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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018/10/31 MASON COUNTY LODGING TAX ADVISORY COMMITTEE Meeting Minutes Commissioners'Chambers 411 North 5T" Street, Shelton, WA 98584 Wednesday, October 31, 2018 9:00 a.m. Members in Attendance: Chair Terri Drexler, Nathan Welch, Duane Wilson, Stephanie Rowland, Heidi McCutcheon and Shaun Tucker. Also in attendance were Rachel Hansen, Jake Geist and Will Tigard. Chair Drexler called the meeting to order at 9:01 a.m. Approval of the July 18, 2018 meeting minutes Heidi/Duane moved and seconded to approve the July 18, 2018 meeting minutes. Motion carried. 3rd Quarter Reports Heidi presented the 31d quarter report for the Shelton/Mason County Chamber of Commerce Visitor Information Center which provides services in Shelton and Hoodsport. The smoke from the forest fires had some negative impact to tourism. The Bite magazine is funded by the Chamber and they changed the format. Stephanie Rowland presented the 3rd quarter for the North Mason Chamber of Commerce Visitor Information Centers which provide services in Belfair and Union. The Pumpkin fest was a success. Stephanie will offer customer service training in 2019 free to local businesses. The report includes what licensing customers purchase when they visit the North Mason Chamber office which also serves as the VIC. Northwest Event Organizers (NEO) Rachel Hansen presented a PowerPoint for her 3rd Quarter Report that included website stats. Lodging Tax increased in July &August by 17%. Rachel updates the website daily with blogs. She is working with lodging establishments to highlight unique experiences. Website views have increased including organic searches. NEO attended local events to promote tourism in Mason County. Facebook followers are 38,657 with engaged users at 22,846. Blogs and videos are popular. Rachel will use the lists they have created from the various events to promote the events in 2019. Skokomish Tourism promotes Explore Hood Canal stories. Rachel would like to join Scenic Washington at a cost of$7,000 and includes promoting Explore Hood Canal on the back page of the WA State road map and four articles. There is funding available in her current budget. Rachel will attend a tourism event in San Francisco in March. A 28 page visitor information guide is available on the website. Rachel is working on a Festival of the Fjord, a county-wide campaign to showcase Mason County holiday opportunities. Olympic Peninsula Tourism Consortium is asking for participation in 2019. LTAC supports engaging with Scenic Washington. Rachel shared information on the relationship with Olympic Peninsula Tourism Consortium and stated she has not received a lot of referrals from their website. It cost $1,500 to be included in the waterfall map; $3,000 for membership in the Consortium. Rachel supports being part of the Consortium in 2019 at a rate of$5,000 because they do have some helpful tools. Shaun has been opposed to participating in the Olympic Peninsula Tourism Consortium because he doesn't believe they offer a good product. Heidi believes it's Rachel's responsibility to decide what to be part of and it's LTAC's responsibility to make sure Rachel is on the right track but not get into the weeds— LTAC sets the vision and Rachel drives the car. Heidi agreed the quality of product from Olympic Peninsula Tourism has declined. Shaun stated there will be meeting for the WA Tourism Alliance (WTA) and there will be an ask for funding. Rachel will decide whether to fund WTA or Olympic Peninsula Tourism. Page 1 Lodging Tax Advisory Board Meeting Minutes October 31, 2018 2019 Visitor Information Center Services The Visitor Information Center contract is a one year contract (2018) with an option to renew for 2019. The question before the LTAC is do they want to continue the existing contracts for 2019 and how much funding. The 2018 funding is 30% of lodging tax revenues collected in 2016. Using this formula, the amount available for 2019 is $117,400 (based on 2017 total lodging tax revenue of$391,344). The original proposals submitted by the Chambers are $70,000 for the Shelton-Mason County Chamber and $40,700 for North Mason Chamber. The LTAC members discussed the issue at length: Duane asked if more money is awarded, what additional services will be provided. Stephanie pointed out they were not awarded what was requested for 2018. Heidi stated the Chamber is subsidizing the VIC. One thing she would do is to redo the map on the wall of the Hoodsport VIC. Shaun pointed out that the on-going question continues to be are VIC's still relevant. Stephanie believes having VIC's available to offer assistance to tourism is valuable. Shaun noted that the Hoodsport VIC is serving 1000's of visitors; Shelton and Belfair are serving 100's of visitors. Hoodsport is clearly more visited. Shaun stated he doesn't have a better idea to replace the VIC's. Cmmr. Drexler suggested the recommendation could be to extend the contracts at the current rate with an amendment to increase the contract amount. Will Tigard believes if there was additional funding available, improvements to the Visit Union website could be done. Shaun/Duane moved and seconded to approve extending the VIC contracts for 2019 at the same 2018 rate. Motion failed. Nay—3. Heidi stated when original proposals were submitted the Chambers included the amount of funding they need to operate the VIC's. She stated the Shelton Mason County VIC operates in the red. When the 2018 contracts were awarded there was not enough funding available to award the entire amount. Duane understands the $70K was the original request but he still supports having an explanation of what they would do with additional funding at the next LTAC meeting. Heidi stated she has a "needs"list. Because of the reduction in funding, Belfair cut the hours of the Union VIC. Stephanie stated if the VIC funding is cut, the Belfair Chamber would have to move. Cmmr. Drexler cautioned Heidi and Stephanie from participating in the discussion so there is no conflict of interest. LTAC Page 12 Lodging Tax Advisory Board Meeting Minutes October 31, 2018 There was further discussion of extending the contracts as written and pending legal review, have an amendment to increase the contract based on the 30% of revenues formula. Nathan moved to extend the VIC 2019 contracts at 30% of 2017 revenues for a total of $117,400. Motion died due to lack of a second. There was a discussion of the funding options, historically have awarded VIC's 30% of lodging tax revenues. Duane wants an explanation of how the extra money will be used in order to award more than the 2018 rate. Shaun/Duane moved and seconded to recommend extending the two VIC contracts for 2019 for a total of$110,700;$70,000 to Shelton Mason County Chamber and$40,700 to North Mason Chamber based on their 2018 presentations Motion carried. Cmmr. Drexler stated the Chambers could present a request for additional funding and ask for a contract amendment at the January LTAC meeting. Other Business Cmmr. Drexler stated the non-committed budget line in the Lodging Tax fund is now at $213,107 and recommended LTAC consider how to spend that funding at the next meeting. Nathan stated he has funding for his hotel expansion in Allyn and hopes to break ground in spring 2019. The expansion is for 40 rooms. Cmmr. Drexler stated the County will be surplussing property at Highway 101/102 and subdivide the property into six parcels and EDC will do a market study for hoteliers. Cmmr. Drexler then stated the Hospitality Association will sponsor a legislative bill that requires reservation services to collect lodging tax for vacation rentals and encouraged the LTAC members to support the bill. Cmmr. Drexler stated she helps manage the RV's at Oysterfest and they collect user information. She will ask if she can push this information out to the hoteliers. This is Cmmr. Drexler's last LTAC meeting and she thanked the members for all their work. Public Comment— None Calendar— next meeting will be scheduled in January 2019 for 4th quarter reports; ideas for the uncommitted budget line; VIC request for additional 2019 funding; RFP's for 2020 services. The meeting adjourned at 11:30 a.m. LODGING TAX ADVISORY COMMITTEE MASON COUNTY, WASHINGTON ATTEST: LTAC Clerk Cmmr. Terri Drexler, Chair LTAC Page 13