
average, it’s only $33 higher out of SRQ than Tampa International. I don’t know about you all, but I’ll
spend the extra $33 to fly out of SRQ. The good news is, we three work hard together to focus on the
non-stop flights. Rick is engaged in the international market with us, because when he procures
flight into SRQ from an international market the impressions that we’ll gain from our community
will be unbelievable.
Jacob Ogles: Have you thought of promoting the area to the southern hemisphere countries during
our summer, as it is their winter?
[Virginia Haley, visit Sarasota County]: We’ve done some promotion. It goes back to what Jim
said; you have to prioritize your dollars. We just don’t have enough to be in all markets. What we’re
looking at for next year is working with Charlotte County and Lee County on some trade show
presence particularly in Brazil and take real advantage of the people who come here for IMG, and
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those opportunities like the Pan Am swimming. We will have more people from South America in
this community all at once than we’ve ever had. We want to make a terrific impression on them
while they’re here and take advantage of those markets.
[Jim Shirley, Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County]: I think that’s a very important point
that Virginia just made. Having come from not being in the arts community all my life, it is critical
that when we get these opportunities, like the Pam Am games, that we all get on our best game. You
see a group of people walking around that look like they might be from somewhere in South
America, we ought to make a good impression and go out of our way to be nice to them, because
that makes such a huge difference. Think about your own travels and your impression of the people
that were there—Not just the hotel. I think we all need to be sensitive on that, and as a community, I
think we need to work at it.
Jacob Ogles: Jeff, has Longboat Key Club done any promotion?
[Jeffrey Mayers, The Resort at Longboat Key Club]: We have not. In a market that does not bare
any fruits, you want to take your resources and put them to work where you’re going to get the best
return on investment. I believe that if we started to see that we were getting some volume in our
community from South America, we would take a look at it, but right now it’s not one that is
returning investment.
Jacob Ogles: How can we increase our group business and better balance that with the leisure
tourists that we have in the area?
[Virginia Haley, visit Sarasota County]: I know one thing we’re doing is to focus our group
meeting recruitment and sales efforts to those cities that have the direct air service. Also, next year,
for the first time we’re actually adding a D.C. based sales rep to help us with sales calls and getting
the word out. Getting greater exposure for the destination and working very carefully with our
lodging partners. Sometimes what happens is they’ll have a lead on a piece of business, but they
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need our help in closing the business. Maybe it’s finding an off-site location, or maybe it’s helping
with some transportation. Often times, it’s being willing partners to bring the business to town.
[Jeffrey Mayers, The Resort at Longboat Key Club]: One of the things that we’ve done with the
assets that we have on Longboat and Lido is to synergize with our sales teams. This has allowed us
to go out to different markets and our sales managers are responsible for selling the four hotels.
This gives us a broader reach and an opportunity to focus on those markets and the relationships
the relationships we have built over the years.
[Virginia Haley, visit Sarasota County]: We will bring meeting planners from the two counties
together. They will spend a day or two in Manatee and a day or two in Sarasota to help bring more
participants and to get more eyes on the destination. We kind of have a mutual pledge with each
other. If there’s a piece of business that won’t fit, or needs something that’s in Manatee, we refer it
to Manatee and vice versa. We make sure that at least the business is staying in the region.
Jacob Ogles: From Commissioner Brenner, where do you see regional approaches to sports going?
He notes that event managers don’t care where University Park is located.
[Elliott Falcione, Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau]: I think I mentioned a little
bit earlier, I’m a community servant; I’m paid by tax dollars. I would also say that it’s not in my job
description to make decisions about regional partnerships where two counties create an
organization for a certain purpose; however, if I was asked for my opinion about a regional sports
partnership, my first inclination would be Sarasota and the Bradenton area talk several days a
week, so that there is good collaboration there. The skill set that Sarasota and the Bradenton-area
CVB have, the skill set behind me, and third parties, help optimize our operation. We have PR firms
worldwide; we hade advertising agencies worldwide. It is our job to make sure that all of our
operations are optimized. My guess would be that we have to be very careful of looking at that,
where it could actually create more expenses and give us less buying power in the marketplace for
tournaments. I will tell you that going back to the south of the border question; we are going to
invest some international dollars specifically on the sports segment. Looking at Brazil and maybe
Germany, we would not have interest in the leisure side. We would count on Visit Florida and the
big CVBs in the state to start creating awareness in those markets that maybe years down the road;
we would start to piggyback off of.
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Jacob Ogles: Thank you, that’s all the questions we can ask today. Thank you to our guests today.
I’m going to bring Wes Roberts back up to talk.
Wes Roberts: Thank you Jacob and the audience for great questions for our panelists. Thank you to
Katie for the depth management of our fantastic group up here. The fact that our panelists are so
collaborative and open to working together and so gross-engaged is a very positive thing and it says
a lot about them professionally and where they are going to take us with their leadership. Thank
you to Jim, to Jeffrey, to Virginia, to Elliott. Let’s give them all a round of applause. On your table you
will all find a copy of SRQ ACCESS. My business partner and I started SRQ Media Group 15 years
ago, and more recently, I want to say seven or eight years ago, we created what we consider to be
our love letter to this community, SRQ ACCESS, where we open our fresh eyes and speak to visitors
and tourists as to how to make the most out of our community. Take a look at that book.
Somewhere in this room there is someone that we’re not currently partnered with. I don’t know
who they are, but when you see the book, you’ll see that it is something that you’ll want to get
involved in. We will have a transcript of today’s discussion on the SRQSM2.com website within the
week. We’ll let you know via email when it’s posted. If your question was not asked today, we will
ask our panelists to answer them via email. Thank you to our opening presenter and event sponsor
Jeffrey Mayers of the Resort at the Longboat Key Club. Thank you to SM2 sponsors, SRQ Airport,
SignZoo, Seaside Bank and CS&L CPAs. Thank you to Marina Jack for their hospitality and gorgeous
views. I’m Wes Roberts; I’m the publisher with SRQ Media Group. We’re been evangelists for
everything that is exceptional about this community for 15 years. It is a deep well that we haven’t
even begun to drain. The next SM2 Symposium will be on Regional Philanthropy. That’s Thursday,
July 18 here at Marina Jack. If you’d like to reserve your tickets, you can either purchase them
online, or Jay is available at registration if you wish to reserve them today. We will see you in July.
TRANSCRIPT: SM2 EVENT PRODUCED BY SRQ MEDIA GROUP: 5/16/2013: ©Copyright SRQ Media Group.
Further Audience Questions
1) Are there any plans to add “festivals” or golf tournaments to draw tourism?
[Virginia Haley, visit Sarasota County]: We are very involved in supporting and promoting
festivals such as this past weekend’s Harvey Milk Festival. We have a marketing grant program to
help smaller festivals expand their reach outside of the Sarasota County borders to potential
visitors in the off-season. We also tie a number of our promotions around festivals.
2) How important to tourists is a vibrant downtown with restaurants and music
venues that are open late night?
[Virginia Haley, visit Sarasota County]: Here is the funny thing. In a major survey of people who
have visited our destination (the whole county, not just downtown), a significant number of them
gave us high rankings for our nightlife! Part of that could come from the average age of the head of
household for our traveling party is 49.7. A vibrant and safe downtown with cultural and dining
options is very important. It would be my hope that we could really consider making Rosemary
District a music-gathering place. We already have a great beginning with WSLR and the Rooster
and Darwin’s and Hotel Indigo. Wish we could get the Venue open again.
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