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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Committees - Lodging Tax Advisory Committee - 09/20/2012 Lodging Tax Advisory Committee September 20, 2012 Start Time 4:00 pm Centennial North & South Conference Rooms Committee Members Present: Beth Sylves, Barbara Smith, Andrew Hutchinson, David Kwok, John Casey Others present: Jamie Perry, Julie Pulliam, Andrea Keikkala, Bob Nachlinger, and Katherine Kertzman Chair Perry called the meeting to order at 4 pm. Chair called for the motion to approve minutes of September 7, 2012. John Casey moved, Barbara Smith seconded, motion passed. Reports KDP Skate America Ask Barbara Smith noted the kick off was held on Friday tied into the 1st Ave block party she showed some of promotional materials that have and will be handed out around town as well as the Skate America schedule. The city has gotten up all the banners. There are no brackets on Gowe to hang banners. Still looking for a few more places Katherine Kertzman said she will look at hanging one at Sea Tac by the airport and possibly also South Center. There are also life size window graphics and pole banners at ShoWare. Beth Sylves stated Ashley Wagner is the current US champion, on Tuesday she did KING 5 morning news, was a guest on New Day Northwest, KOMO radio and KOMO TV. Beth said Seattle Magazine has a very nice Skate America ad in the September issue about page 4; it's a great ad and looks wonderful. The hotels are pretty much full. The Best Western by the Green is not full yet but expects to be full. KDP will be having a City Clean-Up day on October 13th meet at the corner of 2nd and Gowe, everyone welcome. Service clubs and youth groups will be helping and all are invited to help. The city will also be helping with the clean-up pick-up. Chamber Andrea reported Chamber is seeing an uptick in phone calls for Skate America and it is on the front page of their website so they can help book people into hotels near ShoWare. Chamber staff is working with the restaurants to help welcome Skate America. Business showcase has a Skate America theme this year and so far they have sold 82 booths and sell out is 90; anticipate it will be sold out. Expanded the Taste of Kent to 13 restaurants instead of 10 focused on Commercial to showcase Kent and ShoWare Center, we are on the Food Network and decided to focus all are efforts there to hit our target audience. Last year we had 2000 this year we are hoping to get 3000 in attendance. Sport Commission is still in the planning still working to get it up and running. Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Minutes of May 23, 2012 Page: 2 2012 business directories have been printed this is one of the big things in our contract with Lodging Tax. Distribution will be in December. Another thing Chamber is trying to bring to Kent is the State Attorney Generals race we will have TV coverage on it so it will be great for Kent exposure. More to come on that later. Seattle Southside Seattle Southside just launched the fall featured deals, shopping package at Kent station and Westfield, football fanatic's hotel package and skate America. Seattle Southside will be spending about $58,000 to promote these package opportunities. Prepping has begun for a show in October in Mass for military reunion planners as well as Go West and NTA in Jan of 2013 to target tour operators The visitor center is up about 20 percent since we recently install new signage showing way to Seattle Southside Visitor Center from the rental car center at Sea Tac airport. SPR report shows occupancy is up 08 percent year to day, total revenue should be up 5.8 as of August. Seattle Southside will be budgeting a 5 percent increase for each of their cities. (notes attached) Chair Perry asked where is the planning for the TPA hoteliers meeting? David Kwok replied he is working on it having some trouble getting some of the hoteliers to return his calls. Will be working on it by 27t". Perry stated Lodging Tax needs to know what the vote is to be able to reflect that decision in our 2013-2014 budgets. Cutoff date is mid October. ShoWare Beth Sylves reported that hockey is starting Saturday the 22 of September. Lynyrd Skynyrd 1500 tickets have been sold. KZOK will have interviews with the band. Sept 30the Vision Day for a regional church service will be held at ShoWare and we should have a lot of foot traffic in Kent. Oct is Taste of Kent. A concert event in October Disney on Ice goes on sale publicly Sept 24, but the preferred sales are 40 percent already. There will be 9 shows Beth anticipated all to sell out. Announcing Pandora Love on Ice is returning in January it will be a Friday date this year. Barry Manilow will be the guest entertainment. 1 Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Minutes of May 23, 2012 Page: 3 The circus did pretty good we were down a little bit for this year. Budget April numbers has a $15,000 auto recovery out of it. The state has done an audit so lodging tax will be less with the state taking back $15,000 and returning it to the hoteliers. It was a 3 year time frame that was audited by the State. Bob Nachlinger presented the budget year today so far in lodging tax is $100,930. (budget attached) Chair Perry will be working with Bob to do a budget proposal coming in November to this committee. If you have feedback please let her know ahead of time. The Chair will be emailing a draft of the budget prior to the November meeting. Chair Perry stated we are out of budget for asks so we will not be doing anymore asks this year. Good of the order Jamie will be sending to the Hoteliers a draft copy of a revised application for the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee Asks, Logo, and Brochure and a copy of the draft budget. David Kwok asked if we can have our name on any of their printed materials. We will look at a logo or brand for Lodging Tax. Katherine will send us the funding request form that Sea Tac uses as a reference. Assignments for next meeting David Kwok will give a report from the hoteliers on the TPA Lodging Tax Funding Ask form Budget for 2013-2014 Next Meeting Date — Was set for November 15, 2012 (Committee will meet every other month on the 3rd Thursday of the month 4 pm.) Adjournment - The meeting was adjourned by Chair Perry at 4:40 p.m. Julie Pulliam, Lodging Tax Secretary