BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING MINUTES
May 2014
Meeting Title
Destination Missoula & TBID
Board of Directors Meeting
Start Time
Stop Time
3:07 PM
5:16 PM
Date
Place
May 8, 2014
MSO Hub Conference Room
101E. Main St
Missoula, MT 59802
Phone: 406.532.325
DESTINATION MISSOULA BOARD MEMBERS
1 Cris Jensen – President
3 Matt Ellis – Secretary
5 Brad Murphy – Vice President
7 Matt Doucette
9 Barb Koostra
11 Regina Rhodes
13
15
17
TBID BOARD MEMBERS
1 Lucy Weeder – TBID President
3 Kate Leonberger
5
Staff
Barbara Neilan, Executive Director
Mary Holmes, Destination Marketing Sales
Manager--EXCUSED
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
2
4
Kate Leonberger – President-Elect
Jim Galipeau – Treasurer
Bob Terrazas – Counsel
Christine Johnson
Linda McCarthy
Kim Sawyer
Matt Doucette
Regina Rhodes
Sage Grendahl, Director of Operations
MEMBERS ABSENT
1
3
5
7
9
Shawna Batt (DM)
Bryan Flaig (DM)
Staci Nugent – Resigned
Ad Hoc – Erika McGowan (DM)
OTHER GUESTS ATTENDING
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Diane Hellman, Hellman Insurance
Rod Harsell, Friends of Fort Missoula
Marty Rehbein, City of Missoula
Mimi Gustafson, Holiday Inn
Kimberly Hannon, Missoula Chamber
Taylar Robins, Windfall
Kyle McGowan, Windfall
Jim McGowan, Windfall and the Missoulian
2
4
6
8
10
Dan Carlino (TBID)
Anne Guest (DM)
Justin Philibrick (DM)
9. Scott Richman, Townsquare Media
TBID Approval of Minutes & Financials
Kate Leonberger moved to approve the board minutes. Regina Rhodes seconded and all voted in favor.
Bob Terrazas noted to make a change in the minutes in the third paragraph, change can to should in the first
sentence. Kate Leonberger motioned to approve the special board minutes from April 28. Regina seconded
and all voted in favor.
Jim Galipeau mentioned that there is about $400,000 in cash and $39,000 in receivables. Jim stated that their
have been meetings with the TBID and the City about bringing the invoicing, collection work, and cash in house.
Before the hotels would send reports to AZ, the City would invoice and then the City would send the money to
the TBID. Now it will run through JCCS. Reports will be sent to JCCS, the money will be sent to the TBID and
we’ll track it. The City is happy to not have this. Jim added it will make it smoother and the checks will go
directly to the TBID. Barb Neilan stated the new policy includes who checks who should be cut to, etc and will
be sent certified mail. TBID is accrual, so the financial statements look a little bit different than DM’s financials
and we need to keep it this way. Matt Doucette moved to approve the financials. Kate Leonberger seconded
and all voted in favor.
Destination Missoula Approval of Minutes & Financials
Christine Johnson had Kim Sawyer’s proxy.
Christine Johnson moved to approve the board minutes. Regina Rhodes seconded and all voted in favor.
Jim Galipeau stated the bottom line is very close to being on budget and we will make it until the end of the
year. Bob Terrazas moved to approve the financials. Christine Johnson seconded and all voted in favor.
Annual Stats & Website Review—Jim McGowan
Jim McGowan stated we wrapped up our Centuro digital campaign. There are over 4,800 websites that fit with
the audience we are after. We targeted Atlanta, Chicago and Los Angeles as well as Seattle and Minneapolis.
We also target Edmonton, AB and females over 30 years of age with a household income (HHI) of $75,000+.
We had a .70 click thru rate. We always want to hit .10, so that is good. We saw a 30.8% increase in overall
web traffic from the targeted cities.
We also worked with a company called bootprints.com. It’s outdoor recreation based. We targeted California,
Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Arizona. We targeted males and females over 25. There was a 23.4%
open rate of an email marketing message.
We also did Montana Magazine. It’s delivered to 16,000 recipients and it is a paid subscription. Over 426 travel
guides have been requested from the campaign.
Northwest Travel Magazine was founded by the creators of Sunset magazine. We received over 6,000
inquiries from the digital. Print wasn’t quite so much.
The top five travel guide orders are from: CA, TX, WA, FL and IL. Top five website visitation includes: CA, NY,
TX, WA and IL. The top five countries are: Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France and Japan.
There have been 400,000 unique visitors to the website. We are needing to do a lot more content marketing
now, because people won’t always come to your site. To maximize dollars, we have to get into a bunch of
different markets.
Regarding social media, there is a lot of movement for buying likes and advertising in Facebook. We are
aiming for 30% growth in Facebook. There are daily scheduled updates as well as quarterly contests and
special promotions.
Since we have been on Bootprints, other CVBs have copied us. We also have advertorial built into the
message as well.
Regarding ads, our theme is “Live Like a Local” and that is working well. We have to meet the Montana brand
standards when designing our ads.
For the call center report, the Yellowstone Journal is our top source of inquiries. The Travel Guides Directory
product produces well and the Glacier Country Coops. We’re one of four additional sponsors for the coops. In
the past, the Montana Office of Tourism was 1/3 of our inquiries and now we are having to compensate for that
loss since there is no more advertising in the guides. Google.com is our top lead for website traffic.
The new website has photos that having moving parts that draw you in. We tried to use keywords in our
redesign, so it optimizes well. The homepage can go up down or left and right. There is a call to action for
things to do in the area. The website is geared for swiping on a tablet too. There is over 60 blog entries that
will reference the website. There is a lot of imagery on the site. “Things to Do” is heavily noted on the site. We
have deeper content, advertising and advertorial now that the site isn’t funded by bed tax dollars. We now have
an itinerary builder based on traveling around the site. This is helpful to us, so we can learn about the potential
visitor. Marty Rehbein asked if you could share your itinerary on social media. The web developers will look
into that as it’s a good idea. Blog posts will pull in “you might also like” to encourage people to stay on the site
longer. The site is modular, so we can plug in different events into the home page. We also have a social feed
page. It brings all the social media into the page. It optimizes well. We have updated the web listings to be
more clean and concise. There is an Instagram feed page that will combine and share photos on one page that
folks have shared. The chat technology is available on all pages.
Barb Koostra thinks it looks great, classy and has lots of rich information. The staff is making final edits on all
the pages and we hope it’ll launch on Monday. Windfall has been working on the site about nine months. Barb
Neilan stated what they have done is so close to what we have asked that it is unbelievable. Barb is very proud
of it. When you view it on the screen, the photos will pop. It’s a reactive site, so this site will resize to a mobile
screen and tablet size. All of the awards and quotes are data based, so they can pull into the pages. For the
launch, we will do a press release of the site and maybe we should have a launch party.
Special Olympics Sponsorship Discussion
Bob Norby spoke to the Executive Committee about Special Olympics. TBID was looking at hosting the All Star
FAM event. They would like some representatives to be in their leadership. They are taking a bus over to
Billings on Wednesday, May 14 so volunteers can experience the opening of the games and what the volunteer
expectation is. The trip is completely paid for. It’s an overnight trip. There are approximately 50 community
chairs that are open. Brad Murphy said the Adams Center has a contingency going, since they are the location
host; they can’t take on the volunteer rolls at this time. UM Athletics will be sending over some people. The
dates are May 12-15 next year. Linda McCarthy could possibly take on a leadership roll after reviewing the
information further, but she can’t make it to Billings next week. Christine Johnson may also be interested. Cris
Jensen could help leading up to the event, but usually has a conference the week of the Special Olympics are.
If you take on a leadership role, you have to be available all three days. It is an intense volunteer experience,
but extremely rewarding. Kate Leonberger asked if we could commit a staff person. Barb Neilan stated
because if we are sponsoring events, staff will have lots of work to do for those. Regina Rhodes said she
couldn’t do it this year, but maybe next year. This is a big event for our community and brings in a lot of dollars.
Matt Doucette may also be interested. Barb Neilan will email out the stuff again for review.
Conceptual 2015 Legislative Initiative
Barb Neilan stated there is a document that is very conceptual, because they are looking for our support to
move forward with the concept. In 2007, we put forth legislation SB 284 that looked at going after the lodging
sales tax of 3% that goes to the general fund and the car rental tax. Because of the changes of international
markets, which are the largest markets, we once again are looking at those taxes. Those taxes would be $23.2
million dollars for 2016 and we would be asking for ½ of those funds. We would work with various partners with
funds being split. Our portion would be an additional 20 to 25% of revenue for Missoula. We aren’t taking
money away from the State; the money comes back into them. Anytime you open up a bill like this, then
legislators look at how we are funded. Since we have done SB 284, we all have TBIDs now. We need to think
that through and maybe have language that protects the TBIDs. Barb recommendation to the board is to ask
that legislation be written to protect the TBIDs. They are looking at this from all tax revenues, to jobs created,
and tourism income. This came from Voices of Montana Tourism, Tourism Matters and the Montana Lodging
Association and all of the Regions/CVBs. Do we be proactive with a bill rather than someone raiding the bed tax
dollars? Linda McCarthy stated she gets nervous when we go to the legislators, because they don’t totally
understand how the funding works. Barb stated the majority feel like if we are proactive and if it can have
enough bi-partisan support, it would work well. Barb is asking if the board wants to explore this avenue or not;
it’s not a commitment at this time. Lucy Weeder added that SB 284 was a good bill and we went as a force
together. Lucy thinks it’s worth our time to cautiously explore it, but we can back out of it.
Annual Meeting Discussion
Because the annual meeting is in July, it’s hard for people to come and it’s our big event of the year. Does it
have more validity if we move the event? The Missoula Downtown Association went from a business meeting
to an entertainment dinner, cocktails and awards. It increased the event for them, but it is in the dead of winter.
Bob Terrazas said the by-laws say who the President elect is from the last meeting. We might need to tweak
our by-laws. Linda McCarthy stated it is always good to look at different ways of doing things. There is a bigger
commitment with a dinner event and pressure to sell a higher priced point dinner. A happy hour and an outdoor
event could be fun. People seem to like July. Barb Koostra stated all board members bring a guest who needs
to know more about Destination Missoula. Let’s consider hors d’oeuvres at 4 pm in July. A canopy at the
Missoulian could be nice in the backyard.
Committee & TBID Sales Reports
Marketing—Barb Neilan stated there is a meeting next week. We are working on partnership with Rocky
Mountain Ballet.
Personnel—Bob Terrazas stated they met a couple of days ago and they are going through two or three items.
One is employee retention and payment. Another is addressing the bonus structure for Mary Holmes and then
report back to the TBID board with some recommendations. They are also working on a succession plan.
There is a work place safety policy that they are working on as well. They will probably meet again in the next
couple of weeks.
Partnership—Sage Grendahl stated that Marina Woodson will be doing partnership and she’s getting stuff done.
She has gotten a couple of new members. The board would like to know who they are. Marina can put an
announcement in Getting Ahead section in the Missoulian.
Special Task Force—Kate Leonberger thanked the board members who showed up at Big Sky Brewery for
RMI. She thanked Cris Jensen for helping with the airport stuff. Lucy Weeder also sent a couple of people on
short notice to help out. We need to celebrate the success of RMI. Kate is recruiting a co-chair for her
committee, since Staci Nugent resigned. Christine Johnson will do it.
Sports Commission—Brad Murphy stated that he and Matt Doucette went to Helena. We received State Boys
Basketball. We also got AA track tournament over Memorial Day, and we also got the tennis tournament here.
There was a sports commission meeting on the 29th. The grants haven’t been announced yet. There will be
some new committee members. Bob Toshof runs the Roundball Club and Lance Osler is with the Rugby
Association.
Art Committee—Barb Koostra reported she has been doing “a wait and see approach.” Next week there may
be a cultural plan. Barb would like Barb Neilan to attend.
Sales Report— Mary Holmes wasn’t present. Barb Neilan reported that she can’t thank everyone enough for
putting the effort forth for Rocky Mountain International (RMI). Mary did an exceptional job. All three of the
events came off flawlessly. The tour operators were so appreciative of what we did and how we did it. At the
final party, they took Mary aside and gave Misssoula an award; they have never done that before. It was the
best destination they have ever been too. We have raised the bar about five times over. Mary had 42 meetings
on her market place day. Generally, you have 10 that are serious. There are 42 out of 42 folks that were
interested. Given the circumstances with the German foreign exchange student passing, it was good for the
German consulate to see how Missoulians are caring. We also introduced the Rocky Mountain Ballet Theatre
to the tour operators. The German tourism person wants to promote their shows when they’re in Germany and
promote Missoula. Barb would like to do something nice for Mary for all of her hard work.
Old Business
Bob Terrazas stated there needs to be board development work to be done. Staci Nugent has resigned and we
have some spots to fill. Please share those names with past presidents. There are probably 3-4 new spots.
Linda McCarthy asked if there are industries we are targeting or locations. Matt Doucette added gas stations
and restaurants would be good. These are two hard industries to get involved.
Public Comments and Announcements
Linda McCarthy stated we need to put Wayfinding on the agenda for next time.
Adjourn
5:16 pm.