Tourist Development Council Special - 11.12.26

Mayor Castor: present

mosquitoes because they are a threat to public health. There are many mosquito born illnesses that they can pass on to humans and other animals, therefore we want to mitigate their populations and we're only spraying whenever we have justification and that could come from our surveillance data or from our inspectors who go out and are looking at different larval production sites every single day. We don't have a spray schedule because everything we do is based on data that we collect. So it's based on the number of mosquitoes that we find in our traps every day. It's based on what the inspectors are finding out in the field. If they're finding a lot of breeding, they'll obviously treat then, but we don't have a set schedule because everything is based on data that we find. We don't do any individual spray requests. You can always submit a request for a spray, a request for a property inspection, or report any standing water that you have around your house and we'll come send out an inspector. They'll come look at that area, see if it's breeding, and then based on the data that they find, we'll see if that area is eligible for treatment, but we don't do treatment based on special events. We're spraying right at sunset because dawn and dusk are the most active times for mosquitoes. So in order for our treatments to be the most effective, we obviously want to treat when the mosquitoes are most active, and we're going to be able to mitigate the population best at those times.

Pre-mature on that. The Hillsborough County TDC meeting for November is now being called into order. Commissioner Ken Hagan is absent today, so I will be standing in. I hope everyone has had an opportunity to review last month's minutes. Thank you. Thank you. All right. All those in favor of moving? Thank you. Should we do the roll call? You guys are making this real easy. Should we do the roll call? Oh, roll call. I'm going to get fired before I even get started.

So Commissioner Hagan is out today. He had a conflict. Mayor Castor? Here. Mr. Antonuccio? Here. Collier? Here. Gonsmart-Williams? Here. Haney? Here. Mackinac. Mr. Manthe, I think, has a conflict. Mr. Morrison also has a conflict. And Mr. Placencia? Here. We have a quorum. Excellent. Thank you. Mayor Ross is also here. Oh, Mayor Ross. Sorry. I actually did check you off, but thank you. Is there any public comment? Seeing none. Oh, and just one more clarification. The last motion that was approved was for both minutes for August 18th and October 29th minutes. Excellent. For the Q3 and the special meeting on October 29th.

All right. All right. Administrative report? Okay.

So I'll have Brian flip the pages for me. But for the quarter three, I mean quarter four, third cent TDT operating statement that you should be seeing now, we obviously ended the year about $4 million under the projected budget in the collections. Some of that was offset because of lower spending, higher interest, and so on. So we actually ended the year with just $2.2 million under the expected net revenues. In the six cent TDT operating statement, it was kind of similar. We were about $1.3 million under projected collections, but higher interest and lower expenditures resulted in 2.9 million net revenue for the six cent. And in our three cent collection monthly trends, obviously first six months were below expectations. Last six months were positive compared to FY25 with August having very high returns of 6.25% and September at 1.8%. So we ended the year negative 5.7% on the three cent collections. So in the real terms, that essentially meant we had just over 2 million under FY25. And on the one through six collection, same percentages, 0.78% higher in July, 6.25% higher in August, 1.8% higher in September. And again, end of the year at negative 5.7%, making the year actuals 4.1 million under FY25. And the same pattern follows for the sixth cent where we were about $688,000 under collections. Obviously, same percentages also ended the year at negative 5.7%. And then that's our chart. You can see the bump for August on our line graph and kind of consistent with the rest of the years on the back end and underperforming the FY25, which was an outstanding year in the first six months. That is it if you would want to approve the financial report.

Does anybody have any questions, concerns? Go ahead.

Do we know, two questions related, do we know why our revenues might be down is the first question. And the second question is how do we compare with our peer groups? Are they also seeing similar declines or how do we compare?

I think Santiago might address some of these, but I think one of the things we've had in FY25, we've had much bigger collections unfortunately as a result of the hurricanes. We had more folks staying in the hotels and bringing hotel and tourism tax revenue. So it was a much higher year in 25. Had we had a normal year in 25, we'd pretty much be on track what we would have expected from 23 and 24 versus 25, which was kind of a bumper crop collection year, unfortunately partly because of hurricanes.

We also have a number of hotels that are going to be coming online as well. Yes. So that should bump up the numbers. All right. So move to, do we need approval of the financial report? Accepting the report.

All right. So moved.

All right. All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you. Thank you for the report. All right. Next, we're going to have Santiago Carada come up and give us the Visitors Convention Visitors Bureau report.

Good morning, everyone. Santiago Carada, President and CEO with Visit Tampa Bay. And let's just jump right into it. We've had a very, very strong quarter four. We have set a record in August, September. We will be setting a record for October. In fact, October revenues based on Smith travel research. And we've not seen that money yet. We have through the end of November to get it to the county. Then the county calls it November, but it's actually October collections. October collections, according to Smith travel research, are up 19.7% over last October. And the first week in November compared to last year's November is up 19%. And that's all due to hard work and all the pieces falling in place. These things don't happen by accident. I'm here to tell you, I've been doing this job now for 13 years and look at what moves the needle each and every day. And we have the data to back it. So again, very, very strong fourth quarter. Love the way the new fiscal year has opened up. If we're looking at calendar year from January through October, without October in the numbers, five out of nine months have set new benchmarks as far as revenue. That's up there with any other calendar year when you're talking about five out of nine months. And when we throw October in, it'll be six out of 10 months. We're looking good, but the holidays are always interesting. So again, looking very, very good. When you look at a year over year, we can get past the impact of the hurricanes end of fiscal year 24 beginning of fiscal year 25. Now we're more into apples and apples and oranges and oranges. You know, normally we can overcome one month or two months of anomaly, right? Think of a Super Bowl. Think of a college football national championship game. Let's not just stay with sports. Think of a big Shriners convention or a Taylor Swift. We can overcome those one offs. But when you're talking about six months that we had to overcome fiscal year 24 to 25, with six months of inflated occupancy and revenues due to weather impacts, it's a little hard. And I'm very proud that we came so very, very close to that number that was artificially inflated for six months. So when you look at quarter four versus prior quarter fours, we're going to probably stop showing you the two last fiscal years because we're moving beyond the hurricanes. But I wanted to show how competitive this last quarter has been. When you look at the revenue, this is Smith Travel Research. And remember, they're all a little bit different. Smith Travel Research does all revenue. When we report what the tax collector does and what we do here, that's only taxable revenue. So Smith Travel Research throws a lot of things in there. But Smith Travel Research doesn't throw in their Airbnb and VRBO. So we've got some factors that are not equal when you're talking about Smith Travel Research and what actually comes into the tax collector and then Hillsborough County. But again, very strong fourth quarter. And then what we do impacts every corner of our county. So we have the four sub markets as dictated by Smith Travel Research and you see that all four quarters had a very healthy quarter versus prior year. And there's a couple of mixed bags there, right? North Tampa up in occupancy, a little bit lower in revenue. You have East County jumping up both in occupancy and in revenue downtown, a little flat in occupancy, but up in revenue. So again, the picture for all sub markets for the quarter was was good. When you look at hotel taxable revenue, July through September, which is again, actual June through August, you see there the comparison for for that. And then again, you'll you'll start seeing this normalize that blue line that was way up there October through February ish was weather impacted. And then you see now that the yellow line is is normalized compared to the prior blue and black line. So this is for hotel taxable bed tax collections for the quarter. Again, very comparable. I know we we talk about product. Let me just say because Greg and I were having a sidebar here. I've been doing this for 13 years and over my 13 years, we've added 4100 hotel rooms to Hillsborough County 4100. It's not a lot. And when we talk about what the new product is, that's fantastic, but it has to be in place collecting money. So that's the bottom line. Yes, there's a pipeline. Yes, we're excited. But we need those those properties online if we want to keep growing this tax in this revenue. And of course, the mayor and I have had chats about the convention center expansion with hotel properties, which is needed. We've studied it back and forth upside down. The findings are still the same. We have the smallest convention center in our convention comp set today. And we are losing lots of business and lots of money. So again, we have an opportunity to speak with the city council next week with David Ingram at the convention center to speak about what is needed as far as the center's expansion and accompanying hotel rooms to put the people in because you just can't bring the people here and not have them stay anywhere. So they go hand in glove. We've had a ton of events fourth quarter. As many of you know, we're involved with leadership, community engagement and development, advocacy at all levels, not just local state, but also federal. We're very engaged in anything that impacts tourism at any level to our community partnership. Just amazing, amazing numbers. We're over 1,025 engaged partners. You see the kind of money that those donated in kinds bring, which is important to save those tourism tax dollars and put them to use. And then many of you know, I hope you do, that we've partnered with the school system in Hillsborough County. We started a tourism program at Hillsborough High a few years ago. We then moved to Sumner Gaither and now this year we opened a magnet program at Jefferson High School with the school system. And we're very, very proud of the pipeline we're helping to create for the fourth quarter. We booked $130 million or more of business for future years. And we actualized about $54 million of business with a number of events in the fourth quarter to round out the fourth quarter. So again, and you see there just the vastness, right? Department of Defense International Association of Affairs and Expositions working with our friends out at the fairgrounds, gastrointestinal and endoscopic surgeons, Shriners. So this is just highlights. And we just hosted a very successful connect marketplace where the eyes of the entire industry were upon us. The convention center and the city team knocked it out of the ballpark. They're still raving about it. Mayor knows every time we we host a National League of Cities or a U.S. Conference of Mayors or National Association of Counties or our industry events. People talk about it forever. And the pressure is on the next host to live up to the standards that we've set. This is a show of some of our campaigns. These are actual numbers that we have data to support. So conversion campaigns, 90 plus million dollars in campaign revenue over 396,000 room nights and an average daily rate of 229, which which isn't bad. And then some of our campaigns directly impact sub markets. So when you look at downtown East Tampa with and for the purposes of our new board member East Tampa means East County, not East Tampa in the city against. This is not Santiago travel research is a Smith travel research that decides how to break up the county. So East Tampa is actually East County and North Tampa is North Tampa Bush. They they group the conglomeration of hotels in the different sub markets of the county. And so when we are booking room nights into those specific sub markets, this is just Expedia as an example of how we touch a different sub market public relations. Wow, everybody wants to know about us and come and visit and write a story about us. So we're extremely extremely busy. In fact, 26 almost 27 million dollars of earned media. That's free media. That's not media we paid for, which is phenomenal because if you're not talking about Tampa, you're not getting the whole story. And whether you pay for it or not, people want the whole story and they want to include Tampa, Florida. And if you look out there every six hours, a new piece of coverage spotlights our destination. So again, we're very, very excited about that. I'm pretty short today. It's the beginning of a fiscal year. You're getting kind of a peek into what October and November will bring in future meetings. Again, October is done. It's in the books. The money's not been submitted yet. But when we look at November, again, the holidays, it's not that people don't travel to the destination is that people are coming and they're staying with family. So sometimes those numbers don't show up in our hotel occupancy numbers or in our revenue numbers. Because when you're traveling for Thanksgiving or Christmas or New Year's, you're most likely staying with family. Unless, you know, family dynamics are a little long. Who knows? Like I wouldn't be staying with family, but that's just me. Any questions, Madam Chair, Madam Mayor, for anyone?

I have, Diago.

Yes, sir.

Just let's have a bricks and mortar discussion for a second. What is the expectation timing wise on some of these bigger projects that we've been talking about? The sports plex, the baseball thing. I mean, some of the things that are being funded, et cetera. What's the universe of all that right now?

Joe, you know, it's hard to tell unless there's a shovel in the ground and there's vertical construction. There are financing dilemmas. There are projects that take longer. You know, we hear that there are a number of hotels for the Mosley property and that there are a number of hotels for the Rays property. And there are a number of properties possibly at USF and in Fletcher and Water Street and Gasworks. Shovels aren't in the ground, right? So when we're talking about this pipeline, 4,100 room nights in 13 years. So the pipeline always concerns me because people get excited about, well, we heard this hotel and we heard that hotel. You've got some amazing minds. Lou can answer the questions on how long these things take you as a developer can as well. So, you know, if we're talking about the Rays, we know the baseball stadium should be up and functioning in 29, but we don't know about the hotels there. And the same could be said about any of the other projects. So, you know, I'm a factual, practical guy. When I see a shovel in the ground and I see stakes and things coming out, I'm confident that we may have a property. But until then, you know, Lou does a great job of talking about tentatives and for-sures and things like that. So I listen to Lou when he talks about things for sure. Other people, I'm a little hesitant.

The baseball has to be open June of 29. Is that all right? Is that right?

That's a goal. I'm not the baseball expert, so I'll defer. Oh, you look like a good shortstop, maybe. I used to play second base. Well, you're good.

For the record, Greg Horwood, Deputy County Administrator. The Rays timeline, I emphasize this timeline was established by the Rays, is for them to open the ballpark in 29. That's contingent upon a number of factors. We still have some agreements that require both city and county approval. We're working through those as diligently as we can. Their development plan will take place over a number of years. You'll see some of the development that has been publicly discussed within the first five to seven years. But their ultimate long term build out is going to take longer than that. Whether that's closer to 15 years or 30 years really depends in some respect on market conditions and availability of capital. So I won't speak for the Rays, but I know they've been pretty aggressive in at least our conversations with us. I know the mayor can attest to that as well. We will, of course, continue to work as diligently as we can. Santiago's comment about the hotels were very well taken. I think you can always look at TDT dollars in a couple of different ways. One is for the DMOs visit Tampa Bay. They've been our partner for decades and have done an outstanding job. The other piece of that really is capital. So from our perspective at the county, we think that there are things that we need to invest in on a capital basis that actually provided an incentive for people to want to come here. We can always have the conversation about whether a field house, for example, which is going to actually you'll see that in December when we bring that to the board for the approval to move that forward. We do expect based upon the report that we had generated that will be a significant economic driver for the North Tampa area. We're just delighted to keep moving that forward. It's a great opportunity for us to showcase what we mean by investing in capital. You can argue that the Rays Stadium is another one. They are going to bring some visitors in. You know, I'm not going to comment on the economic impact report. People can read that and draw their own conclusions. I will say that that development surrounding the stadium is one of the key reasons why we believe that, especially now with Amendment 3 passing, it's an opportunity for the county and the city to perhaps replace some of the lost revenue that the voters decided they wanted to see distributed differently. So there there is a lot on the plate. I know we're very busy at the county. I'm sure the mayor could attest to that as well. But there are a lot of projects that are up in the air. Chief among them, as we were just talking earlier, is the convention center. We recognize that there needs to be an expansion. We know that we've got to go through the process of identifying when that might occur. What's the best location, how the deal structure looks, and then ultimately bring something to you all to discuss for a recommendation to our board. We're committed to do that. It's just going to take a little bit more time than between now and our next meeting. But we know that that's that's an issue.

Yeah, those are the I mean baseball, the indoor sports complex, the soccer complex that you've already done, the convention center. Those are the bricks and mortar I'm talking about. Those bring room nights, those bring fresh. I mean, the Pendry is going to open late 27. That's going to open. And you could argue, is that bringing more people to Tampa because the Pendry is open? Maybe, maybe, you know, but it's, you know, it's spreading the peanut butter across just more hotels that can, you know, the bricks and mortar projects like you're talking about. Those are those are real room night producers.

Yeah. New people, new blood. Those are the two aspects that we looked at. The DMO is incredibly important. Capital is also incredibly important. And, you know, the challenge for you all is what is the right percentage mix? So we go through that all the time. We have conversations with the DMO, have conversations with you all. It's one of the reasons why I like coming and talking to you all because you have the industry. You know exactly what's needed. And we want to tap into that knowledge and make sure that we structure the plan accordingly. So thank you for your time. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. And on a sobering note, and I've said this at a BOCC meeting, build it and they will come is Field of Dreams Hollywood movie. Build it and they come during the novelty portion of the new shiny toy happens. But there are there are studies upon studies about when that shine wears off what has to happen. And I always say build it and market it and they will come. Build it, sell it, market it, and they will come. And so Greg is absolutely right that we have to have the right mix because quite literally what's happened as of the last few months is that now about 60% of the tourism tax goes to sports or sports related activities. And does that always fill the funnel? And you all can answer that question yourselves. I know what fills the funnel. I see it every day. But you all may think what fills the funnel. I have the data sleep with it on what moves the needle every day and that tourism tax and the hotel taxable revenue. So again, we have to be very responsible. I think we're at I think we're at a juncture right now where we're going to have to be very, very clever. Mayor.

Go ahead. Just in response to Joe's question, in addition to the public projects that you mentioned, the ballpark and the Mosey site, there are a number of other projects being considered in Tampa right now starting on the west at West Shore Mall at that redevelopment. There will be quite a bit of lodging product there. Tampa International Airport is considering an expansion. There are at least two other hotels planned for West Shore. In downtown, without a doubt, there will be more hotel construction downtown, especially Convention Hotel, especially if you expand the Convention Center and come back to that. Gasworks in Ybor City and at least one if not two other projects beyond Gasworks. And then moving north towards USF. Moffitt is building a hotel on their McKinley campus. You'll have USF at the former Claw development. There's another project going up there. And then obviously at Mosey. Those are the ones that are most talked about. The Rays without a doubt will have at least one if not three hotels attached to their site. And those conversations are progressing very nicely with brands that are not here today. I'll also remind everyone that we don't have a Ritz-Carlton. We don't have a Four Seasons. We don't have a Waldorf. We don't have a lot of luxury brands that want to be in the Tampa market. And inevitably that's going to happen quickly. And it's typically a domino effect. As soon as you see one, the others will pop in very quickly. With regard to your comment about the Convention Center earlier, we're busting at the seams there. And expanding the Convention Center means not only additional TDT, tourist development tax, but it also means higher rated business. You'll be able to attract associations and corporations that are not able to come here today because we cannot accommodate them. So expanding that facility is, to me, it's absolutely critical. And again, there are studies upon studies upon studies that validate that. I would encourage the county. I would encourage the city to move as expeditiously as possible in developing that facility. I know we need to study it. I know it's responsible to do it, but don't tarry. Let's move it along as quickly as we can. My last question is to you. Talk about 2027. I think it's incumbent upon us to convey to our partners in the industry what is happening, particularly with group pace and what we can expect to see in the market. So if you wouldn't mind just spend a couple of minutes talking about what's happening there. Yeah.

You usually tell me to bring my magic eight ball and shake it around because there are certain things that we can control. And as you know, Tampa Hillsborough County usually bucks the trends. You know, when other people are having issues, we normally perform a little bit better. I think for group business, again, based on limitations, we've got a great year coming up. No year is exactly like the other. So it will be a strong year. There are so many other factors other than group business, I think. You know, when I joined the team 13 years ago, it was how do we layer other things on top of group business? Because in between conventions, what happens here? What rooms get full? And so when we talk about geopolitical issues, we were just recently with the entire American tourism industry in Europe. And there were certain representatives of countries that said, we're not coming to the US right now. We're just not coming. So when you talk about when we invest in direct flights to certain parts of the world and those parts of the world are not likely to travel to the US, there's a trickle effect. When you're talking about, again, limitations in space and how much we have to offer, we're having to book groups into 2035, 2038. And they're willing to wait, which I'm very surprised because there's just no availability. So group pace looks strong. It always does. We have a team led by Adam DiPiro that is very aggressive. They're usually given some daunting goals by the sales committee, half a million room nights, 600 room nights for future years. And they are always on point to get there. So Lou, you know, the group business again, and that's barring anything crazy happening. You know, there are things again that we don't COVID where, you know, we couldn't have group business and we had to fight through that. Florida was a little better off than other places. When you look at the economy. Right. I mean, there are so many variables that affect what we do. And unless you're doing it every day, you know, we were really worried about gas prices and the drive market for leisure travelers and transient visitors. We're worried about airlines with their fuel costs wars. I mean, there are so many things that really impact how delicate the tourism economy can be. It's resilient comes back. But when you're faced with those impacts, I mean, look what we've been talking about. Hurricane positive impacts to hotels and then us having a year where we're trying to play catch up. No one knew we were going to have two weather impacts that were going to blow occupancy and numbers out. And then the next year us looking like, well, what happened this year? No, we did really good this year. It's just that we were dealing with six months of, you know, fantasy. So Lou, I think we should be confident in group business for 27. And again, sometimes we have to have five or six groups to replace one big group. You know, you know that when we have a big Shriners and this year we had two Shriners back to back and a number of sororities and fraternities and big sporting events, big concerts. Then the next year you're looking at how you match that and how you supersede that. And sometimes it takes six groups to match one. And our team knows that because they're looking at that data each and every day. But as far as what we can control, yes, we're good. But the things we can control that could pop out of left field, got to use left field for the end zone. I don't know. It could be could be an issue. Thank you. Yep.

Thank you, Mayor. All right. I would just say just to add on here where the convention center is that we're very fortunate that we did have. We do have a number of hotels in the proximate area that have helped us tremendously with exhibit and meeting space. Correct. Otherwise we would have lost a lot of conventions that have started and stuck with us even though we haven't been able to expand. And we have we've got we've gone down the road of the convention center expansion. You know, as with most other issues, it's usually just finding the money for it. All right. Anybody have any questions, comments, any new business, old business you want to discuss? All right. I will just say that going out on a limb that the Shriners convention was probably more fun than the gastrointestinal and endoscopic surgeons. But I don't know. They could be fun. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you all for your attendance today. And thank you for your patience with me at the last minute here. Thank you. And it is adjourned.