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Volusia County Tourist Development Council
Meeting Minutes
February 6, 2002Present: Big John – Chairman
John Masiarczyk – City of Deltona
Lori Campbell-Baker – Daytona International Speedway
Jim Bazemore – Perry’s
Frank Gummy – Volusia County Attorney’s Office
Darlene Yordon – Daytona Beach City Council
Dana Lei – Best Western, Deltona Inn
Stuart Arp - Adams Mark
Rick Hamilton – Ocean CenterChairman Big John called the meeting to order at 9:07 AM.
He then had the audience introduce themselves, they were:Sharon Mock – Daytona CVB
Evelyn Fine – Mid Florida Research
Bob Davis – Hotel/Motel Association
Larry Fornari – Palm Plaza Beachside Motel
Gary Brown – Sun Viking/Ocean Villa Capri Motel
Jim Wachtel – Dickens & Associates
Joie Alexander – Hayward Brown
Bob Mills – Ocean Center
Valerie Whitney – News Journal
Jim Ward – Volusia County Council
Chad Smith – Ocean CenterBig John: I’m new, Darlene is new, and Dana is this you’re first meeting?
Dana Lei: Second.
Big John: Dana is the new Harry of the Deltona Inn. We still think fondly of Harry. Dana you’re also on the West Volusia Board?
Dana Lei: Tourism Authority, yes.
Big John: Darlene, would you like to say a word too?
Darlene Yordon: I was just appointed by VCOG last Monday night to represent them. I am a Daytona Beach City Commissioner.
Big John: You were all sent minutes, can we have a conversation on the minutes, and were they acceptable to be approved?
Jim Bazemore: So moved.
Lori Campbell-Baker: Second.
Big John: Any questions? All in favor? Nay? Minutes are approved.
Old Business: Because I’m new, and Darlene is new and Dana is almost new, and Tom is not here, you have been distributing a letter from Tom Staed. I called Blaine to let her know that we were not going to do a rush to action here, and a whole lot was not going to happen today; other than maybe set the ground rules for where we are going and what you all want to do. So, with that, let me start with the very successful, prominent Mayor, John Masiarczyk. What would you like to accomplish with this committee?
John Masiarczyk: I think reach some focus on into exactly what we want to do. I have attended all the meetings, since I’ve been appointed, and I’m still unsure of the hoteliers/moteliers that they really support this. We got an excellent report on finances and talked about the type of building, but I still haven’t seen a big commitment by any of you over here that really have the greatest to gain or lose by any increase in the tax. I’d just like to hear more continuity by the people most affected by it.
Big John: I put down that you would like an action plan and possibly us to get focused.
John Masiarczyk: Right. The only calls I’ve gotten were two or three in the beginning when I was first appointed; and they were by disgruntled people who live in this area that didn’t want to be displaced by any movement or enlargement of this facility.
Lori Campbell-Baker: I think it is going to be important to pull the research together so that if we move, we move in the right direction; that we’re not just expanding for the sake of expanding, but that we are capable of capturing another market that we can’t get right now.
Big John: OK, so you’d like us to do research so we go in the right direction; and don’t expand just for expansion sake.
Lori Campbell-Baker: I think some of that research is being done right now. I know Evelyn presented some very interesting information at the last meeting. I think we need to be very careful about pressing forward, and make sure we are doing it for the right reasons. And from a finance point of view we can afford to pay for it.
Jim Bazemore: I have to concur with what Tom said here in his last paragraph of his letter, we need to slow down. However, I would like to add there have been massive commitments from the private sector on this thing. I won’t say they made them because of what we promised we could do, but we have serious problems from the beginning. When interest rates were at 18% we put it on hold. Let us not rush just to get through, but very deliberately, and for goodness sake, do not say we can’t do it. It just takes time.
Darlene Yordon: What I’d like is to have staff give me the history and as much education as to the purpose of this and bring me up to speed.
Big John: Rick will get with you, which will be very appropriate. Dana, are you up to speed? Would you like to sit down with Rick?
Dana Lei: That would be lovely.
Stuart Arp: I think we need to finalize and get some consensus of what this facility should be. What the end product should be, and then figure out if we should do it all at one time, or phase it in. Just understand what we need that makes this a destination that brings in more convention business. Then when we have a consensus of that and have a price tag to it, then figure out how we’re going to fund it and finalize a recommendation on that. We’ve done a lot of talking in the last several months, and I don’t want to go so fast that we’re not doing the right thing, but we need to focus on what we’re trying to do and make some good clear decisions with the information we have and if we need more information we should gather that.
Big John: I agree with the consensus, I don’t think we’ll take very many votes on this committee. In my opinion this will be a consensus kind of thing, it may not be that everyone is in total agreement on everything, but I think that most people agree that find a direction, course of action, and funding then we’ll proceed ahead after we’ve done due diligence. LCB (Lori Campbell-Baker) I think you are exactly right; research is the most important thing we need to do right now. I hope you agree I think the CVB here, I wish the other two were here, they’re not, we need to invite them. We need to make sure that on our mailing list, Mary is the other two CVB’s, Sharon Mock, Hotel/Motel, Jim Wachtel, Evelyn Fine (let’s put Evelyn on separately) and any other interested parties, Joie you may want to be on the list. When you only have one citizen it’s not hard to accommodate. I’d like to hear also from Sharon Mock and Evelyn and Jim Wachtel, Hotel/Motel and any one else who would like to speak, so let’s start with Sharon Mock.
Sharon Mock: The formation of the TDC is a structure of a Florida Statute and aside from addressing the issue of whether or not the facility should be expanded. I think it should be the responsibility of this board as an oversight board, to monitor the tax collections and talk about how that money is spent and how the debt is paid beyond just the project that is on the table at this time. It is a much bigger responsibility than funding a construction project.
Big John: You want aside of the primary function of the expansion of the Ocean Center, you would like to make sure the taxes are collected properly, to that end there has been a great restructuring of the in County Government visa-vi the tourism taxes, and Nona and her small band of folks has been dismantled. I don’t know if that’s public knowledge or not. Also, we are charged here at TDC we are charged 2%, part of that is to pay auditing of these fees, I don’t know where that is at. I’m not sure that is done regularly. Maybe we need to look at that.
Mary, one of the things we want to schedule is to have Charlene come in and tell us about the way she is collecting the tax, what she did in the dismantling of Nona’s department and how she audits, and maybe a list of audits, I don’t think she can tell us the names of the properties, but how many audits they do a year.
Sharon Mock: That type of thing, and just generally the structure of the different tourist taxes. I think this board should function the same way the Ad Authority function in that they are oversight.
Big John: So part of our meeting would be oversight of the taxes and another portion of the meeting would be the expansion of the Ocean Center. Evelyn, I’m sorry I missed your presentation, I couldn’t be here, but I heard it was excellent.
Evelyn Fine: Thank you, it is just the beginning. We made that very clear we are still organizing and looking at the research. I spent a lot of time looking at the Johnson report and it did a very thorough job of looking at the community and its demands and other convention centers and other cities and what they do. The best I can figure out the number of actual meeting planners that responded to their survey was about 14 of them. I think taking that information plus the information that we are gathering will give us a picture of what the actual consumers want, and what they are going to do.
Big John: The consumer is the meeting planner right?
Evelyn Fine: Yes. We have a program with the CVB that puts together that kind of information and we’re concentrating on the meeting planner factor in right now in what they want in a building and what they want in a destination.
Big John: When would we get a definitive…?
Evelyn Fine: As we speak we are trying to find markets that will allow us to meet the people (the meeting planners) that have the needs of the building we’re thinking about. That’s part of the problem, when we went to D.C. we found lots of people like that. When we went to Tallahassee we found very few people that have major meetings that would require the kind of space we’re talking about and we wanted to test against. So the parameters that we had that the meeting planners are using; more than a thousand nights every night, of using the kinds of exhibit space, etc. we are looking for are not available in Tallahassee; now we’re looking for them in Atlanta. We may have to move to another city to look for them. That’s the problem.
Big John: Can Stuart help you in that area?
Evelyn Fine: We are getting it from the meeting committee, which Stuart is represented on.
Stuart Arp: So you’re saying that there are no big groups in Tallahassee?
Evelyn Fine: What I’m saying is there are big groups in Tallahassee obviously, but of the ones that hold the types of meetings that we’re talking about here, there are few of them and you can’t always count on them to come to a focus group. The recruiting as a part of the mix in Tallahassee is much smaller than they are in any major city.
Big John: I was wondering if we could call on "LCB", the Speedway has a huge number of corporate friends.
Evelyn Fine: What we used is the International Association of Convention and Visitors Bureaus and their database is just enormous. It is corporate, it is organizations and it is independent meeting planners. So we went to them for our first cut, to look for people that met our parameters. When that didn’t work we started looking around for other ways to get it. But they are the source.
Big John: I am thinking that "LCB" (what do you have 100 suites now?)
Lori Campbell-Baker: Yes. We would probably have a lot of people that are on Evelyn’s list.
Big John: But they come to Daytona Beach. I would think we would want to focus on some of them. They are already used to coming here.
Evelyn Fine: You are raising a very interesting point. Right now what we are doing is trying to recruit people who would use the kind of building we envisioned. Maybe we should recruit people who would think about coming to Daytona Beach and let the chips fall where they may in terms of size and what their requirements are. That’s looking at it from the other perspective. As I said our mission going into it was to look for people who had big meetings, who took many rooms. If we look at just people who come to Daytona Beach we may not get people who use the convention center, we may not get people who have several hundred or several thousand rooms a night. So all those parameters fall out that way, then we’re just looking at what we have looked at in the past, which is just meeting planners who are interested in coming to Daytona Beach, whole other set of perspectives.
Lori Campbell-Baker: Just a thought on that too, you might want to think in terms of planning, we do have 100 suites and we are pretty consistent in filling them, but the time that you might draw them is the time of year that you might not be able to handle them.
Big John: I was thinking of the corporate connections, those people who have the suites are meeting people.
Evelyn Fine: Those corporations have meeting planners on staff. It’s a source of information, but we have to make a decision, do we want to throw out our parameters, I think we said 80,000 square feet of exhibit space, we said they needed to use at least 1000 room nights a night.
Big John: I wasn’t trying to throw out the plan. I was just thinking that "LCB’s" people in those 100 suites might have good input. I understand that Ford Motor Company would need more that 80,000 square feet additional. They are probably affiliated with smaller people that may have comments also, and we have relationships already established at the Speedway.
The Honorable James Earl Ward has joined us. Mr. Ward would you like to comment?
Jim Ward: No.
Big John: He was probably sent by the chair to watch me!
Bob Davis: Let me put this on the table for whatever its worth. What I’ve heard up till now is the Hotel/Motel Industry is against the expansion of the Ocean Center, which is furthest from the truth. I speak for the entire industry at this point and say to you that the only thing we’re looking at is the same thing you just said in the brainstorming that you are doing. Facts, figures, where are we going, how are we funded, in an orderly manner. We are certainly not against expansion of the Ocean Center, but of course every business person in this room will only expand when their business asks to be expanded or when their customers ask them for more rooms, or more restaurant space of more gift shop space, or whatever they need. We’re saying is there a market out there, what are the facts and Ms. Baker said it very effectively, we need to find out more about what we are doing and how we are going to do it. Then Stuart said it in the same vein as let’s talk about the building and let’s talk about funding. There are so many ways in which to fund the building, will we need a special taxing district; I hear some talk about a bed tax there’s talk about a conventioneer tax. There’s a million ways. Facts are most important. If you are going to sell the people something, you have to tell them what you are going to do and how you are going to go about it. There is neither a rush nor a slow down, but when the facts are put out on the table then those who have to make the decisions will make the proper decisions.
Gary Brown: I agree with Bob. If you took a survey of all the Hoteliers today, "Do you want to expand the Ocean Center?" everybody would say "Yes". If you asked them the "Do you want to pay for it?" they would say "No". That’s where the problem lies with the Hoteliers. Obviously the people in Southeast Volusia and West Volusia see absolutely no benefit of collecting the tax from their customers to support the facility over here. So that’s a problem. The smaller hotels don’t see of the Ocean Center, haven’t seen it in the past 16 years, or however long you’ve been collecting the tax. I was here when we built this facility, and everybody was excited that we were going to have conventions come to Daytona Beach and the overflow is going to trickle down the street and it’s going to help everybody. In the past 16 years we all know this hasn’t been a convention center. We tried to design a building at that time that would be multi-functional, and it turned out to be more functional for events than it was for conventions. So, speaking as a Hotelier, someone has to convince me that if we do build it, there will be conventions coming, and not just more events, because that doesn’t help the hotel industry. We need the conventions, that’s what we have to do, and if we have to expand the building, I’ve looked at the numbers, and the numbers scare me because #1 I’m not sure we’re going to have enough money to build the type of building that we need; and #2 I’m not convinced that if we build it we will have enough business to support it and #3 is we have to realize we need expert help figuring out what we need and we need to look at the data not only from this facility, but from other similar facilities that are similar in size in other areas in the State and other areas of our market.
Big John: This is what I think I heard you say in part. You said what kind of building we need to build; I’m a little hazy on that, I’m starting with a clean sheet of paper; I don’t want it to stay clean very long, just for today. Number 2 I think I heard you say that if we build the building, that we’re sort of building it for Stuart. Because there hasn’t been the trickle down effect in the past for the little guys. (Stuart and the Ocean Walk let’s say, the in-close properties). I heard an opinion that the expansion of the Ocean Center might spur another hotel. I don’t know if that’s possible or not, but that’s something we should think about, and that would help with the bed tax as well. The funding is up in the air, because maybe the in-close people should pay more. Maybe there should be a special taxing district for the in-close people.
Gary Brown: There are all kinds of options for taxing districts, in certain parts of the country they have an actual delegate tax, where if you come in for a convention, you pay an extra dollar or whatever for your room that goes for whatever. Those are things that we look at. Right now your time shares which are basically a lot of the Ocean Walk and the condo’s don’t pay anything even if the convention delegates come stay there. They don’t pay the tax, and they don’t pay the resort fees.
Big John: Mary, Mr. Hamilton is saying that’s not exactly what he thinks, so let’s put down a note there for Charlene to see if she’s collecting any tax, I don’t know if she can tell us or if that information is top secret. But, I think we can say, check the Ocean Walk and see if they are paying anything.
Gary Brown: If the Ocean Walk rooms that are in the rental pool, obviously they pay the tax; it’s the ones not in the rental pool that don’t contribute, as are the condo’s that aren’t in the rental pool.
Big John: Mr. Fornari.
Larry Fornari: I really don’t have a whole lot to add to what Bob and Gary said. I think one of the real important things that we need to consider is that this has become a hypersensitive issue, probably because of the timing with what has transpired here in the last six months with the tourism industry, there are a lot of properties hurting right now. Gary referred to the small hoteliers, where a lot of the smaller properties don’t see the direct or indirect benefit that an expansion could have. There is not a direct benefit, but there could be an indirect benefit to some of the smaller properties.
I think there needs to be some education done with some of the folks in the industry. I’m six miles south of the Ocean Center, but there is some indirect benefit of having an expansion done if it is done correctly. So, I think we have some work to be done in educating people better and I think we need to be more creative in our thought process from a funding standpoint. It sounds like maybe we are getting there. In the past what we’ve heard is nothing but the bed tax, I think there are other alternatives, I’m not saying a bed tax isn’t one of the alternatives, or at least a portion of the funding mechanism, but I don’t think it has to be all of it. You asked "What are your goals for this committee?" One of the goals I would see would to be to create a more cohesive relationship between the Ocean Center and the Visitors Bureau working in a more collective manner together in selling both the destination and the building together. I’ve had a number of conversations with Rick and Sharon together, and I think we have somewhat lost a little of our focus in that area on working forward and in the same direction at the same time rather than approaching it from two different angles. A lot of my comments in the past have been directed toward making sure that we are doing things in the most effective way that we can before we consider an expansion. That goes along these lines of making sure we are marketing correctly, we are working together to get people here and those types of things. I think that’s as important to have done and in place prior to an expansion.
Big John: Is it fair to say that most of your financial questions have been answered?
Larry Fornari: There is a little misconception about that, Rick has answered pretty much every question I’ve asked, some of the detailed information I was trying to get on line item stuff I haven’t received about trying to figure out marketing dollars, advertising dollars, etc. Rick has been very forthcoming with that information.
Big John: Did you meet with DePesyster?
Larry Fornari: We met with Charlene.
Big John: We’ll get you a meeting with DePyster.
Larry Fornari: The conception is that we’re against an expansion as an industry; I don’t think that is true. I think the industry would be supportive of an expansion. I think the question is that if the expansion is funded solely by a bed tax then I think the answer you would get would be different. I think that’s why we have to be creative in our thinking and if an expansion is to go forward to get the support of the entire industry. We are only as good as our members ask us to do. Our individual opinions may differ, but an association, if the majority of the membership is against a tax to fund the entire expansion, then that’s what we have to portray. That’s why I say we have to get creative in our thinking about how to do it to get area wide support for an expansion if we want to move forward with it.
Bob Davis: Just to add one more thing, everybody talks about a "tourist tax" and I’ve gone throughout the State preaching this issue, it is a "bed tax". It is only taxed on people who sleep in beds. If 60 million people which was the count last year came to Florida as tourists; 29.9 million slept in beds. So, we’ve got lots of tourists that go to condos, time shares and visit friends and relatives that don’t pay a tax. It is strictly a "bed tax" and if anybody says to you it’s a "tourist tax" it’s an out and out lie. So, 30 million people do not pay this tax that visit Florida every year, and possibly more. The things we are hearing at our meetings are "Where’s the marketing plan?" Everybody who is in business has a marketing plan for the next five to ten years and we don’t seem to see that. And the other issue we have is, like Larry Fornari said, more cohesiveness between all the agencies. We have many municipalities in Volusia County, and everybody has an economic development board, and everybody is going after the same thing, but nobody is preaching Volusia County or come to this area. A lot of money is being spent in that area, and what I’m hearing in our industry is a lot of money is being spent but there’s no reason when Sharon has people going out, and Rick has people going out that we are not all on the same page. We are selling an area, not just a venue.
Jim Wachtel: As the Architects and planners for any possible expansion, our role is more advisory to the TDC and we will provide leadership in the process but, what I think we need from the TDC is leadership in the decision making process, and being able to decide this is what we are going to build, when, where and how much with the information that is provided by the other consultants and by us. The focus that we talked about is very important to what you are going to need. And I think Darlene’s role is going to be very important, since the facility is sitting here in the middle of Daytona Beach, it’s going to be a tremendous impact on the city, so the consensus within the city with the planning dept. has to be addressed early on and work through the details.
Big John: In a meeting that I attended here Gilly, who is absent today, stated that he didn’t like the building as it exists today. I think he almost wanted to cut the inside of the building out and end up with a box. I think that we should start that there is no thought that is a bad thought. I have heard that an arena has bad acoustics, if we just cut it out and start over with just the arena, first of all, Mr. Hamilton, your building would be down for awhile, right? I don’t know if that is a significant enough thought that we should pursue. Asking you to spend time and money on some kind of an idea. I don’t know how much time the building would be down and how much money would be lost from operations. Can you comment a little on that?
Jim Wachtel: I think you’re going to spend just as much money rehabilitating or transferring the use of a space like this from an arena to meeting rooms/exhibition space as you are building another space. That’s just a quick "off the cuff" opinion. If that’s the way you want to spend the money, that’s certainly a way to do it, but you have to be able to replace the opportunities you have in the arena right now with shows and events and exhibit floor and meeting rooms somewhere else. That’s an option to look at.
Big John: Is there anybody who thinks that we should pursue that?
Lori Campbell-Baker: You’re talking about basically gutting it or leveling it and starting over?
Big John: I guess that’s the other option, is it cheaper to level it or to gut it or should we not make that a consideration. Gilly did bring it up, and I think we make a decision; we can wait on that decision till he gets back if you like. It doesn’t have to be decided today, but I think it should be on the table.
John Masiarczyk: What percentage of taxpayer’s dollars is going into this to retire the debt?
Big John: None.
John Masiarczyk: So you have no taxpayer’s money going into this so it is strictly an issue of a bed tax. For me to make a vote on anything, we haven’t heard any factual information that we could even compete if we build this thing. Can we even compete with Orlando, are people going to come? Are we sure we have what these people want in this area? Evelyn has the best information, these guys have the hotels/motels along here don’t seem to have the enthusiasm. Should we just sell it to the Adams Mark? Her presentation was the one I alluded to in my statement.
Evelyn Fine: I want to make a blanket statement; there are many meeting planners who think Daytona Beach is the place to come. We have a long list of people who come here, who are happy here. The Adams Mark renovation wasn’t done strictly for fun. They know there are meeting planners out there who want to use the space. The issue is what kind of space do they need, what kind of movement do they want to do, how do they feel about various components of the building and who are they? Are they composed of people who have four meetings a year and move them around the State? Are they people who want to come to Florida every third or fourth year? Are they government entities that must move around the State and will we get them every four or five years? That’s the details. There is a market out there for Daytona Beach, that’s an absolute.
Big John: I’m always amazed by who rents the building. The folks who grade tests rent the building a lot. The snake and reptile people have the second largest show in the building, and I would bet that if Brown and Fornari get any people from this joint, they get a few reptile people.
Gary Brown: We actually had an iguana running around our property after the last show for about a month.
Big John: That’s a big bunch of folks coming here for that thing. The Charisma folks are another big bunch. They are all over, you can’t dream this stuff up. Surf Expo we lost because we weren’t big enough. Did you guys get some outlying people from Surf Expo? Were they just day trippers? We want to get Surf Expo back right? But we don’t know if Surf Expo is good for us or not. They are mostly day trippers, so some things are good for the building, but not good for the industry.
Jim Wachtel: I was going to say, in the last couple years, we’ve seen several examples of stadiums being torn down and replaced. Three Rivers Stadium, Seattle Kingdome, etc. but these were only done after extensive financial feasibility studies to know the new facilities would in fact pay for itself. The financial operations of any new facility or this one need to be done prior to making those decisions.
Big John: We don’t want a financial feasibility study done like the one we had for the parking garage, right? We want a real one, one like Stuart would get, I bet before Adams Mark spent the money for the new rooms, they knew their stuff.
Stuart Arp: Well, Fred isn’t a real feasibility kind of guy; he doesn’t have to sell it to anybody but himself. He looks at what costs are involved and how the hotel has performed. You can pay anybody to tell you anything you want, that’s what consultants are in business for. There is a market here, I don’t think this building should be torn down, it’s not what we need, and I think everybody will agree. We tried to do a lot of things and it didn’t really fix anything. I think building on to it makes sense.
I went to St. Petersburg a few weeks ago to a boat show they had there at the convention center. It’s a dump! This is a much better facility. St. Petersburg is not really a convention town, they have a few motels downtown and they really don’t do much. They are more of leisure travel type of destination.
I think we need to add on to this. Are we ever going to compete with Orlando, no. We may siphon off some of the smaller groups that feel lost over there, but we’re never going to do the big things they do. We have to look at the things we’ve done, and if it’s not enough study then we do more. But, the Charlotte’s and the Savannah’s and the Memphis’s and those kind of destinations that we do compete with. When I got here eight years ago the complaint with meeting planners was we don’t have enough quality hotel rooms in this core area. We need 1000 quality hotel rooms. We have that now. We have 746 in my building, the Ocean Walk, the Plaza, the Radisson, etc. there are a lot of things going on and we have the rooms. Now we’ve got to fix the other problem, do we need more exhibit space, more meeting space? We will argue that, and we will never all agree. We have to look at what the people that will come to Daytona. First we have to look at the people that we lost because we’re not big enough, because those are people who wanted to buy us but couldn’t. It’s easier to go after them and study what their needs are before we try bring people who may not ever come here.
Then you’ve got the other problem, the Airport. That’s a bigger disadvantage to selling this destination than this facility, getting people here. That’s part of this, and until there is a demand for more national business, which we need, a bigger facility for the Airport’s still going to struggle. Is expanding this going to help everybody up and down the beach? No, it’s not. If you look at any thriving convention area, there is a core area where the convention center is, and hotels around that area do very well. In Charlotte for example, our hotel is about nine blocks from the convention center, and we don’t do a lot of convention center business. It’s the four or five hotels that are right there that do their business. Do we get spin off business when they are full? Absolutely! Do we get corporate business when they are full? Absolutely! But we don’t get a lot of citywide stuff there. We are nine blocks from it, you can walk. We’re not going to be everything to everybody, and there is a huge investment in this core area, and you have to figure out what is going to be the next level of business. If we are going to just survive with leisure business we are going to suffer.
Look at what Disney did. I worked for Disney for five years. When I started with Disney they had one hotel with convention space, the Contemporary, 30,000 square feet. They added on to that, they built several other big meeting hotels.
You can’t just fill it up with families and corporate travelers any more. You have got to diversify. We’re going to double our convention business in this hotel this year. We’re going form 40,000 room nights in a group business to 80,000 group room nights, with just what we’ve done over here. It’s a little less recession proof (group business) than leisure people who are putting out money out of their own pocket. I’m going to fill this hotel for race week at the same rate I did because Bike Week money is coming out of their pocket, it’s not corporate dollars. So we can’t put all our eggs in one basket and get more convention business, and continue to build on what we already have, the leisure travel, the beach travel. This is important. It’s not going to be everything that everybody wants, but we’ve got to spend our money wisely and make sure it’s usable.
Big John: Very good. Darlene.
Darlene Yordon: One thing that we’ve been trying to work on and I certainly support is the interlocal agreement between the City and the County on Peabody Auditorium, which just adds one more facility to the complex, we’re trying to build up around here. I don’t know where Rick stands on that.
Big John: I have that on my agenda, and I think it’s very appropriate and I think it has a lot to do with it.
Darlene Yordon: I really hope we can work something out with you all.
Rick Hamilton: Frank and I are leaving in about 25 minutes to go meet on that very thing. So may I comment?
Big John: Absolutely.
Rick Hamilton: I agree with everything that has been said in the room in it’s own element and where everyone is coming from, but I think we are missing a huge, huge point, and Evelyn, I guess I need to turn to you on how to use the expanded facility, and they defined the market segment in that report. The things that we’re doing here today and we’re going hodge podge in different directions. In my opinion, I said Evelyn and Stuart is a big player in this too, because they do this all over the country, with Stuart having hotels everywhere, and Evelyn having clients all over the country. You first define what you want to be and what market you want to go after. That market may be the market we’ve been in which ever since I’ve been here is known as the SMERF market. Social, military, ethnic, religious groups, that type of thing. Or do we want to go to the corporate segment, or do we want to go to the national associations and regional associations. We need to decide where we want to be in five years, and in ten years. But going out and doing the things we’ve been doing and doing it hit and miss is never going to work for anybody, it’s wasting money and I’ve already spent a great deal of money researching this for the Ocean Center, looking back in retrospect, maybe wrongly so, but at the same time we need to decide what we want to be in five years and ten years. Those are the people we need to talk to and see what it will take to get them here.
Big John: How long will it take to do that?
Rick Hamilton: When this group decides what they want. Do we want to be an association market, a conference center market, a corporate market? Until we do that we can’t go anywhere.
Big John: Can I ask Stuart to chair a sub-committee to come up with that answer? I would ask you to have Rick there, one or more member of the Hotel/Motel, Evelyn, Sharon if you would sit on that, do we need other people on that?
Darlene Yordon: We could just attend if we wanted to.
Big John: Yes, I was going to just have one member so we don’t have Sunshine problem.
Frank Gummy: Yes you do, it has to be Sunshine.
Big John: Oh, it’s Sunshine no matter what we do. Darlene do you want to sit on that?
Rick Hamilton: You need to see if there is an agreement before we start. I think going out and surveying meeting planners just to survey them is the wrong thing to do.
Evelyn Fine: Let me throw this on the table. We have to find out who the meeting planners are. We have a plan to start with the SMERF group, we know we’ve pleased them, and that should be our starting point. Who have we pleased, why have they been happy, and what has worked for them, and why should we go off that, or why should we just concentrate on them?
Big John: That can be sub-committee work. I think we agree that we’re going to try to focus on whom we’re going to focus on!
Rick Hamilton: And who we want to be. Funding is a mute point at this time, design is a mute point at this time if folks in this room do not agree with the C.H. Johnson report, because that was one of the directions they went in. The other thing we need to look at is the thing Stuart mentioned. The people we currently have, which ones you would like to keep, which ones you would like to go away. And as everybody in this room knows they agree on some things we have they disagree on others. Some would like concerts to go away, some want more concerts, those types of issues need to addressed.
Stuart Arp: We want to generate room nights. We want people to stay in the hotels. It’s not a day facility, it shouldn’t be. It’s being funded by the people staying in the beds, and that’s who we need to go after.
Rick Hamilton: The final issues of those we want here (and we have some good business in this building and everybody in this room may not be aware of it) we have some quality clients. We need to talk to those people to see what they would like, what keeps them here. We also need to look at the large groups we have lost because we didn’t have the facilities. The accommodations, we also need to look at our lost business, because we had one group in the facility, and lost another one because we couldn’t accommodate both at the same time. Those are the issues, but it all depends on what we want to be when we grow up.
Jim Bazemore: Mr. Chairman, an enabling act specified that the TDC was supposed to be the agency overseeing this operation, and it didn’t happen, it was sun setting. Part of our problems today are because we lost touch with the people on this TDC. It’s not just a one-shot deal, it’s like a Board of Directors, if we’ll approach it from that angle, we’ll get a lot more cooperation, we get more people involved and we’ll get some things done.
Big John: My brain tells me I’d like someone from the Speedway to sit on the sub-committee. I don’t know if that’s "LCB" or someone else.
Lori Campbell-Baker: We have people who do meeting planning.
Big John: Because I suspect there are a whole lot of folks who come here connected to the Speedway who might find that this town and this facility could be valuable to them. They’re used to coming here. They have obviously overcome the Airport problem, they figured out how to get here. I also thought that since the News-Journal is one of the biggest users of the building, with the LSO and that sort of thing, maybe we should have a representative of the News-Journal on this committee. And I definitely want Sharon or Jim Bridges on this committee, because they use this building as well. OK, Joie, do you have any comments?
Joie Alexander: I’m just doing a lot of listening, and learning what has transpired.
Big John: OK. Bob?
Bob Mills: No comment, I refer to what Rick says, he’s my boss!
Big John: Now, someone who normally talks more at different meetings, but doesn’t talk much here, I’ve noticed, and has a lot of historical knowledge and gives us great advise is Frank Gummy
Frank Gummy: I thought I could read to you from the County Code, and this is the duties of this council. General Duties: from time to time the TDC shall make recommendations to the County Council for the effective operation of the special projects or of the uses of the Tourist Development tax revenue raised by the tax levied by this article. And may perform such other duties or functions which may be prescribed by ordinance or resolution. Also review of expenditures The TDC shall continuously review all expenditures of revenues from the tourist development trust fund, and shall receive at least quarterly expenditure reports from the finance dept. Expenditures, which the TDC believes to be unauthorized, shall be reported to the County Council and the Florida Department of Revenue. The County Council and the FDR shall review the findings of the TDC and make appropriate administrative or judicial actions to assure compliance with the Florida Statutes.
Presently the tax is for the payment of the debt service for this building, the current debt service, and also partially funds part of the operational cost of the Ocean Center.
Big John: That’s very exciting! Is there anything you want to say on your own?
Frank Gummy: This will be redundant, but it did occur to me that Evelyn’s work does not sound to me like it is capturing the uses of this building, particularly during special events which are not meetings or conventions, but often are connected with corporate partners of the Speedway who have entertainment or trade show functions which don’t actually attract people into beds. But they use this facility, and it seems they are important users of the facility.
Big John: So asking "LCB" to get us one of those people from the Speedway, that makes sense to you?
Frank Gummy: Yes, I think they are somewhat different than a convention planner.
Stuart Arp: It’s Circle Track people it’s Harley Davidson.
Rick Hamilton: It’s that time of year when the hotel rooms are full, and no one in this room needs additional business anyway, so we wouldn’t have business at that point in time unless we were looking for things that were already here to fill this room up.
Big John: Like BCR, it fills the rooms, and keeps the building empty.
Stuart Arp: But we can’t take Bike Week for granted either. If Harley Davidson ever decided there was a better venue for them we’re done. So they are an important player too.
Big John: I wonder if during Bike Week we could talk to them.
Stuart Arp: They take up 250 rooms in our hotel.
Rick Hamilton: We have already talked to them, and they will take anything that we build.
Big John: Darlene, you brought up Peabody, we want that report for the next meeting. We want finances, we want more stuff that Sharon brought up about tax stuff the stuff we’re supposed to do quarterly at the next meeting. Stuart I’d like to know more about the parking garage (I know a lot about it, but I don’t know if anybody else does). I want that to be discussed, the financial stuff. Stuart, you have a Herculean task, can you give us a report at the next meeting?
Stuart Arp: Unfortunately we are going into our busy time.
Big John: Do you want to wait and have a meeting in two months?
Stuart Arp: Yes, it’s going to be tough to get everybody together with Race Week & Bike Week and BCR.
Big John: How’s the middle of April? Evelyn, how’s that for you, you are going to play a key roll in this, and "LCB" whoever you get is going to play a big roll in this. Is April 17 a good day for all of you? We’re going to have Stuart chair that sub-committee to include the Bridges etc. We also want to make a copy of that tape for Tom Staed and for Gilly since they missed the meeting they can have full advantage of the meeting.
Gary Brown: Rick, do you have comment cards from your clients. I know that we in the industry have them and it should make it real clear of the clients that have been here what we had and didn’t have them for me.
Rick Hamilton: We don’t have a comment card; we have both a pre and post event meeting with the meeting planners. At the post meeting we find out what they liked, what they didn’t, what’s wrong with the area, etc. Yes, I have that information.
Big John: I’m expecting some of Rick’s comments to be put in a draft form on paper, and I don’t like paragraphs, I like bullets. Rick made a lot of good comments, and Evelyn said a lot of good stuff, and Sharon you said something good too; so we want to get all that congealed in a document. Let’s look at who the users of this building are. In another column which ones are begging to come here. The ones who say if you build us a bigger building, we’ll use the whole thing. Do we have anything for Wachtel?
Rick Hamilton: Not at this point in time.
Big John: So, he’s on leave at this time. I think that’s got everything covered. So next meeting, strong emphasis on finance, report on the parking garage, report on the Peabody deal, right? And then Stuart will have a good bit of time. Thank you for attending.
Meeting was adjourned at 10:10 AM.
Respectfully submitted:
Mary Davis
Recording Secretaryback to county council home page
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