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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-07-26 - MinutesFayetteville Advertising and Promotion Commission Minutes from July 26, 2021 Fayetteville Town Center Commissioners Andrew Prysby, Matthew Petty, Chrissy Sanderson, Elvis Moya, Sarah Bunch Present: Todd Martin Commissioners Katherine Kinney, Chair Absent: Staff: Molly Rawn, Chief Executive Officer; Jennifer Walker, Vice President of Finance; and Hazel Hernandez, Vice President of Marketing and Communications CEO Molly Rawn called the meeting to order at 2 p.m., announcing that Chair Kinney was not able to be in attendance and Rawn would conduct the meeting. II. Old Business a. Commissioner Sanderson motioned to approve the June 2021 minutes with Commissioner Moya seconding. The minutes were unanimously approved. III. New Business a. CEO Report, Molly Rawn Rawn shared HMR activity that occurred in May, was collected in June and reported in July. We are 1.4% above 2019 YTD numbers with lodging down approximately 19% compared to June 2019 but restaurants up 10% compared to June 2019. Occupancy percentage for June 2020 was 30% and was 60% for June 2021. She also shared Airbnb YTD collections are $28,000 compared to 2019 YTD of $14,000. Rawn clarified that this was only collection amounts for Airbnb, not all short-term rentals. The Visitors Center saw 1,325 visitors in June, a 93% increase from May and had very strong sales of $8,709, a 33% increase from May. It served as a bricks and mortar store front for NWA Equality for almost five weeks and we are writing them a check for $2,075 for all of the PRIDE merchandise sales. The Fayetteville Town Center hosted two external events in July, including Connie Edmonston's retirement party and three internal events. Connie served as the city's Parks and Recreation Director and retired July 8th after 35 years with the city. We are continuing to take advantage of light event bookings to refresh rooms and we've repaired our airwalls in the ballroom and finished several painting projects. We are working on renewing the parking deck lease with the city. We are also working with Chris McNamara, Sustainability Facilities Project Manager with the city, on getting an energy audit for the facility. The Experience Fayetteville sales team has been very busy with several conference leads. Additionally, the team has created new itineraries showing downtown as an asset and addition to a conference rather than just focusing on the facilities and square feet available for the conference itself. We've included outdoor activities and new activities like Pedal Pub and more. Fayetteville has hosted multiple sporting events each weekend and Rawn thanked Julie and Tina for staffing and supporting several of those. On the cycling front, the Arkansas Enduro Series hosted a two-day event at Centennial Park and Kessler Mountain July 9-10 with a sold -out event of 300 participants and over 500 total in attendance. We are hosting another bicycling boot camp with the chamber in September targeting Fayetteville businesses. This successful partnership has led to Fayetteville having 30 designated Bicycle Friendly businesses including many of our hospitality partners — we have the 61" most Bicycle Friendly businesses in the US. In Community Engagement, we are working on First Thursday to be held August 5" and are staying in contact with our city's public health officer who is comfortable with us hosting this as an outdoor event. We are working to secure a mobile vaccine clinic. It won't be held inside due to large crowds and concern. We are happy to report that we have approximately 70% of our First Thursday revenue pledged in sponsorship dollars. Thank you to Adventure Subaru, First Security Bank, Cox Communications, and Startup Junkie for their financial support. As Rawn concluded the report, she noted a change in the agenda as we will not be having an audit presentation today as our auditor was unable to attend. This will be rescheduled. Commissioners did receive an electronic copy of the audit and management letter and we have a few printed copies at the meeting. b. Financial Report, Jennifer Walker, VP of Finance In presenting the financials, Walker shared that we are halfway through the fiscal year and you can see our revenues are at 48% and expenditures are at 43%, we're pleased to be keeping this in line. HMR tax is still exceeding our projections by 3% at this time. The town center is doing a great job with keeping expenses in check. We currently show a net income of $220,000. The balance sheet shows our cash and investments at approximately $3.2 million dollars and you'll see town center unearned revenues down to $145,000. You also see the PPP loan funds on the balance sheet. We have spent all of these funds and you will see a loan forgiveness application for 100% of the loan at the next meeting. C. Marketing Report, Hazel Hernandez, VP of Marketing and Communications Hernandez began by introducing Susie Nicholson, who is our new account representative with Sells Agency; she will be in attendance at the commission meetings. Hernandez shared the marketing report with including demographics on the website: new visitors are up 58% and returning visitors are up 40%. This shows that more people are checking us out for the first time and then returning to get more detailed information on events and things to do as they plan their trip. Fayetteville and NWA has been in the news lately for being ranked as a best place to live and with many people looking to relocate, we can expect this trend to continue. Top ranked states and cities: Arkansas (Fayetteville) up 47% Texas (DFW) up 53% Oklahoma (OKC) up 95% Missouri (KC) up 15% Colorado (Denver) up 662% - this was the first year we've promoted in Colorado Age groups viewing our website YTD 2021 compared to 2020: 18-24 is up 23% is up 25-34 is down 6% 35-44 is up 18% 45-54 up 24% Site Users first interaction 2021 YTD compared to 2020 YTD: The Visitors Guide is up 59% which shows that people are ready to travel again. Events are up 84% and Eat is up 8%. A Site User's second interaction shows a 66% increase in the Visitors Guide with a 41% increase in Events and a 12% increase in Eat. d. Vote. Molly Rawn brought up the next item, a budget amendment to accept the funds that will accompany the operations of the Art Court, presented by the Tyson Family Foundation. The grant is paying for all of the expenses, we are simply inserting a new line item and need to make a budget adjustment. A motion from Commissioner Petty to approve the budget amendment adjustment to accept the Tyson Family Foundation funds with a second by Commissioner Bunch, was passed unanimously. Vote. Rawn presented the Spartan Race agreement and the accompanying budget adjustment. Rawn is hoping this can become a three-year partnership. Key points from the memo include a room night spend of $50,000 and an average spend $125,000 in the local economy. Additionally, the social channels of Spartan has over 6 million followers. The request is to move $45,000 from marketing, specifically our agency advertising line item, to our sports and cycling line item. She noted that the accompanying contract was presented in red line form and that the red line items were not of large importance. Rawn is recommending that the commission approve the enclosed contract as is and if the changes are not accepted by Spartan, we will reconvene to discuss this matter. Commissioner Martin asked if it was a phased spend, i.e. if the event is cancelled due to Covid-19 or other reasons, will we have lost all of that money? Rawn said it was her understanding that the funds could be used for an event at a later time. Commissioner Moya asked a question about digital marketing, asking if we could include multi -platform marketing and not just Facebook as the agreement reads. Hazel Hernandez answered that it will indeed be multi -platform marketing. Rawn also pointed out that an event like this could also generate sponsorships. Commissioner Petty made a motion to both accept the agreement and the budget adjustment and Commissioner Bunch seconded it. It was approved unanimously f. Vote. Rawn presented a quote to repair the tower leak. We noticed a leak in November and were able to do an immediate repair and are needing to do a more permanent repair. We received three quotes and Rawn presented a quote from Nabholz which best met the needs of the repair. We are asking to use capital reserves in the amount of $55,000 for this repair. Commissioner Petty asked if we needed to include a contingency, and a 15% was decided upon. Commissioner Petty motioned to approve the budget adjustment and the accompanying contract from Nabholz with a 15% contingency. Commissioner Bunch seconded it and it was approved unanimously. g. Vote. Rawn next presented a memo asking for a $1,400,000 amendment to the original Cyclo-cross grant from the Walton Family Personal Philanthropy Group. The increase is due to revised expenses and scope. The purpose of this grant is to produce a series of Cyclo- cross events which we are doing with the next event in October and the final event in January of 2022. Commissioner Martin made a motion to accept the budget amendment of $1,400,000 for the line item corresponding with the grant. Commissioner Sanderson seconded it and it passed unanimously. h. Vote. Vendor payments and contracts for the two upcoming Cyclo-cross events. Rawn is seeking a limited amendment to the financial policies that would only apply to expenditures from these grant -funded items related to the two Cyclo-cross events. We are asking that we be able to execute contracts and payments for more than $25,000 when needed without the commission's approval due to time constraints. We will still require legal counsel to review the contracts and will provide them for the commission's approval in two batches, once in December 2021 and again in March 2022. Commissioner Petty made a motion to approve the amendment to the financial policies and Commissioner Sanderson seconded it, the motion passed unanimously. i. An added agenda item from Commissioner Petty: he would like to discuss the idea of a matching funds idea with the city to encourage and incentivize employee vaccinations. This is a discussion item today and it relates to how the city might spend part of the CARES grant funding it received. The A&P is a good group to have this discussion with as it has representatives from the hospitality industry, an industry very much impacted by the ongoing pandemic. Commissioner Martin volunteered that while he has declined to mandate vaccines in his restaurants, he has heavily promoted the vaccine and has also offered a cash incentive. He thinks there is a level of financial incentive that will help move people to decide to get a vaccine and he's not been able to hit that level as a small business owner and these matching funds are a good opportunity. Rawn also shared that she would be happy to bring up this topic to the hospitality subcommittee if that would be helpful. The commissioners had a good discussion on the topic. Commissioner Prysby asked if there was any other community who had done anything like this who could offer us best practices and no entities immediately came to mind. Commissioner Sanderson offered that currently all 22 of her employees are vaccinated but that she is hiring new employees all the time and this would be a good incentive for them. Commissioner Martin asked if this incentive program was meant to be a straight incentive to Fayetteville residents or a matching incentive to Fayetteville businesses and Commissioner Petty indicated it was meant to be the latter, a program working with businesses. It was decided to not include the CARES act as the funding mechanism in the wording of the recommendation below. Commissioner Petty made a motion that the A&P Commission recommend that the city consider and administer a matching incentive program to support new Covid vaccinations for Fayetteville workers through employers. This motion was seconded from Commissioner Moya and it passed unanimously. j. As a final agenda item, Commissioner Martin made the request that we offer a virtual option for the next meeting or a hybrid option. CEO Rawn said we would be able to facilitate this and that she would speak to the chairperson, Katherine Kinney regarding her preference. k. With no other business, Rawn adjourned the meeting at 3 p.m. Minutes submitted by Amy Stockton, Director of Operations