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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022-05-23 - MinutesFayetteville Advertising and Promotion Commission Minutes May 23, 2022 Fayetteville Town Center Commissioners Todd Martin, Chair, Tourism & Hospitality Representative Present: Elvis Moya, Tourism & Hospitality Representative Chrissy Sanderson, Tourism & Hospitality Representative Andrew Prysby, Commissioner at -large Sarah Bunch, City Council Representative Mark Kinion, City Council Representative Commissioners Katherine Kinney Absent: Staff: Molly Rawn, CEO; Jennifer Walker, Vice President of Finance; Hazel Hernandez, Vice President of Marketing and Communications Chair Martin called the meeting to order at 2:00 pm. Old Business A. Chair Martin asked commissioners to review and approve the April 2022 minutes. Commissioner Sanderson made a motion to approve the minutes with Commissioner Prysby seconded. After asking for any objections and hearing none, Chair Martin stated that the minutes were approved. B. Vote. Amendment to the by-laws allowing for virtual meetings and virtual attendance at in -person meetings. In accordance with the by-laws, the proposed amendment was presented for the first time at the April meeting. Chair Martin read the proposed changes to the by- laws and asked if there were any questions or comments. Commissioner Bunch asked about the origin of the proposed number 3 as the maximum number of virtual meetings and CEO Rawn said it was selected as it represented 1/4 of the total number of meetings. Commissioner Bunch also asked about the quality of the technology available for hybrid meetings and CEO Rawn said the equipment at the Fayetteville Town Center will be upgraded and she feels confident in this approach and in her team's ability to deliver a good experience. Chair Martin asked for a vote and it was approved unanimously. III. New Business A. CEO Report. An executive overview of the previous month's activity, issues and opportunities facing the organization. Complete memo attached. CEO Rawn spoke about upcoming events for the commission. She updated the group on the activities of the Experience Fayetteville sales team which included a sports conference where VP of Sales Tina Archer -Cope had numerous appointments with event organizers. While May's First Thursday event was rained out, we are looking forward to June's event next week entitled "In Bloom." May is bike month and we've been doing complimentary bike valet at restaurants located close to a bike trail on Tuesday evenings and will be closing out the month at Leverett Lounge. EF is also hosting a Bike Friendly Business Boot Camp for businesses. The Joe Martin Stage Race was this last weekend with the Experience Fayetteville Criterium yesterday. Rawn was very pleased to see elevated community and spectator engagement at the start and finish lines. Rawn highlighted that we will have held 4 professional cycling events of varying disciplines (road, gravel, mountain and cyclo-cross) within the first half of this year. The Fayetteville Town Center has hosted 13 events since the commission last met, one being a two -week rental from the Fayetteville High School. FTC has been working with the city to take part in city's Energy Savings Performance Contract which may allow certain upgrades such as replacing some HVAC units, weatherization, and possibly roof upgrades in a cost saving manner. The Clinton House Museum continues the work of separating itself financially from the A&P and has hired Kristi Andrews to staff the museum on Thursday and Friday from 10 am to 4. Rawn expects there to be a staffer announced for Saturday soon. Clinton House Museum board president Steve Smith, Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism's Secretary Stacy Hurst and Rawn met with the University of Arkansas, the owner of the house, and were granted a reprieve from monthly rent obligations through 2023. She informed the group that the desire to receive consultation on future purposes for the Walker Stone House may possibly be handled by a project Britin Bostick with the city of Fayetteville is coordinating involving a consultant on a project with an overlapping scope. Rawn spoke about our current HMR and occupancy numbers, stating that we were at 70% occupancy for April, up 11 % from April 2021 and year to date we are up 6% in occupancy. Furthermore, our ADR, average daily rate, is up 32% compared to April of 2021. Lodging collections are up 28% compared to last month and 36% compared to the same time last year. Dining collections are up 24% over last month but we do show a small decrease compared to April 2021. She stated she is not concerned over this decrease but will be watching future numbers. She thanked the city of Fayetteville's accounting team and noted that they are installing and utilizing a new software system which will help show us more detail on collections in the future. B. Financial Report. Jennifer Walker, Vice President of Finance VP Walker said that the agenda packet contained April financial statements and with being one-fourth through the year, the target revenue and expenditure level is 33% We are 2% below target for revenue and 7% below target for expenses. We have a very healthy financial position with a current operating net income amount of $283,000. We have grant revenue that we have not received which will make up most of that 2% deficit in revenue. Looking at our HMR revenue, seasonally adjusted, we are about 2% ahead of target in revenue. The balance sheet shows cash and investments are $4.5 million and our unearned revenue is approximately $150,000 - this is a good sign showing upcoming bookings at the town center. C. Marketing Report. Hazel Hernandez, Vice President of Marketing and Communications Hernandez began by highlighting the Moose Jaw US Pro Cup in April where we had numerous stories by media and a great Instagram live, with lots of interaction, with Ty Caddy and two athletes. She also highlighted a new publication coming soon for us, a pocket guide to Fayetteville, which will be helpful for both cost and ease of distribution. The pocket guide will have a QR code that will take visitors to the full Visitors Guide on our website. Fayettevan will be activated in both NW Arkansas and Arkansas to create awareness and we are working on doing a ride -along interview to highlight Vanny. It's been at several events since it arrived more than a month ago. Hernandez gave updates on our social media accounts: Facebook had increased reach and visits but new followers were down 13% compared to new followers last month, with total followers at 36,652. Instagram saw a decreased page reach but a strong number of followers at 58,578 — one of the largest Instagram accounts in the state compared to other DMO's. Total referrals from our social sites to our website are up 163%. Commissioner Moya suggested the idea of asking a restaurant to do a take over for a day to show off their new dishes, get interviews from customers, etc. Hernandez also talked about the work we are planning do in the motorcycling realm, with adventure riding being a prime target to focus on. With that, Hernandez turned it over to Mike Sells with Sells Agency. Mike Sells talked about the re -vamping of our Experience Fayetteville website. Sells said in 2017 that organic traffic made up 36% and that number jumped to 57% in 2021. Our new strategy for the website will be blog articles with anchor or "evergreen" content. Mike mentioned that having Jerrika Longueville as our Digital Marketing Coordinator was a "game changer" and she has created a lot of content for our site. We have also added an event calendar which is now the 51" most visited page on the site. Commissioner Prysby asked if we are featuring social media on our website. Currently the site is featuring our own social but not others. He suggested staff look into adding other users' content who use our tags. Sells stated that current projects include updating the Eat section of the site, activating our Fayettevan PR Plan, doing photo shoots for fresh content and re - purposing the Cyclo-Cross website to the US Pro Cup. Sells also mentioned some travel industry trends and insights - traveling with pets is very popular and so we are looking to highlight our pet friendly activations and businesses. Additionally, 77% of travelers are more conscious of supporting small local businesses while traveling and sustainability incentives while traveling are also important. D. Vote. Downtown Initiative. A recommendation to allocate $100,000 to hire a director of downtown initiatives, in association with the Downtown Fayetteville Coalition. Memo attached. CEO Rawn opened this up by saying that this has been a need and a topic since she arrived almost 6 years ago and that Fayetteville needs to have a strong downtown organization. Fayetteville Downtown Coalition, formally the Dickson Street Merchants, is an organization that has branched out to cover a broader area than just Dickson Street and has been working hard to establish a thriving organization and it is a good time to add paid staff to propel their efforts. Rawn is proposing to incubate a staff position as a line item within Experience Fayetteville's personnel budget. She mentions that this should not just be an Experience Fayetteville expense, but could be shared with the city of Fayetteville and she knows that there are city staff who are in support of this growth. Rawn mentioned that Fayetteville is one of the only large cities in Arkansas to not have a dedicated downtown organization. Chair Martin, who is involved in the Fayetteville Downtown Coalition, said the coalition saw the need to expand the footprint of this group to expand much further than Dickson Street and having dedicated personnel will be vital to moving this initiative forward. Commissioner Moya asked how many merchants would be involved in this organization and if this person would give a monthly update to this commission like other EF departments and finally, has the city of Fayetteville voiced that they will give financial support to this initiative? Chair Martin answered the question about merchants by stating the approximate geographic area of the downtown area encompasses approximately the same area as our Outdoor Refreshment Area. Rawn stated yes, this person would be giving updates on this initiative to give to the commission. She said that the city has not allocated any funding and the city will be formally asked for financial support to be considered when the city's next budget cycle begins. If the commission approves this, Experience Fayetteville would be voting to make this investment and hire this person before the city or other potential supporters would be getting involved. Rawn said that before we committed to more years of funding, we would want to see commitment from other entities. Commissioner Sanderson asked if $100.000 will be enough to fill this roll and Rawn said she thought $100,000 in this fiscal year would be enough to give this person the tools they need. Commissioners Kinion and Bunch who also serve as City Council members stated that as this request and program goes before the City Council, we will need to be cognizant that each city council member represents different sections of the city and members may ask what about attention for Uptown or Midtown, etc. Rawn acknowledged those were all good points and to be expected. She stated there is a uniqueness and significance that downtowns bring to tourism as economic drivers and that a thriving downtown brings benefits to the city overall. After more discussion, Chair Martin asked if he could call for a vote. Bunch asked if the job description was complete or in progress and how it would be advertised. CEO Rawn said that it would be posted internally, on Indeed, our own website and social media. For this job, we will also post on the International Downtown Associations' job portal. Commission Bunch also asked about the hiring process and Rawn said she would like to put together a search group that would include stakeholders such as the Fayetteville Downtown Coalition. Rawn stated the overall goal of this project and position is to found and establish an independent downtown organization with its own by-laws and structure. Commissioner Kinion volunteered to make a motion (as clarified Chair Martin) for the A&P Commission to authorize the creation of the director of downtown initiatives position and allocate $100,000 to the effort which was seconded by Commissioner Sanderson. Chair Martin called a roll call vote and it passed unanimously with Chair Martin abstaining from the vote as he also sits on the board of the Fayetteville Downtown Coalition. E. With no further agenda items, Chair Martin called for a motion to adjourn the meeting. Commissioner Kinion made the motion with Commissioner Sanderson seconding it and the meeting was adjourned at 3:40 pm. Minutes submitted by Amy Stockton, Director of Operations, Experience Fayetteville