HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-05-24 - MinutesFayetteville Advertising and Promotion Commission
Minutes from May 2411, 2021 Meeting
Virtual Public Meeting, Via Zoom
Commissioners Present: Katherine Kinney, Chairperson, Matthew Petty, Todd Martin, Andrew
Prysby, Sarah Bunch, Elvis Moya
Commissioners Absent: Chrissy Sanderson
Staff: Molly Rawn, CEO; Hazel Hernandez, VP of Marketing and
Communications; and Jennifer Walker, VP of Finance
Chairperson Kinney called the meeting to order at 2:00 p.m.
Old Business
a. Commissioner Martin motioned to approve the April 2021 minutes with
Commissioner Petty seconding. The minutes were unanimously approved.
III. New Business
a. CEO Report
i. HMR Data: Our numbers, which reflect March activity, are up more than 59%
from a year ago. This reflects a 100% increase in lodging collections and a
55% increase in restaurant collections.
ii. Visitors Center: We had $2,044 in sales and saw 455 visitors in April which
is a 45% decline compared to April 2018 which is our closest comparison
year as we were closed in April 2019 for remodeling and April 2020 for
Covid. We are now open on Saturdays and are seeing many more visitors
and more sales.
iii. STR report from lodging institutions: Our average daily rate (ADR) is down
12% year to date. Additionally, our occupancy rate is down 5%. Rawn
reminded the group that Fayetteville had really strong tourism months in
January and February 2020 and it will take a few months to get occupancy
and rates back to normal levels.
iv. Finance snapshot: Our April revenue and expenses are targeted to be at
33% and they are both right at 30%, which is really positive news.
v. Masks at Fayetteville Town Center: we understand the city will be
addressing the mask ordinance next week. If repealed, our plan is that town
center staff will wear masks but we will not require guests wear masks.
b. Financial Report, Jennifer Walker, VP of Finance
Total revenue and expenses for the year are on par with each other, running at
about 30% of budget. Walker is pleased to be both closing the gap and also keeping
our expenses in line with revenue. Pulling out just the HMR revenue, you can see
that we are at 33% of budget.
In giving the PPP Loan program summary, she stated we expect to have some if not
all of these funds forgiven, and the report shows we're at 62.6% of usage of this
loan.
c. Marketing Report, Hazel Hernandez, VP of Marketing and Communications
Website usage is significantly up compared to same time last year, showing a 50%
increase in both overall users and sessions.
Landing page last month was down 13% and is now up 39%; that is because we've
just launched our paid summer media flight to our larger markets.
Online guide requests saw an increase of about 1,500 and the breakdown by state
is comparable to our targeted media campaigns.
Hernandez then discussed our current paid search metrics. As a reminder, paid
searches are ads that are served to viewers actively searching for us and they have
all been doing well, with our leisure and town center searches garnering the most
impressions and clicks. We see that our Spanish searches continue to do well. We
will likely reduce spending to our Fayetteville Together search as our restaurants
continue to rebound.
Our restaurant flight ran January 18 to May 2nd. Everything performed really well,
especially the social ads which were both static and video image ads with nearly a
thousand people giving a post reaction to them.
Our summer flight is the largest flight of the year, it's 8 weeks and is targeted to
these areas: Little Rock, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Tulsa, Kansas City, and NWA. With just
a few weeks of data in, we can already see the campaign is doing well. Hernandez
explained that YouTube has a true view option, whereas viewers can opt out of ad
content. She explained that the data we see from this is really favorable as it shows
viewers who are really engaged with our content and showing strong interest in
visiting.
d. Medalist Sports Contract presentation and Vote
CEO Rawn introduced a contract with Medalist Sports, an organization in Atlanta,
with a long history of putting on UCI Championship events. Medalist Sports have
submitted a contract to work with Experience Fayetteville to produce both the UCI
World Cup in October and the UCI World Championship in January 2022. She
stated that we are very impressed with them. The Medalist Sports team have been
to Fayetteville for a working visit and have met with Rawn, Brannon Pack our
Cycling Coordinator and Jennifer Walker our VP of Finance along with most of our
team. Kevin Benjamin with Medalist Sports will be our project manager.
Both Rawn and Vince Chadick have reviewed the contract and Rawn is asking the
commission for permission to sign.
Commissioner Moya make a motion to approve the approval for CEO Rawn to sign
the agreement for the event management and consulting operations agreement and
Commissioner Bunch seconded it. It passed unanimously.
e. Discussion on returning to in person meetings:
Chair Kinney opened this topic with Rawn stating we had the Town Center available
if the commission would like to attend in person starting with the June meeting.
Commissioner Kinney said she'd be happy to see commissioners in person next
month if they are comfortable. The commissioners also stated that they are
comfortable. Rawn clarified that while masks were not required, they were certainly
optional.
f. With no other topics, Rawn asked if Commissioner Martin would share a brief
overview of his involvement with the Dickson Street Merchants Association (DSMA).
Commissioner Martin began by saying that over the last few months the DSMA has
gone through a bit of a transformation. They changed their bylaws last week to
expand the territory to include these streets as boundaries: Arkansas Avenue for a
west boundary, College Avenue as an east boundary, Rock Street as a south
boundary and Maple Street as a north boundary, encompassing both Block Avenue
and the square. Currently the name continues to be Dickson Street Merchants
Association but he expects that will be addressed soon. A temporary seven -member
board of directors was voted in to increase membership within a four -month period
of time with the goal of voting in a permanent board of directors and bringing on
board a full time Executive Director. It is their intent to continue to work with
Experience Fayetteville and other organizations.
g. Rawn shared she is a member of Fayetteville's Economic Recovery and Vitality
Plan steering committee and is excited to serve promote the importance of tourism
in economic recovery. She's looking forward to seeing how she can continue to
work with area businesses and will keep this group in the loop.
h. Adjourn: With no further business or announcements, Chair Kinney ended the
meeting at 2:36 p.m.
Minutes submitted by Amy Stockton, Director of Operations, Experience Fayetteville