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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Committees - Lodging Tax Advisory Committee - 01/14/2016 (2) Special Meeting Lodging Tax Advisory Committee January 14, 2016 Start Time 4:00 pm Centennial Center Conference Room South Committee Members Present: Josh Bang, Andrew Hutchison, Tim Higgins, Bill Boyce, John Casey, Others Present: Ryan Hart Mary Kae Repp, Erin McCall, Colin Campbell, Jason Thompson, Ben Wolters, Julie Pulliam Chair Boyce called the meeting to order at 4:00 pm. Introductions were made. Chair Boyce asked for any additions to the agenda. Seeing none, he called for approval of the Minutes. 1. Minutes to the January 14, 2016 meeting were moved to approve by John Casey and Tim Higgins seconded, and motion passes. 2. Budget Update — Ben Wolters Ben Wolters gave a state of the lodging tax budget report. This budget was adopted by the City Council in December as the 2016 Lodging Tax Advisory Committee budget. Wolters stated this is a very conservative budget. Wolters wanted it noted that 2015 year to date lodging tax revenue is larger than what was budgeted for. We adopted a conservative amount of $210,000 and Wolters is certain it will be considerable larger than the estimate. Ending fund balance for 2015 was budgeted for $241,448 with actuals of $391,775. In expenditures we did not spend the budgeted amount of $338,500 actuals spent was $257,970. Which means in 2016 the actual amount of unspent lodging tax dollars is increasing. This means in 2016 the committee will have more money to work with. Which will give the committee room to work with, as you see some of the marketing ideas Wolters asked the committee to look for other opportunities to move forward with ways to continue the Marketing of Kent. Staffs perspective is to look at Genesis proposal and the new ideas being brought up. Wolters asked the committee to decide on how to proceed in 2016 and if it can be decided earlier in the year. Chair Boyce stated Wolters is spot on and understands the healthy balance of lodging tax. This gives the committee an opportunity to do things but still spend wisely. 3. Expansion of Committee Membership Ben Wolters expressed the need to expand the committee's number of members. With the city growing and expanding adding 2 more members would broaden the number of voices on the committee. The requirements come from the State law saying it needs to be a balance between Hoteliers and Community representatives which benefit from lodging tax. Wolters presented the name of Andrea Keikkala, Kent Chamber of Commerce Director to fill the Community representative position. Wolters also extended to the current hoteliers on the committee the question of who would be a good addition for the vacant hotel position which is vacant. Hutchison said he did a recruitment visit to Daniel from the Comfort Inn. Daniel has already had experience on committees such as this before. Chair Boyce asked the committee to bring back some names to the next meeting. The ordinance expanding the lodging tax member expansion will need to be reviewed for clarification of the language. So it is being presented to the committee for approval then returned to Council for final approval. 4. Committee Reappointments Ben Wolters announced the agreement of Barbara Smith and Andrew Hutchison to a 4 more year appointment on lodging tax committee. Committee voted on the recommendation. Josh Bang moved to approve the recommendation of the reappointments of Andrew Hutchison and Barbara Smith to the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee, John Casey seconded, motion passes Ben Wolters thanked Andrew Hutchison for all his support to the committee. Smith was not in attendance. S. Appointment of New Lodging Tax Member Wolters point of clarification the ordinance created the two new positions. The terms limits were not clearly defined. The law department will be putting together a clarifying ordinance. Andrew Hutchison moved to approve the recommendation of Andrea Keikkala as the newly appointed member on the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee, John Casey seconded, motion passes. Wolters point of clarification the ordinance created the two new positions. The terms limits were not clearly defined. The law department will be putting together a clarifying ordinance. 6. Washington State Robotics Request Erin McCallum presented a request for $5,000 to the lodging tax committee for support of the 2016 First Lego completion. Last year's competition was held at ShoWare Center. Championships will be held at ShoWare again on January 30, 2016. This event is all day with about 4000 people attending from 7:30 am - 6 pm. Mayor Cooke will be presenting opening remarks. Colin Campbell will talk to Erin off line on possible promoting ideas. An announcement of hotels at the 1st meeting that announces the teams who make the championship, also an email goes out with the hotel information providing a link on their webpage to the Kent hotel page for competitors to book rooms in Kent. Genesis offered to make an icon for the Kent Website and do something fun with the Kent actors, eye catching to link the two websites together. Ms. McCallum stated last year Kent hotels were emphasized as the preferred hotels to stay at most teams stay over on Friday night. Andrew Hutchison stated he agrees with approving this ask it puts heads in beds in January which is normally a slow time for hotels. Chair Boyce asked for the hotel list could get put up as early as possible. Colin Campbell said maybe the T-birds can do something fun and offered to put up the winners names at the next night's game. Mary Kae stated maybe there is contest #Lego in Kent that can be done offering overnight stay and VIP seats to the game. Lego is only one of the program; it is actually "First in Kent". Genesis and T-Birds will get together with McCallum to see what they can put together. Chair Boyce asked to have Ms. McCullum came back and give an update of the event. Julie will send out an invitation to a later meeting. Tim Higgins moved to approve for Washington First Robotic in the amount of $5,000 to under write the First Lego league and first Tech Challenge held at ShoWare Center January 30,, 2016, Andrew Hutchison seconded, and motion passes. 7. Genesis Marketing Campaign S. 2016 Marketing Strategies Next Steps Mary Kae of Genesis Marketing stated the current campaign is doing really well and it ran right up to the Super Bowl, the campaign is over as of Feb 7th At the last meeting David Kwok mentioned he would like to see a campaign that was 13 months so in October we could revisit it to see if it is still good to stay with Genesis, and also is it good to stay with this campaign into 2017 at that time we would be looking at April instead of rolling into 2017 and trying to figure out the campaign. With that recommendation some ideas have been put together. It feels like staying with the sports theme is what the Committee would like to continue with. Staying with the Sports theme, the commercial would have Mariners, Sounders, Mist, garb and we already have the Thunderbirds and the Seahawks. Everything would be focused on out of town Seattle Fans staying in Kent for the games. Also to promote ShoWare events all year long. As well as promoting staying in Kent all year long for biking and running in Kent; shopping and dining in Kent. Those would be the streamline things we would be do all the time but putting a little more emphasis in the sports fan during the different times of year and seasons. Wolters suggested we target the Cities which their teams play our team and running commercials at those targeted times. The target audience is men, women, 25-54 and families, sports fans anyone who will be traveling to Seattle so we can convince them to stop and stay in Kent focusing on the Outdoor Enthusiastic and the Foodie. Proposing to bring back the same two actors and put them in the Mariners, Sounders, and Mist outfits and go out and do more local business shots. The actors are super interested in doing this again. Mary Kae asked if the Committee is still thinking of this concept as something you would like to continue with. Chair Boyce stated he feels the continuity is important right now and we should continue with this. Hutchinson said he would like to see the Tacoma Stars included because they play in December - February they almost always play on Friday nights which is good for US. Mary Kae stated they would like to put the Booking.com on the website. The international pages are up and running but Genesis would like to expand it and take it to a further level. The innovation pages are also up and running. If this is approved to do, the 2 or 3 different ads we will do the same kind of strategy; picking another 5 or 6 business to go to during the day and take videos of them and tape the actors going in and out of the places so we could eventually work the way around Kent. For the organic social media plan that is basically what is being done now. Genesis Proposes to keep doing the same thing. Also proposing to keep Dana on the Blogs. We have all the text we need. So we can now just have her do 8 blogs a month. On line marketing campaign, there are 3 different areas. In March and April there is a lesser demand on room stay so there would be a little more money to spend and the suggestion is to put more money in social media at those times. May - August suggestion would be to stay with online marketing so the contest could be done and not do Pandora or TV in the summer and look at doing TV in March - April and then coming back in September - March and doing TV. At the end, the suggestion is to stick with Pandora; it is touching all of the areas affordability. The Reality base networks are becoming a huge thing. $470, 470 would be what it would cost for doing everything in the proposal Genesis is not suggesting this is the cost of the next contract, they just have put everything there to be transparent. Mary Kae wanted to know today a) Decide if the Committee wants to stay with the Sports Fan theme? b) What is a comfortable budget we can allocate for the year so we don't have to keep coming back and asking additional funds? None of the monies can be spent without the Committee's approval or guidance. Discussion Wolters stated we have gotten the monthly reports and we have seemed to have seen a direct link in terms of the TV campaign and the website traffic. That is good news to hear the repeat traffic is happening. Wolters asked, what is Mary Kae's assessment for the bang for the buck of the Portland campaign, at least one of the set of metrics is; trying to drive traffic to our website VisitKent.com. We still have the open question of; tracking the hotel stays directly back to the campaign. There is more work with need to do with the hoteliers. Mary Kae said what will help is Booking.com because it will track all the way through and will be able to confirm the booking. Chair Boyce asked if the Committee approves the actors: Committee response - yes. Also is the committee ok with staying with the sports theme- yes. Wolters stated in relationship to the budget at a minimum we have to keep the website going and refreshed. This component is bed rock. Mary Kay said from March 1, 2016 - March 31, 2017 for a contract of $200,000 with the confines that all is prior approved by the Committee. That would give plenty of money to do the things we have talked about here. Hutchison said he appreciated the detail in the proposal. Wolters stated as staff we will go dark with our webpage so at a minimum he would requested to get approval from the Committee to begin work with Genesis on the contract related to the website and online with a suggested budget of somewhere in the order of $50,000 to keep things going over the next few months to keep things going with the social media and the website. Not to say it will be spent right away. Then the work with Genesis can be put together and brought back to the Committee. Mary Kae would also like to know the Committees thoughts of the $50,000 and putting in some of the money toward the contests. In the budget it is stated at $1,500 a month. Maybe $65,000 would be a better number to include keeping the website, social media and contests going. Chair Boyce stated he heard a number of approximately $70,000 to keep the program going. Chair also asked Mary Kae to bring back a proposals for the media campaign back to the next meeting. Mary Kae asked for guidance on what is going to be comfortable for the committee? Wolters stated he will be working with the Finance Department to update the budget report to get a better idea of the funds available for 2016. The $70,000 is acceptable to keep the social media and website going then Wolters will work with Mary Kae to look at different amounts between $100,000 and $200,000 related to the media buy and provide this in addition to the $70,000 to the Committee at the next meeting. This will show what will be available at the different level for the Committee to be able to approve. Mary Kae will also outline the $70,000 proposal as to what it will look like and bring back to the Committee in February. Complete presentation was presented and given to each Committee member. Josh Bang moved to approve authorization from the Committee to start work with Genesis for $70,000 to keep the social media and website going. John Casey seconded, motion passes. 9. Marketing Campaign Proposal from Seattle T-Birds Colin Campbell and Jason Thompson of the Seattle Thunderbirds presented a proposal of things the T-birds can do at games and other areas toward marketing VisitKent.com. "'T-birds do put heads in beds. When visiting teams are not here they are watching the games on TV". Getting people to Eat, Drink, Stay and play in Kent. 1. Raise awareness of VisitKent.com to people from around the region 2. Educate people about opportunities to eat, shop, stay and play in Kent 3. Put Heads in Beds. Number of room nights directly attributed to the Seattle Thunderbirds 1. Thunderbirds Training Camp 250+ room nights 2. Thunderbirds Parents Weekend 60-70 room nights 3. Visiting Team room nights (Thunderbird) 400+ room nights 4. Thunderbirds playoff games (17-20 room each night for 3-6 nights per round) 150-200 room nights 5. Over the course of the season the Thunderbirds generate nearly 1000 room nights and draw over 150,000 fans to spend money in the restaurants and shopping. In addition to Thunderbirds Hockey there are a wide range of events that have an impact on room nights in Kent 1. Cross Fit 2. International Roller Derby Championship 3. Disney on Ice 4. Disney Live 5. Ringling Brothers Circus 6. Graduations 7. Other Sporting Events, Concerts and Family show, by using VisitKent.com they would keep those dollars in Kent. Sources of advertising 1. Thunderbirds bus - which travels through Washington, Oregon and Western Canada and on the road with the Thunderbirds 2. Printing tickets - put your web address on the ticket puts it in their hands as they begin planning their trip to Kent. 3. Video Bug - T-Bird games are streamed from ShoWare Center creating a VisitKent.com bug that is placed on the streaming video that is watched from anywhere on the internet. 4. Hockey Signage - VisitKent.com will be right next to the action all seas long with 2 dasher board ads 5. Radio - 72 regular season t-bird games are broadcast live the option is to incorporated into the game the VisitKent.com message making it part of the broadcast. 1) 3-30 second commercials 2) 1 live 12- second read each game 3) Opening and closing billboards 6. Thunderbird website - a presence on the partner page of the Thunderbirds website. 7. Social Media - E-news over 25,000 fans, to receive 1 mention in the e-news at the beginning of the year. Twitter over 10,000 followers, to receive 3 tweets during the season 8. Digital Program - the program is available at noon on game day putting VisitKent.com information in their hands before the game. Plus a 1/2 page ad in the game night program. 9. Scoreboard - VisitKent.com would own a pair of signs on each side. Television commercial - VisitKent.com would have 1-30 second television spot that will run on the video board during one intermission of the game. 10.Concourse signs - these are back-lit signs and strategically placed VisitKent.com would receive 4 11.Arena Signage - Fixed signage at ShoWare Center VisitKent.com would receive 2 back-lit signs above the suites. Good of the order - Nothing Assignments for next meeting - Bring back Genesis Proposals for $70,000, $100,000 - $200,000 Next Regular Meeting Date - February 22, 2016 at 4 pm Centennial North & South (Committee will meet every other month on the 4tn Monday of the month at 4 pm. in Centennial North & South Conference Rooms) Adjournment - The e ting was adjourned by Chair Bill Boyce, at 5:45 pm. Submitted by ,Julie Pulliam LTAC Secretary