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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Committees - Lodging Tax Advisory Committee - 01/22/2015 Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Meeting January 22, 2015 Start Time 4:00 pm Centennial North & South Conference Rooms Committee Members Present: Chair Bill Boyce, John Casey, Tim Higgins, Josh Bang Others present: Ben Wolters, Julie Pulliam, Ryan Hart, Michelle Wilmot, Aaron BeMiller, Bill Ellis Chair Boyce called the meeting to order at 4:06 pm, Introductions were done. Chair asked for any additions to the agenda, addition of request from Josh Bang to be voted on as a Lodging Tax Advisory Member replacing a vacant spot left by Blane Webber. Approval of Minutes Motion to approve the November 20, 2014 minutes was made by John Casey and 2 d by Tim Higgins, no discussion, motion passes. Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Member Reauest A request and bio from Josh Bang to fill the vacant position left by Blane Webber was presented to the Committee. Josh is a member of the Kent Community and is raising his family in Kent. He is currently filling the General Manager position at the TownPlace Marriott Hotel and wishes to be part of the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee. Motion: Accept Josh Bang as a Committee Member to the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee and to move forward to the City Council for final approval. Tim Higgins moved, John Casey seconded, all approved, motion passes. Budget Report — None Aaron BeMiller presented the Lodging Tax Operating Fund, December 31, 2014. All the 2014 numbers are not all in yet so the totals may move slightly, major deviations should not be expected from what you see here. Started 2014 with a fund balance of $193,000 we have done really well this year collecting Lodging Tax revenue, collecting about $25,000 more than in 2013. In 2013 just under $218,000 was collected and in 2014 the estimation is $242,000 a $25,000 increase. In 2014 the spending was low at just over $71,000 in 2013 it was $123,000 so in 2014 is was significantly less with adding the reduction of expenditures and the increase of revenue the revenues increase was over expenditures by about $171,000 bringing the fund balance at the end of 2014 to an estimated $364,000. Lodging Tax Committee may consider what it will be used for. The 2015 & 2016 adopted budgets have been included. In 2013 $218,000 in revenues, 2014 $242,000, $208,000 was budget for 2015. That amount may need to be looked at as we move forward into the next biennial budget. $60,000 which was previously in the Seattle Southside account has been move to unallocated. With the revenue budget of $208,000 we budgeted to spend $177,000 again that is about $20,000 revenues over expenditures which will increase the fund balance to $384,000 by the end of the biennial budget and is estimated to be $405,000 but as numbers continue to go up the revenues will shift. Chair Boyce had a question, with $208,145 for the adopted for 2015, so did you just look at where we are in 2013 and 2014 and add a percentage increase? BeMiller replied, yes. One thing we will look at now is the actual Lodging tax collections going forward for the next biennial and maybe even 2016 we may pump up the revenue figure when we do the mid-year adjustment. It does look low to BeMiller. Chair Boyce asked for questions. Ben Wolters wanted to reconfirm on Tourism Unallocated within the budging rules those funds are available to this group to make decision on and pass through here whereas the year end fund balance which would need to go to City Council for approval that would be an adjustment to the City's overall budget. BeMiller responded "that is correct." BeMiller explained the budget expenditures for $188,000 can be spent if the Committee would need to go above that number that would need Council approval. Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Minutes of January 22, 2015 Page: 2 John Casey had one question about the $10,000 service charge based on Ben Wolters and Julie Pulliam's time toward Lodging Tax? It is a charge from the City to the fund. How will that be tracked? BeMiller stated the best way is for Ben and Julie when they are working on Lodging Tax to be tracking the time they spend then the program will be charged appropriately what is not in here is the rest of the services the City is providing so it is directly related to the services provided by ECD. This is not tracking BeMiller or Michelle Wilmot's time it is just an estimate. The maximum is $10,000. Chair Boyce asked is it an adjustment for Ben and Julie's service, it is not going to be equitable to the amount of hours they work it is just the $10,000. Wolters stated this is something that BeMiller brought to the attention of this Committee and the City Council. Lodging Tax Advisory Committees elsewhere in the state does this as a standard practice, years ago with the City of Kent had this as a policy to provide additional support to the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee with Staff without cost at this time the City is no longer in the place to do that. While this is a nominal it speaks to an overall policy the City is trying to implement going forward. Tourism Website updates - Ben Wolters Wolters asked if everyone has gone to VisitKent.com yet, and if you haven't please do so. The new website for marketing Kent is up and going, developed by Genesis Marketing and was an outgrowth and next step to the overall Branding/Marketing campaign we are still developing. Everyone agreed we needed a platform out there on the web that went beyond what we had currently marketing Kent. Wolters is pleased with the results and want to thank Michelle Wilmot the City's Public Affairs Manager for all her work on this with Genesis to make this happen as well as Ryan Hart of ShoWare Center who put in a lot of hours helping to provide guidance and adviceas well as testing to give feedback to Genesis on what was working and not working. Michelle Wilmot stated this has been a long process to get to the point of where we could put our ideas into action on this website. There were a lot of wishes and hope for it and there are still a lot of things we can do, but for now and just out of the gate it is a really a great site and showcases Kent in a way people might not currently think about Kent. A long with the website there is some social media that go along with it, Facebook and Twitter pages will fill those places. We are continuing feeding information to post on our behalf. You will be seeing the new Logo "Bringing the World Home" on all this is not being affiliated with the government website. What still needs to be done Wilmot continued is a border communication about this site being in existence. The ECD Conference was very much a soft launch and there is still additional exposure we want to do and this will be an ongoing process. Now that the website is live it is a great time for the Lodging Tax Committee to have a look at it and give us your feedback. Wilmot stated that Wolters will be asking for additional support for how the website can be kept current, fresh, and updated as we move forward. There are a lot of things in the community that change restaurants and business come and go, events are always changing and new, and we want to keep the site fresh and up to date to make it really useful. Washington First Robotic Conference is being held at ShoWare Center, the Executive Director for the conference has taken the link to our new site and is putting it on all of their promotional materials. Hopefully directing all of the people coming to Kent for that weekend to stay at the Kent local hotels as well as visit other places here in the city. Chair Boyce asked if the hits to the website will be tracked. Wilmot stated yes they are and plan too; this is something that needs to be done to make sure the website is getting promoted properly. Boyce asked as time goes on if the number of hits to the site could be presented to the committee. Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Minutes of January 22, 2015 Page: 3 Boyce asked Wolters a question on the Genesis proposals for further service for cost per month it comes up for around $3,500 about $40,000 a year where would that be on the budget? Wolters stated it would come out of the tourism unallocated and potential out of branding activities. Boyce asked for a line item associated with just branding be put in the Lodging Tax budget. Wolters said yes and it will be better for tracking. Wolters stated that would be a line that would be associated with maintenance and marketing of the website. Wolters wanted to clarify the handouts from Genesis marketing summary to provide ongoing support and marketing for the website. Wolters intent in putting this in the agenda is not to have a vote on it at this point, but to get it in front of the committee to have a discussion and maybe make some decisions at the next meeting, in terms of a bigger and border strategy. Mary Kae from Genesis would like to come and present in more detail what is behind these requests. Wolters suggested there are some basic elements here for maintenance the committee may want to proceed with right away. One would be the website maintenance proposal. Wolters wants to check on costs related to this proposal. This is Genesis's opening bid. Wolters sense these are all listed at a monthly cost and Wolters feels some are not needed monthly. The basic ones would be keeping the material fresh for the description of different experiences you can have in Kent. These are something that needs to be changed to create interest; Wolters is not sure this needs to be done on a monthly basis but for sure quarterly would be good. Wolters would recommend this as something we do. The maintenance one Wolters feels he needs to understand more, but it is something we will need to do, some sort of maintenance contract going forward depending on if it needs to be the entire $500 amount or something less than that, that will be a conversation Wolters will have with Mary Kae of Genesis. Photography, Wolters also feels this would not need to be on a monthly basis but maybe bi- annual or possibility of every 6-month. There are some photo stocks available we can provide to use. Wolters had a further conversation with Mary Kae about Ross's photos. There is some concern about the quality. He did bring us needed and useful content. Genesis does have other photographers available to consider. We don't need to make any decision on photography at this point. On-Line Marketing proposal is the more expensive one. Wolters feels we needs to really focus in on what and how we want to proceed with. This proposal will be one Mary Kae will want to talk to the Committee about in depth. Wolters stated this will be one of the key components that will measure the hits to the website and ways to drive traffic to the site. We will talk more about this and other opportunities and events we will want to go forward with including the continued "Branding" roll out in which VisitKent.com has been a part of. Wolters stated this is a critical way of connecting with business and visitors and investors to Kent. We have tourism present on the website but it also has a visibility for residents of Kent to explore Kent. There is also an innovation page; this is where we speak to the business and investment opportunities in Kent. This all goes back to the committee's direction that we really look at way to not just focus on the tourist but also promote business in Kent more broadly because the hotels in Kent derive a lot of business from business travel. Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Minutes of January 22, 2015 Page: 4 Wolters would like some direction and approval with moving ahead now with negotiation, some sort of maintenance proposal with Genesis going forward. As well as the Social Media Management piece. There is some time to hold off of the written context and the photography piece. The online marketing piece Wolters doesn't want to much time to pass, so there may be some items Genesis can do, some basic tasks, but the broader budget and marketing proposal Wolters would like to defer till further information is gathered and the Committee can meet in February to have Genesis Marketing come in and explain more. In the meantime Wolters would like to get the Committees feedback on these materials on what are the questions that we need to ask Genesis to start generating information prior to making a decision. This is a focus largely on the website and the ways of pushing it and marketing our community and hotels. There has been questions on how do we market Kent as part of our Branding activities, Wolters feels that is a bigger conversation. Last year was all about getting the basics in place and we have done that. Chair Boyce questioned we don't have a contract in place for the new work being asked for. Wolters replied the work they have done to date is under the existing contract to build our site. We are at a point there may be some invoices for maintenance to keep the website going. For the larger elements a contract for the balance of the year, that is what we would like to focus on at the next meeting. Chair Boyce clarified the proposals are not detailed, will Genesis be coming and providing a matrix or measurement in place to assure we are moving forward? Can Genesis come and talk to us on some of the items to make sure we are all on the same page? Wolters said we can meet in February or sooner if the committee is available. Wolters would like to see what the matrix is that will guide the process and what would that look like. I can get that back to the Committee via email. These will be questions or elements Mary Kae can address more directly when she presents to the committee. Chair Boyce asked Ryan Hart what his initial thoughts are, Hart said he felt this is a pretty solid proposal, some of the items may be a little inflated. The maintenance area may have some room in it, there might be some economy of scale. If we were to sign a year contract at $500 a month at month 10 would they be doing as much maintenance as in month 2, so would we still need to pay $500 a month in month 10? Those are some of the things we can look at. The budget for the online marketing 1st stage is pretty solid, that is where we will see the return on investment, we want to see people coming to the sight, clicking on hotel sights, etc. The photographic could be bi-annually, that would be fine and the writer being quarterly would make perfect sense. That would bring down the cost some. Hart's only points would be the social media management and the website maintenance getting a better idea of what that is and how many hours are really being put in as well as what does that entail. Chair Boyce asked John Casey if he had any further questions, John replied they have been answered by the comments here. He received clarify that on-line marketing is a separate line l item from the website. Also he did not feel $300 a month is a lot for photography. Wolters said he felt it was a reasonable rate, but it is more how frequently we need to have it done. Wolters agrees the images need to be refreshed to maintain visual interest. Wolters would like to see better shots of ShoWare and T-Birds. Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Minutes of January 22, 2015 Page: 5 Wilmot would like to see a photographer we used earlier to be brought back and maybe all of the departments who use these photos, maybe each department can put up some monies to hire the professional photographer. It was noted that we would like to have a higher quality photographer and good imagery on the website. Wilmot would like to look at other options for a higher caliber photographer. Wolters said the photographer we had at the time was the right decision, but we are now at a point to move forward. Boyce said we are spending a lot of money and we want to make sure we have a nice presentation and project. Hart stated if the photography is a high caliber the shelf life of the images would last longer also. Boyce asked what if Genesis goes out of business, what do we own. Wolters replied we own the site and the images. We can host it anywhere that would be our decision. Genesis is running it for us at this point but it could be shifted. We also own the domain name. Boyce just want to make sure we get the biggest bang for our buck and it is just about accountability. Wolters asked when would the Committee like to meet in February? Boyce asked about the schedule of our meetings and be consistent on when we meet. Boyce would also like to have the agenda and minutes in a timely manner. The committee schedule is the third Thursday at 4 pm every other month. February needs to have a meeting to go over the upcoming website contract and agreement, going forward every other month should be fine. Chair Boyce would like to have a schedule sent out also. Wolters wanted to let everyone know Andrea Keikkala director of the Kent Chamber has a conflict with every third Thursday with the Chambers Business After hours event this will not let her participate in the meetings. Wolters stated in the past it has been helpful to have the Chamber at the meetings and they do receive funds to support their tourism work. Boyce felt it was important to have the Chamber be at the table also. Wolters asked for Committee check calendars and get back with what will work for everyone. April meeting will be the 4th Thursday to see if that will work for the other committee members. Check with Andrea and Barb. Julie will follow through with checking calendars. Special meeting date for February to check would be February 19, not a good, February 12, or February 26th as a possibility. Economic Development Conference — Ben Wolters & Michelle Wilmot Wolters gave an update on the Economic Forum Conference "Brining the World Home" We highlighted different cuisines, foods, candies from varieties of ethnic communities that are in Kent. People were coming to the table it really stood out. There were over 800 people at the conference. Wilmot showed all the promotional materials that were presented at the ECD Conference. Puget Sound Business Journal inserts. The new Kent Logo was printed on all the promotional items. Bill Ellis and Michelle Wilmot were interviewed by a reporter from the Business Journal, Cynthia Flash. People were really surprised with some of the facts about Kent. Wilmot brought a copy of Mayor Cooke's opening remarks to the Conference. Some of the things Mayor Cooke talked about was the effect Kent has on the national economy and Kent's economy also. With the business activity it is $49 Billion dollars annually which is Kent share of the state's gross domestic product; this is through the Kent Valley not just the city of Kent. Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Minutes of January 22, 2015 Page: 6 Mayor Cooke also talked about the history of innovation in Kent from Boeings development of the lunar rover, Blue Origin developing commercial space flight, and what Amazon is doing with testing drone deliveries. So many people came and said they had no idea these things are happening in Kent. There were things being given away, so Kent did note pads that had a fact of Kent on every page and were placed at every place which sat about 800 people. Kent needs to use these facts in more of its messaging out. The Stranger newspaper out of Seattle ran a story about Kent of all the good things to eat here. At lunch Kent put out coaster from Airways Brewery to every place setting. Chair Boyce asked if it was worth the $15,000 sponsorship. Wolters replied yes this was very well broadcasted and the visibility was a very good return on investment, and created a lot of buzz. Wolters stated when he first got here the Kent community really didn't want to talk about itself, as Kent has gone forward and created new things happening in Kent it has becoming clear Kent needs to talk about itself more to create a more positive image in the Region and beyond. We will keep moving forward. Drone Proiect - Bill Ellis Bill Ellis updated the committee on the new and upcoming drone project and a good chance of Kent being at the leading edge of this new industry. Kent is at the center of the aerospace industry. If a lot of these companies want to grow they will need to look at the Seattle area, this is where the talent is. Green River Community College is going to have the first UAV program in the state for training and operations. Looking at Amazon taking this new technology and putting it to use on delivering packages, it made a lot of sense for me to call the UAV Cascade chapter to ask what is going on. It was good timing because they were just planning their conference in the Seattle area in the spring. They have decided to have the event this spring here in Kent, bringing about 150 - 250 membership to Kent and taking approximately 100 beds in our hotels at the event schedule April 16-171". They will have an opportunity to meet different companies in Kent. Between the discussion with Green River Community College around their UAV program, exposer to the aerospace sector, and some of the facilities we have, this hopefully becomes a repeating event. There is an opportunity with Green River to open up access to their equipment, reduce areas of entry for new business who want to test UAV's but also for existing companies. Hopefully they will look at the Seattle area and say aerospace talent is here, engineering talent is here, Kent valley is the center of all of that. Perhaps Kent can be first in line of an emerging technology. We should be in the mix for a National conference here in Kent in the future. Wolters said that is how Economic Development works with heads in beds. We will let you know more about the events to come and we will continue to promoting hotels. Good of the order - Nothing Assignment for the Next Meeting - Agenda and Minutes out a week ahead and next two meeting dates scheduled. Next Regular Meeting Date - April 27, 2015 at 4 pm (Committee will meet every other month on the 4t" Monday of the month 4 pm., Centennial North & South Conference Rooms.) Adiournment - The meeting was adjourned by Chair Bill Boyce, at 5:20 pm. Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Minutes of January 22, 2015 Page: 7 Submitted by Julie Pulliam, Lodging Tax Secretary