Hotel-Motel Tax Board Minutes 2019 January 25

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Hotel-Motel Tax Board Minutes 1/25/2019 Pg. 3 The Golden Roamer has been in hibernation since mid-October. The Roamer was at 65 total events in 2018 which is getting close to the goal of 100 events. In Q4 the Golden Roamer was at four events (Football Fridays and MXoN at Redbud.) The Golden Roamer will be rewrapped in 2019. Leisure marketing efforts included a two-page ad in the Notre Dame Men’s Basketball printed programs (10,000 copies.) VSBM also has an ad in the Notre Dame Football program (65,000 printed.) The digital efforts continue with partners Morris Inn, VenueND, SB Cubs and Four Winds Casino. Web sessions have increased 164% year over year. The Google Adwords $360,000 grant in 2017 continues with $10,000 per month managed by Pathfinders to buy key words. NHL Winter Classic banners were placed with a partnership with the NHL through the DTSB Banner program. VSBM is planning to expand the banners in 2019 and place on Angela Boulevard. There will be similar banners for the U.S. Senior Open. The VSBM website showed an 11.2% increase in visits in 2018. Top referral cities included South Bend, Chicago, Granger, Mishawaka and Indianapolis. Top Referral sites included Google, Facebook, Bing, Notre Dame Athletics and Yahoo. Top external links were DTSB Holidays, Morris PAC tickets, SB Civic Theatre, and Four Winds Casino at SB. The 2019 Visitors Guide (80,000 printed) was distributed to review. The cover is a photo of Notre Dame which is done every other year. DeCleene noted that Indy does not print a leisure marketing visitors’ guide and have gone totally digital with a Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter digital guides. VSBM continues to have a strong presence with leisure newsletters going to 21,838 recipients. The Industry Partners newsletter is sent to 588 newly cleaned up list of recipients. In 2018 Community Tourism Action Plans were completed with North Liberty and New Carlisle. VSBM is seeing increased interactions with town projects. In 2019 VSBM will embark on the same process with Lakeville and downtown Mishawaka working with the Mishawaka Business Association and the Indiana Main Streets Alliance. The Tourism Capital Development Fund in its second year had 11 applications for 2019. DeCleene, Kurth, McDonnell, and West scored the applications independently and met to review. There is usually $400,000; however, one project did not come to fruition and so this year there was $100,000 to encumber for a total of $500,000. Based on the individual scores and discussion, the recommended recipients of funding include: Ice Box - $71,500 to get Metronet out to that location for the upcoming first time USA Hockey event in April with 2,500 room nights; St. Joseph County Parks - $100,000 for a natural playscape at St. Patrick’s County Park; VPA Zipline - $100,000 for a zipline from Century Center to Seitz Park over the St. Joseph River; Potawatomi Zoo - $50,000 to assist with the new rhino exhibit; SB Airport - $139,500 to improve the terminal and concourse; Historic New Carlisle - $15,000 to move the museum to downtown New Carlisle; and The History Museum - $25,000 to move the Navarre Cabin from Leeper Park to the museum campus grounds. Some requests were fully-funded and some were partially funded. The $500,000 this year goes toward the total of $1.4 million investment made in the product in St. Joseph County. Anthony moved to accept the seven recommended recipients; seconded by Kurth; motion carried. The Tourism Market & Hosting Grant had a record 46 applications. The balance was increased to $125,000. Carmen Piasecki from this board is on the working committee which meets February 7.