everybody good to see to see everybody here and weathering the cold stormy not stormy anymore but we got through the storms and now the cold weather it's beautiful outside um we'll try to get through this meeting you know within the next three or four hours no kidding um and then we can get out and enjoy the enjoy the day a little bit before we get started Doreen could you lead us in the pledge please okay we have got a lot of presentations this morning and some uh a lot of comments from brian coming up so we've got a busy schedule um i would just the only comment i would say with all that's going on around the world the uh the old saying that the more things change the more things stay the same we have to keep doing what we do because we can't figure all that other stuff out it's going to affect us in a lot of different ways to the positive to the negative whatever so we just you know stick to our stick to our game plan and what we do best um and uh obviously pray for the men and women in harm's way the countries that are affected and the families that are going you know going through all the turmoil because obviously they have nothing to do with all this crazy stuff um and with that said we'll turn to a brighter note but uh approval of the minutes everybody had a chance to look at them do i have anybody who wants to make a motion motion to approve second second from bill did i hear oh somebody okay doreen all in favor aye any opposed motion carries any public comments public comments great we'll just jump right into presentations well thank you mr chair and for our first presentation on the agenda so in the past we have um introduced our interns interns um to you all at the beginning of their internship uh but we thought at at the end of their internship uh internally our team gets a final presentation from their experience uh with this saint p clearwater team and we thought maybe we switch it up instead of us just seeing this presentation maybe we have them um give the presentation to you all and inform you on what they've learned during their time so today um we've got adriana vargas who's one of our interns you all met her earlier on but just as a reminder she's a graduate from ucf she studied advertising and public relations and she's got some tremendous experience already not only in tourism but also in health care communications through her roles with tampa general hospital curly and pin visit orlando as well as visit saint p clearwater so she's going to be completing her internship at the end of april and today she's here to kick us off welcome adriana good good to see you good morning everyone um before i get started i just wanted to say thank you for the opportunity to both brian and craig to be able to come up here and share with you all a little bit about what i've been up to over the past six months during my internship at visit saint p clearwater like brian said i was able to formally introduce myself at november's tdc meeting but again for those who need a little refresher my name is adriana i graduated last may from ucf and i studied public relations and advertising so i'm here today to talk to you all a little bit about some of the projects i've had over a few of the departments at visit saint p clearwater and then towards the end of my presentation i'll get into some highlights of my experience and some key takeaways i think the most important thing to start out with a majority of my role has to do with activations and the community and brand engagement team so i've had the opportunity to be involved in multiple activations from start to finish this includes everything from um you know organizer logistics um coordinating those with event organizers to on-site activities like uh set up tear down and event execution i'll get into some of the events i've been a part of in just a moment um after events i help manage inventory of promotional items and i'm also responsible for researching new promo items that we can give out at our activations so some of the promo items i've worked on during my time here have been air fresheners reusable straw caps foam footballs and magnetic wooden bottle openers which all look a lot cooler than they sound i promise um i've also had the opportunity to table at different internship and career fairs across pinellas in hillsborough counties where i've engaged with students about our internship program and our brand ambassador program so on the topic of our brand ambassador program i'm assisting in planning the brand ambassador fam trip this is just a day that we take our brand ambassadors out across the county to further familiarize them with our destination and also celebrate their commitment to vspc last year our team was tasked with researching out-of-market events that we felt could be a good fit for us and we split those up by target markets so one of the markets i received was nashville and through that research i was able to find music city food and wine festival fast forward to today we have a full sponsorship of the event and we'll be activating on site in april and i plan to attend that activation alongside jake once a semester our team plans a county tour so either north or south county it is the best day of the semester it is so much fun and it's just a great way to familiarize uh interns with the destination that they get to talk about all the time then finally myself and our other current intern maria will be leading an activation next weekend all weekend long at the pier 60 sugar sand festival in clearwaters so if you're out planning on coming come say hey we have a big booth in our inflatable game so here's some of the events i've been a part of started out with a very busy bucks versus eagles game we had a co-branded bucket hat with them that people went absolutely bonkers for so that was a really great experience um a fast forward to john's past seafood fest had to include this one i eat a lot here so much fun um and then i traveled to orlando with daniella for fiesta in the park my first uh golf activation was the annika my first beach activation was standing ovations and then came rely quest bowl beach day then pie day at the airport and ending with duck and drive jeep event um those are just a few of them not pictured grand prix and i will be at valspar this weekend as well so moving on to the film commission with the film commission i've contributed to writing and sending out our monthly industry newsletters these highlight a lot of the great incentives we have and kind of what's new what's going on in the area film wise i take part in generating the monthly tdc reports and creating social content for our social channels for film spc on youtube facebook and instagram i hope to update and organize our film locations gallery just to make sure that everything we're showing productions as far as film locations go is as accurate and up to date as possible another exciting project i worked on with the film commission was gathering and writing copy for a potential film tourism map that the film commission had an idea for and then lastly i helped to update a county-wide list of city liaisons so that we can easily connect productions with whoever they need at the county so for the sports commission i write copy for play easy this is essentially a social network that works to connect event organizers with destinations and facilities i helped to update all of the facilities listings on our sports commission page on our website so that we can make sure everything we're offering these event organizers is up to date and accurate especially following hurricane damage and closures i would say that my favorite thing i worked on with the film commission was installing i'm sorry the sports commission was installing signage at host hotels of teams participating in the shriners children's clearwater invitational it was an idea we had as a way to enhance the fan and team experience in the area and i was responsible for coordinating logistics with all 12 host hotels it was a great experience it was a great day i never thought i would add a signage installation pro to my resume but i definitely can say i can now um so up top there we have our window clings that we installed and below are the floor clings that we installed so like i mentioned before i studied public relations at ucf it's what i really kind of lean towards most so pr is a super important piece of this puzzle for me um that being said for pr i worked on inputting media clips into our crm which is simple view um and i created a living document to help identify what's new in the destination over 2026 and 2027 when it comes to accommodations dining options and unique experiences last year i also responded to a media request for information and was able to provide copy that was included in a destination spread for scuttlebutt magazine i help write pitches over various kinds of topics for both brand usa and visit florida and help to create itineraries for visiting media so now for some highlights and takeaways there are some really great perks to this internship has to start with the work environment everyone is so uplifting and encouraging and available to answer any questions so i couldn't mention highlights of this internship without kind of touching on that first we have a super flexible schedule and i think this is also really important too for working across several different departments you'd be surprised but sometimes people get can get stuck into really specific niches when it comes to internships so getting that experience to work across different teams is super important to me i think most important though is having the opportunity to be given real responsibility this is something that i've always really looked for and valued in an internship and this is definitely something that you can find at visit st p clearwater for some key takeaways things that i'm going to walk away with for sure it would be event planning and execution skills this was something i never really dipped my toes into previously but it's something that i really came to love and enjoy i also was able to grow my skills in writing and content creation and again going back to the teamwork and collaboration part of it that's something that's super important uh to gain experience in before moving forward in my career as well so while i could sit here and talk about this internship for forever i think we've got a meeting to get to um so that's it for me if anyone has any questions happy to answer them any questions for adriana thank you nope all right well congratulations uh thank you i hope our communications department was listening to your pitch for employment here because we need folks like you yes i will take it but uh in any event um i really appreciate your time here the energy you brought um just just amazing and now that you're leaving us or soon you all can get back to work because she's apparently been doing most of it so not true at all no no i'm kidding but thank you again for being here uh presentation was wonderful and your energy is great i wish you all the best and enjoy the rest of your stay with us thank you guys so much thank you all right well of course i forgot to introduce let everybody introduce themselves but we thought we'd wait on clyde and copely to get here first no i just forgot i just forgot so chuck if we'll start with you and then work our way around thank you chair good morning everyone i'm chuck prather from the virtual downtown st petersburg good morning everyone trisha rodriguez of the traffic boaters and the clearwater ferry good morning everyone dave gaddis mayor belire beach representing the barrier islands uh captain dylan hubbard from hubbard's marina uh good morning everybody copely girdus city council city of st petersburg and chair i apologize for no that's fine no problem glad you're here amanda coffee with the county attorney's office go ahead clyde good morning clyde spiff belmar beach resort treasure island thank you morning phil henderson starlight cruises south pasadena madera beach and clearwater beach good morning doreen moore trs travel resort services vacation rentals morning bruce rechter mayor of the city of clearwater russ kimball sheraton sankey clearwater beach brian lowak visit st p clearwater thank you everybody my name is dave egers the chair this year and i'm really honored to be here with all of you so this is really really fun for me let's go on to our second presentation right yes second presentation is going to be our resident sentiment survey results and i believe kylie and eddie are going to tag team this one we had not done a resident sentiment survey for a couple years and so now we were in a place where we wanted to really take a pulse of the residents and their sentiment towards the destination tourism hospitality make sure that we are messaging correctly and then when where there is not awareness where can we improve and tell our story better to our residents so they've got some pretty great findings and they're here today to share with you good morning everyone i'm kylie diaz vice president of community engagement with visit st p clearwater and you know tourism doesn't just happen within a destination it happens within a community so it's important that we really understand what our residents are thinking and feeling about tourism um and it's more than just a data exercise it is a listening tool for us we did this not only in surveys but we actually did interviews with residents as well and so it helps us to understand like where we're doing well where we can improve and what matters most to the people um that place that call this place home uh but i am not the data guru so i'm going to take uh introduce you to eddie kirsch our director of digital and data who is actually going to take you through the study and its results i just wanted to introduce him thank you guys and i'm excited to see all of you it's a it's a full house today i love it um so i'm thrilled about um the opportunity to conduct this survey and ask people who live here you know their thoughts about tourism uh we overall were able to survey over uh 1200 uh residents in pinellas county we basically divided um our survey into six different regions to make sure that we had representation from each region and we also tried to um kind of weight these based on the overall population levels so you see that you know there's more um surveys conducted through some of those inland regions and things like that but um overall we had um you know a a wide variety of respondents um you know anyone who was 34 to uh 65 and older uh about 65 of them had moved here and 35 were born in pinellas county the average respondent had lived here for about 14 and a half years so they've probably seen a few things over that period of time um nearly 75 74 owned a residence uh and then 26 either run in or were in some other type of resident so really you know we had a great mix of um people who filled out and and gave us their thoughts and feedback um you know broadly pinellas county residents um attribute their destination nine nine out of ten um individuals believe that this destination offers festivals and events outdoor recreation waterways beautiful waterfront scenic beauty white sand beaches opportunities to relax that's good because that is often what we're telling our visitors about so it's good to see that our residents agree with you know what we're telling our visitors on and you know three out of four of those residents um believe that pinellas county is a very diverse place it's a place where it's relaxed you can be in tune with nature but it's also a place that is lively and full of energy and creative and vibrant um a lot of these key attributes that we uh share with the world uh pinellas county residents agree upon as well um and also it's it's interesting because we did look at these through the various regions so we wanted to see you know how do these regions agree or disagree but there's broad alignment you know nearly eight out of ten and in each rate region believe that tourism benefits the lives of of of residents um and that that was great to see that there's agreement no matter where you live that that that is a fact um and there's a lot of agreement on the economy in terms of the impact of tourism into the destination 89 believe that tourism is uh important to the vitality of pinellas county's economy 87 believe businesses rely or thrive uh on on tourism uh 87 as well uh believe that the tourism industry supports restaurants attractions events that appeal to both residents and visitors and 7 and 10 believe that tourism makes pinellas county a better place to live so really high majorities in in all those different areas um and this was a very interesting topic that that we got to ask you know and talk to people about as well was the impact of of jobs um 81 again a very broad uh majority believe that uh pinellas county tourism provides jobs to their to residents 62 percent believe that pinellas county has ample opportunities in the tourism industry um you know this is not just a pat on the back report though you know there's um only half that believe that it is easy to get a job in pinellas county's tourism industry and 40 percent of uh agree that jobs in pinellas county uh typically pay well what i found interesting as i was diving further into this was there's some big differences in the region responses to these um for instance saint pete beach and madeira beach were more likely to agree that it's easy to get a job in the tourism industry and that the jobs pay well um it's interesting too because that population were also more entrepreneurial um and business owners so you know they they tended to um be the ones also hiring for those positions right um there was less agreement when you looked at the saint saint pete area or the more inland areas of the destination which you know they might not necessarily recognize that someone working in the restaurant industry is also working in the hospitality industry or the tourism industry you know they're also serving tourists or um the retail stores also you know um having visitors you know come in and shop in their destinations so um as we look into this further we're beginning to realize that we can have different messaging and have different efforts for different areas um to to help us do a do a better job too um and then in engaging with tourism uh residents agree or strongly agree again a large majority of that visitor spending generates funding for community services in the area and most people enjoy interacting with visitors in pinellas county this is again something that we're very happy to see i don't think all destinations have this high of a percentage um and 74 of pinellas county have generally healthy balance of tourism uh and resident activity so again these are all very large majorities we're very happy to see these numbers um as high as they are um and again you know with some concerns um 82 of pinellas county residents do support responsible tourism growth um they are supportive of of those initiatives and 80 percent um you know also believe that tourists bring some level of congestion and traffic um which you know driving in from the gulf to bay area uh right now it took me a little extra time to to get here so i can i can understand their thoughts and opinions there uh 57 percent uh believe that tourists are respectful of my community again this is something that as we dive more into the regions we see a more stark difference um you know and it's it's actually the opposite there there's more concern out on the beaches for uh tourism being respectful to their communities and the impacts of tourism on those communities and so again it helps us indicate what we can um provide to those areas is is you know more marketing to the visitors in those communities to be respectful of the communities and to make sure that they are you know not harming the communities and sort of a longer lasting impact um 52 percent uh believe that tourism negatively impacts my community's natural resources um and 53 percent are worried uh about the impact that tourism has on our community culture these are great pieces of information for us to really talk deeply about and and provide you know more of uh an idea and as as kylie mentioned uh we didn't just do a survey we also have video recorded interviews um from these residents to kind of get a deeper understanding of why they feel the way that they do um so we look forward to you know kind of diving deeper into those um and then these are some benchmarks for us to hopefully improve on you know obviously we want people to be aware of the um impacts of of some of the tourism investments so um beach renourishment efforts along pinellas county beaches improvements and renovations to local parks and preserves um not everyone is aware of of what you know tdt dollars do and what they don't do and so this is this is kind of good for us to make sure that you know these numbers are improving the next time we conduct these this survey um in regards to visit st pique clearwater um of those 1200 individuals about 73 percent of them uh were aware of us as an organization um and of those uh of that 73 percent nearly six and ten were extremely or very familiar uh with our organization um 36 percent were at least a little or moderately only five percent of those who said yeah i know that there is visit st p clearwater but i have no idea what they do um that you know was a very small percentage of of those responses um and then in terms of the overall satisfaction with with us and and our job um you know 70 percent of them were extremely or very satisfied uh 22 percent were moderately or a little um seven percent didn't really know and maybe one or two two people said no not not at all so um that's positive for us but obviously this is more about how we can um what what we can do moving forward not not necessarily a a job report for visit st p clearwater um any questions or comments on the resident survey uh did you guys use one of our contractors to do this or did was this something you guys did we used uh future partners and so the survey was conducted we used a mixture of outlets though uh future partners had an online panel survey and then we also uh spread the word through um a variety of of platforms um email linkedin meta you know basically anywhere that we felt like we could get the word out we wanted to get the word out so we were pretty open in terms of just trying to make sure that if people had something to tell us you know we wanted to make sure that this was an opportunity for them to kind of um give us some of their thoughts and feedback through this survey so respondents were identified through all those different platforms and that's correct kind of elective passive thing yeah yes yeah and following dylan on your comments so the personal interviews were conducted through through through future partners and those those were from the online panel surveys those were not um or i actually there was an there at the survey there was an opportunity to elect if you wanted to be a part of of that um program and then those were followed up from from the from the people who said yeah i would you know love and they did the video okay good um i just wanted to comment that uh looking back over the last 20-30 years i was encouraged by these numbers in terms of the resident awareness um thinking back years ago with the tampa bay beaches chamber and involvement um we always struggled with resident awareness of what the benefits are of tourism um we had a campaign many many years ago called follow the dollar because it was the trickle-down effect of how each of the types of supporting uh you know industries uh were impacted and how the residents benefited so seeing these positive numbers is very encouraging which then you know says that the job that we're doing the team is doing at visit st pete clearwater is uh very much improving and you know yes there's some negative things there that we have to to work on but you know that's you all are doing a great job in that regard so it it it just points out that it is a constant ongoing benchmark that we have to to work with uh and i support all that you're doing but it was encouraging to see those numbers so thank you anybody else yes chuck thank you chair this is probably a question for brian and or or chair um doreen just mentioned about a past campaign we saw some folks that are you're always going to have the locals that that just aren't happy with tourism and clogged roads but we worked so hard to bring tourism in and it impacts this community with jobs um in helping our tax base and and the list goes on and on and that we know of and we thought about putting some money aside for a smaller campaign just to do what doreen talked about we've done in the past which is aware make a local presence aware of how much good you do we do tourism does great point mr prather and absolutely yeah when i when i first came on a few years ago that was one of the first things that we discussed is at the time we did have uh we had just done the strategic plan we had just done a resident sentiment survey um and one of the things the the first campaign that they rolled out uh for consideration was how do we communicate the benefits of of tourism to residents um as a 30 almost 38 year resident of pinellas county i didn't know the value of tourism i didn't know visit st p clearwater exists i didn't know how it impacted me um but since we since being over here uh as i've learned that's been something that we've really focused on as a team is communicating that to the broader uh community here because it's important it's our number one employer and it's hitting it's it's um positively impacting the pocketbooks of every single household in pinellas county and so how do we tell that story to residents in a way that resonates with them other than we don't pay state income tax because of tourism well there's a lot of benefits and our value of tourism from visitors with love campaign is how we do that and we continue to evolve that campaign and when we're activating at local events this weekend when we'll be at valspar the message to visitors when we meet meet and engage them is telling them about all the great places and the destination and things that they can enjoy while they're here but when we interact with residents it's that from visitors with love and that value of tourism messaging so we'll continue to evolve it and um we've got branded stages that we have at a lot of these events we've got the handouts um as long as uh i have any say with it that will be a cornerstone in uh our messaging thank you yeah i agree with you chuck that uh it's it's a broader message that we need to spread i thought uh in the annual marketing meeting um brian one one of the best slides you showed was that slide that showed how much real property taxpayers in pinellas county save because of the tourism industry and i think that's what doesn't get told often enough it's not just the bed tax these resorts we have on clearwater beach and st petersburg and st pete beach throughout the county they pay real property taxes too and the value of those properties is greatly affected by the volume of tourism but they contribute far more than just the bed tax to our local economy and to taxpayers here so but i don't i appreciate your slide because that's a component i think most of our residents don't understand is that impact i i guess i i would just add that it was interesting in the results that um you know there's there's thoughts about tourists as an idea and then there's like um thoughts about welcoming your friends and your family and everyone that we talked to was very excited about showing the destination to their friends and to their relatives and i think that you know it's information like that that gives us maybe a little bit more of an idea that like you know sharing that these people who come down here are our our friends there are relatives there are loved ones um you know there's an opportunity to maybe tell that story a little bit more as as well as the economic story because we're on the topic and i'm never going to pass up an opportunity to talk about this is that as the mayor suggested the the impact it's not just the bed tax and so last year our 15 million visitors that came here not only was it that 10 billion dollar total economic impact but it was local real dollars that are contributing to our community such as the bed tax that we reinvest into capital projects throughout the destination including the beach nourishment project but it's also the uh real property taxes uh combined with the sales tax spent here so when you add those up it was about 400 million dollars last year in local taxes sales and property taxes that then go towards general government services both in pinellas county as well as our 24 municipalities and so those fund general government services they also fund capital projects we talk about it all the time the penny for pinellas one-third of that is paid by visitors that's what all the municipalities and local uh and county use for capital projects trails fire stations police vehicles um uh all the above so again getting that message across because i think a lot of the headlines when you hear about tourism the number that always gets reported is bed tax collection and that's just one piece of the bigger bigger benefit to residents yeah on that front just sitting here thinking the from visitors would love campaign was really cool is is there a concerted effort like um leading up to spring break uh to get that message out there like a a spin-up if you will of like hey tourism is coming we're all dreading the the traffic that increases but here's all the benefits that would be really interesting and i think just from a business perspective always looking for content i think that would be cool for visit st p clearwater to send out packages to local businesses like here's a quick piece of content you can share to help spread that message too that's a great idea um i was just thinking about like cost benefit you know people are always in their own minds thinking of the cost the traffic it's all the the burdens and all of that that our residents kind of go through but not necessarily connecting all the benefits i think our this organization does a really good job our staff does a really good job of doing all that with residents but maybe the other hat that i wear on the county side the county government side of business we're not doing our part on that enough because when i was looking at these tourism awareness of tourism investments i don't know to me that doesn't sound good enough you know and um we need to do a better job i mean maybe we need adriana to help us on the government side but no getting that message out is really a big deal because to property taxes sales taxes um and so but it's interesting when they make the connection with their family right we said that we're getting a lot of folks that are coming down families and they really are proud of the area so in some ways they kind of wear that but i'm still not sure that they totally get all of these connections so some of them are the dolly museum some of them are the beautiful re-nourishment of the beaches the hotels that we have that the uh all of the different groups that we have here to take care of them but i'm not sure that we're really there's another level of connection if we figure that out and then it's still getting it out to people because i tell you the more i get that the more i see us trying to connect with people on every level on every issue you know we hit one and miss four you know with the numbers are just that way so this is really a big deal with what you all are involved in here and our staff's involved and the impact on our community is out of sight you know um but i still think your point about they're coming and oh by the way be patient with everybody because here's what it does for you and for us to the penny for pinellas it's a big deal that 32 or 33 percent of that penny money that our residents have just grown to love as far as it comes from our visitors that's a big deal so anyway great suggestion i don't know what it's obviously passed that time this year but something to think about as we go forward for sure any other comments uh yes yes um one of the things i think that's changed in the last time since we did a survey before and now is the amount of residential rentals that are out there and and they're not on the beach when we've seen those pictures and everything of where they are they're not on the beach they're on the mainland they're in different smaller areas communities and everything um i do the shopping and and you don't think of them necessarily at highland and lakeview uh the tourists but you go into publics on the and you see them and they're checking out the groceries and buying groceries and everything tour and walgreens and and places like that they're in our community i think even more so and then they have been and so that adds to what you're thinking chair to to we how we get out to those areas not just thinking they're on the beach and i think that's part of what you're saying the fortunate part is too is we feel like a community because we are everything to everybody and that's the good part about it when you say i'm proud of what i where i live let's go show it yeah and that's a great point i'm going to actually try to reach out to doreen and chat a little bit about this topic because it also creates a negative pushback because there are a lot of short-term rentals in our in our communities most of which i'd say 90 percent 95 percent are just great community folks they just come in and enjoy the time but it just takes a few five ten percent of those folks and i don't have the actual numbers uh so sometimes you have to exaggerate a point i'm not sure what the numbers are but they're not they're they're really hurting our communities and so visitors bad for communities on that small little level it kind of gets a little bit of noise going and so um you know we're we've we've tried to go down a path um the state's kind of intervened a little bit we're trying to fight back a little bit but we're trying to accommodate visitors and yet preserve our communities and our residential areas and it's it's a tough battle uh to remind folks about those benefits doesn't justify playing pickleball in a backyard at three o'clock in the morning so there's a and i'm again hyperbole here but the point is that you know we we do have these challenges um so those little things kind of erode a little bit on some of these benefits that we were like no they're they're problems you know well not really but in some you know some minor uses there are so yeah and i mean i i guess i think that this data um maybe helps us a little bit as i said earlier you know um there's a lot more business owners out in the st p beach community and madeira beach and those areas so it maybe it's more working with the business um you know communities out there and helping um you know provide more window clings and more messaging in in those storefronts and in those businesses and working with them whereas um in the st pete you know area or in margo or pinealas it's more trying to figure out how can we reach out to the residential communities that are um you know working maybe in in a restaurant or a storefront and they might not necessarily think of themselves as hospitality workers but um you know there there could be more of a direct message to more of the community there versus um out on the beaches for instance well again to the message that dylan was saying and i'm not sure how you do it and what we do but i know that oftentimes we do get out to our we have 24 cities here right and and and the county that have meetings and such but you know getting out to in some regards to our our commission meetings that we have that lead up to it maybe starting in october just getting out there and say hey we've got a five minute presentation we'd just like to give to you or 10 minute presentation on what tourism has done and make that connection with our elected officials who maybe can make the connection also i mean again that's just another concept another idea but it's it's firsthand it's right face to face and it's connecting what we do here but also what those elected officials want to hear the residents are in their ears about so i don't know something might be something to think about as we go yeah doreen and working with the chambers of commerce because they are members we do support them vspc and um and while not all of them are tourism focused i think that they could help deliver that message you know in carrying that forward too a lot of those a lot of those chambers have their own newsletters have a nice article on what you know what's going on sometimes to remind our business owners okay thank you that was good appreciate that okay next we're gonna i'm gonna invite stephanie up and um i just the next two presentations just every month we don't get the opportunity to really talk about some of the great work that the the different teams are doing and so we want to try to do that more often and today you're going to hear from stephanie on meetings and conferences and the great things they're doing and then next you'll hear from uh caleb and the great things going on in sports so take it from there stephanie thank you brian um it's my pleasure to be here i'm actually one of those percentage of people who move to the destination but i've been here for 19 years now and i couldn't be prouder to be able to represent visit st p clearwater as the director of meetings and conferences and help bringing people to our destination so we'll start with little um update on the year to date so our fiscal year starts on the first of october um so first of october 2025 up until beginning of march we pulled this data so the number of leads that we've received since that time has been 738. um these are leads of people requesting you know an rfp to see if they can host their meeting in our destination 738 leads is really good compared to what we had last year because we were at 550 this time last year but of course unfortunately the first of october of 2024 we got impacted and so the number of leads dropped down it's really good to see them come back up again so 738 leads and different companies you know a lot of a lot of them fall into corporate because that's kind of the bucket when it doesn't go into anything else so it could be a car wash franchise company it could be a paint company so corporate is our biggest um market over there followed by associations and then we got the health and medical educational tech financial manufacturing and pharmaceutical out of those leads um seven thousand just over seven thousand of them were for 2025 so it's good to see that we had a lot of last minute bookings for group um almost 120 000 of those were for 2026 so again it's a good short booking window to try and get things in the year for the year the largest amount though at 130 000 room nights is for 2027 55 000 for 2028 24 000 for 2029 and we got our first request for 2030 at 700 room nights so our booking window is kind of at the 12 to 18 month for groups um on the majority and because of the number of leads that we have this year so far that's putting us in a great position for 2027 2028 in the future the number of room nights as well those are the number of room nights that group has actually stayed in the destination for this fiscal year and with going with what eddie said before it's quite the economic impact just over 42 million we've been really excited to have changed our incentive program around as well um i was talking to a lot of the hotels um asking them you know what are the need periods for this particular year we came up with different months between us all and we're using data from the hotels as well as the data that we get and um we came up with an incentive program that just about doubled the incentive amount that we were able to give back to our hotel partners to help them secure groups in our destination especially if we were competing against hamper or competing against orlando or different parts of the country so just in two months when we launched this incentive program at the beginning of january we've given an additional 70 000 back to the hotel partners in incentives to help secure those groups um and that actually worked out to 32 additional meetings being held in the year for the year and added on another 16 000 room nights the success of this incentive has been so great that we're actually extending it to the end of april um and then we'll see where the budget stands and if we can continue to increase it we will we'll go from there so so far in this fiscal year it's a quarter of a million dollars of incentive funds have been allocated to the hotel partners to date and those for those are all for definite bookings that we are going to be having in this year we do have almost another 300 000 that's been allocated to potential meetings that want to be held in the destinations so we're doing everything we can to get them here and then another thing that we do actively are the trade shows um the meetings and conference team we go to different trade shows that have been organized by third parties um imex is the biggest trade show of the year that we go to um there are usually four or five of us that attend that because of the number of meeting planners that go um and so far that was just held at the middle of october last year and we've had 2900 room nights booked already from that particular show with an almost um three million dollar economic impact value and yes i think some of you were at imex last year um holiday showcase uh we go to chicago every year it's one of the biggest shows in chicago and a great destination for us um from that one we had 1300 room nights economic um impact value of two and a half million and then rcma is a religious conference that we just went in february and we've got 1300 potential room nights already which again is huge from that because it was a show that we just went to and sometimes it can take six to 12 months to be able to get those meetings um in our way and then sales missions these are missions a lot of the time that our sales managers are doing themselves so they put a lot of effort into these um and again you know we're doing these throughout the year to bring meeting planners um and conferences to our destination and then fans and site visits again we've been working actively on farms so it's bringing meeting party uh meeting planners and third party so end users down to the destination the first farm that we did was november 2025 we've already had over 4 000 room nights booked from that farm we had eight people here so we're doing another one april 14 to 17 we're going to have about another 10 meeting planners um and clients to that one and then another one in august um probably another one in the first quarter of our next fiscal year and then we encourage the site visits too so anybody that's thinking about our destination but maybe they're looking at another one too we highly encourage them to come down here we pay for their transportation from the airport we organize um the itinerary for them we take them to the different hotels we take them to see off-site events as well and venues in the destination and from the site visits we've done 35 so far this year which is up on last year's at this time and that's already created over 12 000 room nights so there's a lot going on in meetings and conferences does anybody have any questions my question is how big is the group have to be to qualify for your program it's a hundred room nights in total thank you thank you so much appreciate it stephanie from the exciting world of meetings and conferences we dive into sports with caleb i'm caleb peterson i'm the director of the sports commission excited to tell you about some of the great things we're doing here in sports um i got some slides with pictures i'm a picture guy i like to do the visuals just kind of explain some of the things that that we're doing in our space um you guys have all heard about some of the college softball you know that we've done um this year you know we did we had two tournaments back to back the nfca and the espn softball tournaments with those two events we had 12 ranked teams that competed in in those tournaments with the number one and number two teams in the country playing it's just an example that the best teams in the country come to clearwater to start their their year because of the success of some of those events it's led to other opportunities some events that don't you know get quite the the recognition or some of our amateur things um because of the espn tournament years ago we had an organizer reach out and say hey this looks like a great destination i want to bring you know one of my one of my tournaments to your guys the city so that event every year comes down in november which is the recruiting window for college softball this past year they had 82 teams compete in their tournament 80 of them came from out of the state of florida so just an example of the the sheer impact that these tournaments can have that one had 5 000 room nights for the destination the following weekend we partnered with an organization called triple crown very similar it's a recruiting window where they brought um 142 teams to the the city of clearwater 110 of them were from out of the area so there's some great things happening in the youth space because of some of the the foundation that was built through some of the high level events that we've done in softball um in the sailing world on the same weekend that we do the espn tournament on president's state weekend we host the largest um open water regatta in north america down in st petersburg um sailing has been one of those sports that we've seen a great opportunity to uh to build on that and we've got some some news that we'll share later in that space um baseball historically we host about 22 events here uh annually uh in the destination right now we're in the middle of uh tampa bay spring training which takes place down at baseball city in st petersburg that event um brings about 90 plus teams to the to the area every year and they're bringing teams from canada the northeast the midwest down here where these teams can train and get uh get some games in while it's uh while it's cold back home um in the in a similar vein we do the same thing with lacrosse where they they have a similar program where they bring teams from all over the country to come down here and get some of those early early uh season games in so they can go back to their hometown once it warms up and play uh swimming uh we do some great events down in and uh in st petersburg the north shore aquatic center for the one i've got here the isca they do an east elite showcase every year which brings about 1800 swimmers to downtown st pete but has a great economic impact in the early part of april we're currently undergoing renovations at the long center in clearwater and then largos southwest recreation pool just went underwent a renovation as well and they've got the only high dive on the western coast of florida so there's some great opportunities to to partner and expand some of the impacts in de largo the volleyball picture um avp every year on a thanksgiving weekend we partner with the avp to do a an east coast championship every year they bring about 300 plus teams to clearwater and their families to compete over a thanksgiving weekend it's been a it's been a great opportunity to kind of fill a need period um where you know maybe some of the group stuff doesn't happen as much because it's a holiday weekend but they've they've loved their experience here and we've been talking to them about trying to expand some of the programming and maybe do some stuff on the pro side with them um on the in the basketball space we did a d1 basketball tournament at eckerd college this year uh generally uh on any given year we do about two to three college basketball tournaments with eckerd college and that that's been one that we've we've tried to grow and expand uh because there's interest again to do some of those early season tournaments and warm beautiful uh weather destinations um on the golf front um you know golf has been one that uh you know we have some great courses here in the destination um we've seen an increased demand for for golf events to come to this area the one i've got highlighted here is the canadian junior golf association that's an international golf tournament for for amateurs this past year they had um golfers coming from canada germany china bulgaria mexico thailand and south africa so it is a it is a you know world draw that's coming to the area um and then this year we partnered with the national junior tour which brings the top junior players in in the country to come and compete in uh at innisbrook um in years past they had charlie woods we we were hoping that he would compete you know in innisbrook this year but unfortunately he did not come but that just kind of speaks to the level of events that we're that we're bringing uh to the community in in bowling we've got some great bowling centers here uh in the destination um so far this year we've hosted two events that brought 1300 bowlers to the area you know they're spending money in in our restaurants in our shops and in our in our hotels uh providing a great impact for the area uh in the hockey space we have four sheets of ice here in the destination um two in clearwater and two up in oldsmart uh in in hockey if you guys follow sports has been a um has been a sport that's growing in the state with the success of the lightning and the success of the panthers on the other coast uh it's really starting to um build its roof in the youth in the youth space so we we've had some success in the november december january and february months where some of these event organizers coming down from canada and and chicago have been able to to draw a healthy amount of um youth hockey teams that are providing a significant impact to the area on the running space um you know these running events that we host in the community they're they're very large events the majority of them are uh local participants but they are drawing a tourism impact so to highlight a few we do the clearwater marathon each year they have 2 000 out-of-town visitors that come for that the best damn race and safety harbor has a thousand out-of-town visitors and then the saint pete distance classic has a thousand out-of-area visitors come for that as well uh tennis is is an event um we're in a a sport we've we've had a little bit of success in uh we've worked with innisbrook and the saint pete tennis center um to host a handful of events each year generally they bring about 500 tennis players to the destination each year and then my last picture here is is hurling so and if you guys have never heard of hurling it's essentially polo without a horse um so we're always working with these non-traditional sports and and trying to find these niche markets that that are going to have an impact and bring people to the destination so i'm just an example of some of the sports that we've dealt with here over the last year uh cliff diving quidditch calisthenics cornhole strongman foot volley and slippery stairs so there's all these these you know wide world of sports opportunities that they're always looking for you know attractive destinations where they know that if they bring their event here that they're going to do well and draw in uh um in registrations um so in in a bit of development news um i'm sure you you guys have all heard um the uh horizon sprouse sprouse horizon sports park opened up in pinellas park a couple weeks ago they had their grand opening this is a six field baseball complex the fields are about 70 percent of the actual size of a full-size diamond they made their fields as replica of some of the spring training mlb baseball fields around the state so you've got uh their championship field is is uh designed after the phillies so they've got a tiki bar in left field just like you would find at uh at uh you know the real field here in clearwater um but this is going to be a great boon to the to the destination you know for years we've had event organizers that are begging us for more fields because they've got wait lists for their tournaments but they just need additional fields so they can continue to grow as an example the triple crown group that i had referenced earlier they actually did a soft opening for this um this uh facility at the first weekend in february and that was one that they were able to grow from about 90 teams to about 140 teams because they got an extra 36 teams at this facility so we're excited about this one they've partnered with uh u triple s a to kind of be their primary tournament organizer we've been in conversations with them with how we can help them grow uh their tournaments here locally uh and really kind of expand um in in a national space uh and then that group was recently purchased by um unrivaled and the ripkin brand uh so they they've really have some positive uh momentum in their organization and we feel like that's going to be a great impact to pinellas park and pinellas county all right toy town um so because i've you know we we had a recent facility open up wanted to give you guys an update on kind of where things stand with uh with toy town so through the conversation with the developer that had um responded to our rfp request they had identified that we needed to do some additional um work to to get an idea of what is feasible for development and essentially you know it's it's it's really unknown what's in the ground and so they wanted to go and do some subservice investigation to kind of get an idea is vertical development feasible and then to try to get an idea of what could be designed on the on the site so we're in the process of finishing up that work now we're hopeful that we'll have a report back from the group that's doing the work by early april that work will then be shared with the developer who will then go back to the drawing board and come up with a firm plan for the site we anticipate to have that report back from the developer by the mid-summer and then the staff is planning to have a recommendation to the bcc sometime in the october time frame so we're getting closer uh it's an exciting um you know it's exciting time um you know there's a lot of demand in in you know for our destination for events to come in our biggest challenge is is literally just checking the facility box to have the requisite number of fields or space that they need to do their tournament and so this this last um this last slide is this kind of representation of uh on the on the right you've got the bar slide that kind of shows you know what what we do in in terms of number of events and you can kind of see that softball and baseball are far and away the largest and that's representative because we have diamond facilities available in the destination what you don't see a lot of is the rectangle sports and that's what the the intent of that toy town facility would be is is adding rectangle fields to our portfolio of facilities in the destinations but then we can get into the soccer the lacrosse the football and and some of those sports that currently we we're challenged to to find a solution for the number of fields that they're looking for so with that any questions any questions yes russ uh first of all i'd like to say to brian thank you for adding these two programs today i think it makes it exciting to hear what's going on in the events and everything and and your leadership of both you and stephanie in this programs and everything and all two things that remind me of a little bit is to say some of this could be added to the community involvement of the value of tourism too to your commissioning meetings and so forth too because this could be the piece that makes tourism positive for somebody that doesn't necessarily think that this is tourist related uh on it the other the other thing is maybe we could do something also um with these events and i know that we use our tickets and everything for the meeting planners and to develop business and everything but maybe somehow we can also get some a couple of tickets that we could invite commissioners county commissioners or somebody in this board to go and see what goes on with one of these uh one of those is is our thanksgiving weekend for volleyball and there's like 90 different nets out there on our beach for a couple of days it's so family oriented age oriented from all over they come in and and uh to participate and also they're in our dining room that night for thanksgiving dinner and so it shows what it is and so and it wouldn't cost anything to try and get a couple people to go see what that event is so maybe we can help develop that into another step of this program i think what you just presented was was great and it certainly shows the added value to tourism i think is what you're all doing thank you and i will say we have been in conversation with different economic development organizations in the county to leverage the exposure and the opportunities that we have at some of our large-scale sporting events to maybe partner on on ways where they can bring businesses down here that are looking to maybe relocate some of their corporate offices so we're always having those conversations that how can we use sports to be a catalyst to develop in other spaces yes chuck thank you chair caleb thanks great report um since i've been on this council we have talked over and over again about how important sports is in the tourism world and so you have taken this department and i just applaud you my only only question um one of the things you talked about were races running races and when i think of one of the larger ones in this area the triathlon saint anthony's triathlon um and it's not mentioned here but that's one where there's a lot of folks that come in from out of town for that it's just such a an important race when do we decide to get involved or back some sporting event because it's i didn't see it here mentioned yeah the reason it's not here is because it hasn't happened yet i was really trying to reference things that have taken place or you know things that are kind of imminent right now so that one takes place in april we've supported that one every year uh great partners there uh we'll continue to support them again this year so we've been in conversations with them and you're you're not wrong it's uh the triathlon in the triathlon space is is a well-respected race and then annual or i should say annually every every so um every few years the usa triathlon uses it to be a regional or championship level event and the way that generally works is usa triathlon doesn't create their own they look to partner with existing triathlons to then designate it as a championship level event so it's one that is is um is well renowned and it's been it's been a great event for our destination so you're you're spot on thank you very much yeah and you you've just covered so many the whole spectrum of sports including hurling now so i learned something today so thank you dylan um yeah one thing that i don't see on the list uh is fishing uh whether or not you think that's a sport is a different conversation but there that is a huge draw to our area and some of these bigger tournaments i mean we have one that i believe is an elite event uh with uh king of the beach it brings 700 teams in twice a year you know um is that something that you guys work on as well i i didn't reference any of the elite events in my program just because they're serviced through the elite event program so while we do work with them it's not something that we're directly involved with their exactly because it gets funded through there they're they're kind of taken care of um through that side of it we do work with them again for you know economic development or some of the other you know things that can spin off of it from a business development perspective uh but but no i don't i don't claim those as as ours because they're being serviced through a different program but no fishing is a great a great opportunity in the destination we do work with some some of these organizers for some of the smaller stuff that isn't in the elite event program when some of these groups are looking to pick a place to go you said field availability is is a big criteria that they look at what are maybe two or three other things that they're looking at considering uh when they can you know when i saw something in manatee that they just opened up or they're going to open up a field complex to attract sports you know what what are the other kind of criteria that they look at and so how do we stand out on that front yeah it's it's a business so how where can they take their event where they're going to be able to draw the the most registrations and do a successful event because ultimately the largest um you know revenue generator for an event is registrations so they want to find destinations that are going to be attractive that they can align with that are going to be able to draw the most people so you do see that a lot of these um communities are investing in sports facility spaces because they see the benefit of it and you know one of the trends that we've seen in the in the sports space it's it's it's getting a lot of private equity and a lot of and a lot of money is starting to be poured into this industry which makes it you know challenging you know for us to stay competitive for some of these sports because we don't have that traditional tourism venue to be able to compete so around us you know you've got the tampa sports flex over there in tampa which is a you know rectangle sports complex they're building some up in pasco county uh you just referenced the one down in manatee county with img so it's a competitive space um and and it's one that uh we have the destination they're looking for so if i can just pull together the requisite number of fields then it's generally been an easier sell you find that when they come here for like a three-day event that they stay if they come early they stay a little later to complete a week or do you see some of that oh absolutely absolutely i mean that's and that's one of the benefits that that we have as a destination people want to come here independent of some of these other other communities the way that i view it is you know you can build a brand new complex you could put it in iowa but once you leave the field in iowa where are you going to go you know you're just going to go back to the hotel where if you come here there's so many things to do to enjoy your visit so if you're going to spend money and pick a tournament to go to you want to go to a destination has a lot to offer outside of just the competition venue and that's where we really can leverage the strength as a destination and all the the great things we have the arts the the food scene all the different things that you know we highlight uh for the general tours that's a lot of times that's the sports traveler because unlike a convention they're not you know in the in the conference center in the hotel all day they're out in the community and they're spending money in our restaurants and in the different things that we have to do yeah phil i apologize you might cover this i was reading up on hurling um but uh um as i think chuck said uh for years we've talked about a survey or studies or whatever we get to find out exactly what we need to really be able to compete more has that ever come to fruition i know it's been started a couple times but we got a list of okay we need this many baseball fields or this many rectangle fields to really be at the forefront yeah we've done a couple studies over the years um i think the last one would have been in maybe 15 i mean it essentially comes back and says yes you would do well if you added a sports facility the challenge is you know it's it's not cheap you know and there's not a lot of available land in pinellas county to develop and it just seems that the ones that are available are old dump sites that are more than just a flat you know piece of grass where you can build on it takes remediation it takes a lot of uh you know work to get to a point where you can even start to build so i think there's a there's an understanding that there's there's a demand for it it's just a matter of does it pencil out from a business perspective and does it does it work right and i think that's where we've been trying to figure out okay we've got a great piece of land in toy town but there's been a lot of developers that have looked at over the you know the last 25 years and it you know it's always kind of ended where it's been unsure of what's in the ground and what that ultimate cost is going to be and that's what we're really trying to figure out with all the work we're doing now is what is it going to take what is that cost so we can finally make a decision of hey let's either do this or then we know like okay this is this is what it's going to take do we have a target number of fields we need in a complex uh target number of baseball fields within close proximity you have something like that so generally in the tourism space for like rectangle fields they look for at least eight it's kind of the general number that they look for so if you're anywhere from like eight to 12 you're in a good spot in terms of hosting tournaments uh on the on the diamond side they look from for anywhere from you know six to to 15 16 so again it's it's so similar numbers and the easiest way to to do the math is every diamond you can get six teams per diamond for like a baseball softball tournament kind of similar on the rectangle side it's about four to six teams per field so you can start to do some math and kind of back into it so i think it's one of those you kind of got to find a sweet spot of you know you don't want to overbuild it because you've got to be able to service it during the week because the recreational and the community programming is what pays the bills the tourism stuff that happens on the weekend is the cherry on top i remember when i first got on the commission i had one of those goofy ideas that we we have the the waste to energy plant down there we could just build a conveyor built across and start getting rid of that pile of stuff down at toy town everybody kind of like i think they patted me on the heads oh good idea and we moved on to the next idea because but to me that's a a beautiful piece of property there if we could you know do something with the mountain because there are other developments in this county that sit on you know old dump sites that they have been cleared away not to that extent of course but um and they just monitor them and you know and people exist so but it is a complicated mess or issue down there so i'll be curious about that report that comes back yeah if you look into a lot of the recreation facilities that we have in the county are on old dump sites you know the one that i know off the top of my head is joe dimaggio you know that's that's and then there's philip jones over in clearwater so those are two that i know yeah are old dump sites anything else okay thank you appreciate it all right if you didn't get enough of eddie uh in round one he's back for round two he's going to give you some uh destination metrics oh no i am again uh and as a native of iowa ouch there's there's a lot to do in iowa just outside of town we have the world's largest truck stop so you know that's um anyways all right so jumping into the destination metrics um wanted to give you a little bit more this month knowing that uh the next month we will not be here um in this room uh first off with our gross collections for january we're seeing a very consistent performance um in the past couple of years this year we had 8.3 million in tdt collections for the month of january um it's it's amazing how consistent this is despite how different the years have been in the past couple of years um looking into the local option report and in our geography uh based data um we continue to see vacation rental gross collection or local uh collections uh increase and this obviously indicates that vacation rentals are you know generating increased demand as well so positive to see that um over the past two years that that has been the case um as well as uh clearwater clearwater beach in st petersburg again having positive uh numbers compared to the pre-storm numbers in uh fiscal year 2024 we continue to see uh our southern kind of beach communities of st pete beach and treasure island um improve um but there's some work to do there um for sure uh this is a very consistent storyline that that we've you know now been presenting almost every time we come up here and present the local option report um again looking into not just january data but we'll also have some data signals for february as well um overall we have a mobile estimate in the month of january of 1.4 million visitors coming from outside of 50 miles or more of the destination that is up um 18 compared to the previous year and you can really see those spikes um occurring you know january 1st new year's day obviously we had a great kind of uh new year celebration this year and then the weekends preceding in the month of january have have all kind of lifted that uh visitation number for the month of january um in the month of february we had about 1.5 million uh estimated visitors outside of the area and that's a 6.2 percent increase um there's some notable spikes here february 14th and uh february february 28th which was uh that saturday race day of the st pete grand prix both had over 200 000 visitors um for those as a single day um that's those are some very impressive numbers for us um as we look at more of the hotel data um some of the trends that we're seeing is is a slightly lower rate um but more guest check-ins um however a shorter length of stay so we're getting again more visitors into our destination but some of those travel behaviors are maybe generating a little bit less overall demand and revenue when you look at that and then in the month of february i think we're really seeing some positive trends uh return you know we're seeing our hotel demand nearly equal last year when we still had some displaced residents in the month of february but that average hotel stay value is much closer to two years ago where it was mostly uh driven by uh our our leisure visitors and you know visitors coming in for events and sporting events like like caleb brought up um looking at the vacation rental side of things we're continuing to see the uh rate of those vacation rentals go up um we're seeing those check-ins um increase over last year they weren't quite what we saw in our sample from two years ago and that's uh fairly consistent with some of the other data that we see here in terms of the guest night sample the revenue sample um overall our booking window is about what it was you know closer to last year um and the average length of stay is is um you know much greater than our hotel stay so there are different um visitors you know the the ones staying on our vacation rentals versus our hotel um and again in february um this is kind of a recurring trend where we're seeing some positive momentum from the from um the year after the storms in 2025 um and you know we know that there's a higher water mark that we've had in the past in 2024 that that we hope to uh get back to um and then just looking at you know kind of jumping ahead in terms of what what we're expecting for our our bigger you know spring period um and this is you know mostly some some really positive news from from our hotel sample um compared to last year you know we're seeing uh an increase in rate in march and april as well as may and june and as well as uh the rest of the fiscal year um same thing with our check-in sample our uh guest night sample and revenue sample those are all very positive numbers um while the booking window is slightly shorter and the average length of stay is again um shorter um i guess it's a little bit on par when you look at may and june but uh that's that's that's you know further out um kind of just looking at the next four months uh from this hotel sample um you know we're doing quite well we're we're very hopeful that it's going to be a strong march and a strong april this year for us um the hotel revenue sample is very close to uh fiscal year 2024 in march and it's above the previous two years in april in may and june it's it's closer to um those past couple of years but as we note that the booking window has shortened there's still some opportunities that those numbers could actually be a little bit above um the previous you know two years when we're looking at this in the rear view and then from our vacation rental sample it's it's a similar story we are above uh the previous year we're not quite where we've been um in in 2024 um but there's some positive momentum um from the vacation rental sample that we have as well a much shorter presentation than the resident survey but happy to answer any questions any questions wow looks like you got off easy all right thank you thank you all right move to the and last but not least um steve grimes is gonna come up and he's gonna give you uh a marketing update that is a a really good one pressure brian already describing it as good i haven't made it to the podium yet um good morning everybody steve grimes nice to see you all um so whole bunch of stuff to cover and and it is this we've got some exciting stuff here um first off you know we we as you all know hired a new advertising agency at the end of last year you met jason and vanessa and lee when they were down here and they were going through some of how we were going to approach advertising a little differently going forward so i wanted to just do a quick snapshot and it is just a tiny snapshot of the vast amounts of data and reports that we get from from the agency now just to sort of show how we're working with them and some of these changes sort of in the real world so um one of the things that we have done is shift a lot more of our advertising to trackable digital advertising from more traditional units and we're already seeing some huge payoffs from that you can see on this is just a snapshot from uh from last month um our advertising impressions are up our ever the clicks on those ads are up we're spending more but their cost to drive those impressions has stayed the same so we're spending more money on digital platforms but we're spending it efficiently and we're getting a lot more uh in the way of results um on our website which is only one you know one of the many things that we look at but it's a it's a nice leading indicator you can see here month over month the number of users and year over year huge increases in the number of users that are coming to our site an engaged session is basically somebody that comes to the website and does something whether that's reading multiple things watching videos filling out forms um and then you can see there the the destination guide which is our award-winning magazine um we've seen a huge increase in the number of people that are requesting that magazine both physical copies and the digital copy so this is just again one snapshot that's starting to show that focusing on digital platforms is really driving some engagement with our with our visitors the other area was that we want to talk about was this notion of precision targeting and then being flexible as the world changes so first one is um our digital ads have been targeting different groups of people and one of the things that the agency brought to us was with the trouble in mexico um last month six weeks ago whatever that was um and all of a sudden people were skittish about traveling to puerto vallarta we the agency jumped in and targeted our advertising to people who had been previously searching for puerto vallarta and other mexico destinations and we saw a really positive response from our family audience there so people who have kids that were thinking about going to mexico suddenly were responding to our advertising and seeing this as a really good alternative um similarly if you haven't been paying attention it's been really cold up north and the weather has been pretty dreadful um and so a couple of weeks ago when the the midwest and northeast got hit by the crazy snow we pivoted some of our advertising to focus on this sort of winter escapee message and we increased the spend in those places that got hit hardest by the storm so new york and boston and philly um and we've also have been running these billboards that are up and down the i-95 corridor in new york and new jersey and i-90 in boston and those are we working with clear channel real-time pulling the temperature difference between where you are and where what it is here um probably drives people in boston a little crazy when they see this um and so these run when the weather is dreadful um we were about to switch them over to more regular advertising and then they got hit by yet more snow last weekend so these are going to run for a little bit longer yet so um we'll keep doing this until the weather up north gets to be a little bit more uh tolerable so i'm just an example of how we're staying both focused but also nimble as the world changes how do we change our advertising to to pivot to capitalize on events and make sure that people realize we've got a great destination so moving on from that i want to talk a little bit about events um caleb went through all of the um sports events that that he focuses on i want to talk a little bit about two of our big elite events so uh eddie just referenced the grand prix being here a couple of weeks ago um this is obviously one of the marquee events for our destination um brings in a lot of people and last month we were here talking about the elite event guidelines and how we are really trying to focus how we invest our tdc tdt dollars in events in a more deliberate fashion and sort of the two criteria that we really focus on are are you bringing people to the destination and does your event allow us to tell our story to the world and this is an event that does that probably better than any other so uh we're bringing in tens of thousands of people to the destination and we have three days of national television coverage uh with the practices on friday on fs1 and then this year with the inaugural nascar truck race we had that on fox and on sunday we have the opening of the indycar season also on fox so i look at that as six hours of television commercials showing the world how great this place looks um stealing an idea from adriana who clearly as you point out mr eggers does all the work at our place um they put down uh she mentioned the clings that went down at the the various hotels for the softball tournament we took that idea and added it to pi so we worked with our friends at the airport and we did this to welcome race fans as they were coming all of the doors all of the exits at at pi had a welcome message from st pete clearwater to race fans just creating that sense that something big is going on in the destination and then we wanted to focus our promotional efforts with the race on how do we get seen on tv at the end of the day it's great that there are 75 80 100 000 people down here watching the race that's fantastic they're already here they can they can see for themselves how great it is how do we use the tv audience to share our message so this year we worked with the folks at the grand prix to uh change one of the signs so this is the turn 13 which is the turn right as you go around to the straightaway it's the last major turn on the track and the cars are they're almost slowest at this point um they had the grand prix had never turned this into one billboard before so we use this as you can see it to very clearly promote america's favorite beaches and so much more this is an actual screenshot from fox tv so this was seen hundreds of times as each car went past and they kept showing it over and over again the other thing that we noticed last year was there's a lot of aerial shots and that's great but when they're looking down there wasn't a lot you could see so working with our friends at the city we uh add added a sort of joint partnership here where we painted onto the grass for the first time visit st pete.com and that redirects to the visit st pete clearwater st petersburg section of our website so anybody that sees this and is like where is this place how can i learn more they get to come to visit st pete.com and and check that out so this was again fantastic seen multiple times during the race and it's something that the grand prix guys are excited about looking to expand next year where we can look at all of the the sort of surface area of the of the airport grass and think what can we do with that now so um hoping to do something much uh much more ambitious um working with tony lino and his team to figure out what we can what we can do at the airport um it wasn't just us covering it we had a you know we we had our tv uh folks almost three million people saw the races between um youtube um where you can see the stats at the bottom there more than 300 000 people have already watched the the race highlights and recap nascar trucks almost 160 000 um more than a million people tuned in for the nascar race and 1.4 million people tuned into the uh to the indy race which is right on par with their record uh last year so very exciting tv numbers so that's a lot of people that got to see our signage going around the track and then in addition to tv coverage there's also social media so we excuse me we um have worked with not only our own social media team to get out as much message um we've also um worked with our 727 society and run some paid advertising as well so you can see some of the numbers there uh millions of people viewing us through social media which as we all know is one of the primary ways that people are consuming content these days um just threw in here just a sample of some of the kinds of content we brought our 727 society down that's the group of local influencers they all live in the destination um and their sort of payment for working with us is access to events and in exchange for doing that they help us tell a broader story of how great it is to be at some of these events one of those influences we got to uh go around the track in the pace car and this is her experience yep that's me you're probably wondering how i ended up in this situation i must really be an experience-aholic because tell me why i just signed my life away to do something a little insane i got to experience test driving the track for the grand prix in saint pete in a pacer car and let me tell you it was kind of crazy intense but so much fun like this is the same track that the pros fly through every year at this event the whole experience was so unreal getting to see some of the indy cars that are going to be racing this weekend up close in person was also just so cool and this is the moment when my nervousness starts kicking in a little bit the whole experience was unreal the energy the turns it honestly gives me a whole new appreciation for how skilled these drivers really are because let me tell you those corners come up fast i was screaming on the inside smiling hard on the outside thinking how is this real life right now truly a bucket list moment and now i cannot wait to watch this iconic race this weekend with the actual pros doing their thing so by using these influences pre-race during the race post-race it gets us to extend our storytelling and those of you who were watching closely may have spotted our own jessica morrow being thrown around in the back of the car next to the influencer trying to keep track of phones and other things in the back there so that's the grand prix great very exciting now it's we have to quickly turn the page and start talking about golf uh because this week we've got the valsbach golf tournament up at innisbrook um another one of our biggest events another one with a great tv audience completely different situation we can't put signage around innisbrook that's not how it works with the pga tour um so we work closely with the organizers about how do we get the message out about uh about the event so this year we partnered with ronde barba a pga tour player steven jaeger and a golf influencer and personality named will lowry and we created a piece of video that has been sent around on all sorts of different social channels and youtube so i won't play the whole thing because the long video is about 11 minutes it's on youtube i strongly encourage you to go check it out but here's one of the uh the previews that goes along with that y'all want a challenge i'm with it let's go three bucket challenge at three iconic locations we get 60 balls varying sizes of buckets and we go to my three favorite locations in town here we go first challenge huge bucket if you can't hit this one this challenge is going to be really tough for y'all td ballpark perfect place for our second challenge small bucket small bucket right who wants to go first last shot water all around us smaller bucket it decreases my chances of winning but i mean i'm all up for challenge i think so too one at a time one minute let's go he's my favorite pj tour pro as when everybody know that right hey can we get a little crowd noise please thank you oh oh here we go there it is there you go oh my god oh heads up heads up oh i had sand going my mouth three times so the premise there was that ronde had bumped into these guys up at innisbrook and was like yeah they're practicing their sand shots he's like no no no no let's i got a sand shot challenge so as you can see we went to clearwater beach where just so happens mayor rector is walking up and down the beach greeting people and uh makes his way into the video so if you watch the full length version that you'll you'll get to see the mayor um and then they uh at each time we actually manufactured a giant box of sand that we took then to td ballpark and then we took to the pier at st pete and had them play sand shots into ever decreasing smaller buckets so these guys had a lot of fun we've got a ton of uh great publicity from this so again another example of sort of taking the assets and like how do we get creative how do we tell our story so that's quick pivot to a completely different topic i mentioned the advertising agency and the switch from advertising agency um they've now been on board for getting on for six months they've been working diligently on getting all of this stuff going all of the the um efforts that i mentioned earlier but it's now time to start thinking about a new campaign and so we want to evolve our message we don't want to make a huge change you know we want to continue you know that challenge that other florida destinations we feel all look kind of the same and if you switch out the logos can you tell one beach from another um so we really wanted to continue that idea of standing out from the crowd the ampersand campaign that we've been running for the last uh 15 months we think has very much done that you know it's it's bold it's bright and very noticeable one of the challenges with working with that campaign is this notion of it's always got to be something and something that 50 50 split presents some real creative challenges at times and we feel like that may have run its course and we now feel like it's time to get more into emotion and storytelling and really being able to tell more of what this destination has to offer in ways that really that campaign was not letting us do so you'll see this is a revised statement from last year but very much the same thematic every beach destination promises sunshine and memories made in the sand but in saint pete clearwater our promise stretches far beyond the shoreline yes our white sand beaches are world-class best in the world in some cases but this is a place where you can bask in so much more than sunshine here you can catch some rays and catch a show build a sand castle and sleep in a palace lay out on white sand beaches and dig into world-class dining there is a unique cultural side to saint peak clearwater some may say we have our own beach culture so this is the concept for where the campaign is going to go what i haven't coming up here are not finished ads i just to stress that the agency will kill me if they think that i'm presenting these as final ads this is the concept this is just to give you an idea of where over the next couple of months they're going to refine this with an intent of launching this campaign in the may june time period they're going to be coming down here to do a whole new photo and video shoots uh in the coming weeks so you'll all of these that you see right now are using the existing assets that we already have we're going to be changing a lot of that not that they'll be wildly different but you'll see a different look and feel so what does beach culture mean well we're going to continue to target our messages very precisely and for some people it's going to mean a beach forward message and for other people it's going to mean a culture forward message and as each of those audiences will get a little bit of both but the skew will depend on what it is we think is going to motivate them based on the data signals that we're getting back so for instance here's an example sitting on the beach but people love our museums just as much or pack your shades our chefs really shine white sand beaches and wow as they'll remember and each of these telling a slightly different story melt into more than a beach chair the uh the dali museum there or as you will know we are the official beaches of the tampa bay buccaneers this year they are going to be welcoming to ray j the packers the vikings the browns and the steelers for cold weather markets that i think are going to enjoy coming down here for some football but they need to bring the sunscreen for their game face because they're going to be spending time at the beach so this is just a smorgasbord of the kinds of things and what this is going to look like we see all sorts of different opportunities different places that these this campaign can run right the way down to creating our own beach culture line of swag so very excited for this as i said lots and lots of work still to be done on this but wanted to sort of bring you behind the curtain a little bit and show you where we're going and why we're doing it um again if those any eagle-eyed observers may notice also on this execution here that our logo is slightly different um that is also something that we're refining so we will be rolling out uh over the next few weeks uh not a drastically changed logo but i would describe it as a modernized version of our logo a little bolder a little easier to see on signage at say a grand prix um and a little bit more current so that's going to be something that we'll present to you guys when we're back here in may you may start to see it in some places um as we roll out um it'll ultimately be part of the new campaign launch but we will be putting it into places where the asset is going to live past the launch of this campaign so for instance uh when opening day happens at the drop our new signage there will include this new logo because we don't want to have to replace the signage halfway through the season so a lot of stuff but we're not done yet there's yet there's yet more 2027 um caleb hinted at sailing he mentioned that um we've done a lot with sailing we have had the world regatta here three years running um now we've got something very exciting so the uh for all of the sailing events in the world there's really just one that sailors consider the pinnacle event sort of the mount everest of sailing if you will it's the ocean race used to be called the whitbread around the world for those that are as old as me or the volvo around the world race after that this is the all literally all the way around the world yacht race and it's arguably the toughest test of any team when you have to live and do everything together in the middle of an ocean and it really does connect the world there's international teams it stops in 15 cities five continents goes all the way around the world and this is the map for 2027 so it starts in alacante spain it goes to south america it goes to auckland it goes to brazil it stops somewhere in the u.s then it goes to europe well we're delighted to announce that uh this year we are going to be the only north america stop for this iconic race which is pretty awesome um why is it a big deal so um this is an example of the ocean live park that was in the the race uh three years ago uh this is what we're going to be building in st pete and in addition to that um we're going to have these amazing yachts in in import for 10 12 days um there's going to be events in and around the area um we're expecting tens of thousands of people for the event um the economic impact i think will run into the many millions um and this is not only a great opportunity to bring lots of people to the destination and to show it off but we now have the next 12 months with a worldwide audience to show them what st pete clear order is all about so uh the first race in this series that we will be a part of is there's a transatlantic sort of pre-race that goes from new york to france uh leaves in september we'll be a part of that and then obviously as the build up to the start of this race in january of 2027 um we've got a whole world audience that will now be able to sort of showcase st p clearwater too and then we're excited that our leg takes uh starts in brazil and comes up to us brazil is a great market for us so we'll be able to be down in brazil and working with them as well um there'll be a wealth of opportunities to get people down to check out the boats uh so many opportunities very excited we've got a lot of work ahead of us for the next 12 months but i think this is a really really exciting opportunity so that's all i got that's where does the race start alicante spain that's the start yeah so it starts there and then goes left around the wall speechless any uh incredible any questions on any of that stuff i realized there was a lot of different things in there phil let's go back to the beginning yes um on the uh the new focus on more digital you said that your spend was up 51 percent but your administrative cost to place that spending was not up at all correct that the cut was not the administrative cost the cost that we were paying per click so the amount of the amount when you when you look at the number of clicks that we were getting we're not paying any more to drive that additional traffic okay but to administer it have you spent more to do that because i know they're very focused on targeting which takes a little more work yes but they i mean what's what's great is they are being they're being more precise but we're not spending any it's not costing us anymore to be more precise right now again these are all flexible this this was last month these are very you know fluid stats um it depends on what what they were able to buy how the bidding was going that particular month so it does vary that's really more directionally to say say we're spending more money but we're we're keeping our costs in in check right it's a good spend yes yeah i talked with them a little bit and they that's one thing they do focus on is the way they target to make sure that um you're spending that in the right place instead of just scattergun exactly right yes i mean you know the example that we've used many times is you know rather than advertising in chicago it's advertising in the right zip codes in chicago to the right people in chicago with those are the have a likelihood to travel it's a big city not everybody from chicago is going to come here finding the ones that are likely to come here is the key yes exactly great yes dylan i love the evolution of the beach culture that was uh really cool i think they uh lived up to a lot of what they said they could do yeah we're excited to see where that goes and that billboard seems just kind of mean yes chuck thank you chair um brian i i applaud you and the team for landing this huge event um this could rival the st p grand prix when we look at those numbers um can you talk a little bit about who's behind this um putting this together um in st petersburg yeah i would uh defer to steve on that but you know this is a um a project that over the last year and a half to two years um these conversations have been in the work between sports team marketing team city of st petersburg event organizers and from the idea of bringing this event here to where we are today with an announcement that it's actually coming here um has been a heavy lift and i credit uh everyone involved in those efforts um and steve can maybe he he's been the lead on those and he can maybe give some more inference there yeah um so actually i should have mentioned about 45 minutes ago the the release went out so the world now knows that we're hosting this event um it has been it's a collaboration between ourselves the city of st petersburg uh usf uh the st pete yacht club um and then um that's sort of the the conglomerate that are working in the st pete area hey steve did you speak in i'm sorry you know it's okay um yeah so i said the uh the organization within our area is a combination of ourselves the city of st petersburg uh usf st pete campus and the st pete yacht club so that's the sort of the the group of people that are part of the sort of uh organizing and pulling all of those pieces together there is an organizing committee uh headed up by a gentleman named rob ritz he's part of that organization he's the stopover director for the event um but the actual race itself is being managed by the ocean race out of there you know alicante so it's it's part of that it's i'm trying to think of a good analogy it's sort of like they are they are the league if you will they are the the people that are actually bringing this here and when we think about an elite event this is clearly going to be an elite event so um do we reach out to them or are we in collaboration with them for the applications are due for 2027 right around the corner um but i truly believe we have to get behind this um both with our teams as well as our dollars so i'm anxious to see how we're going to try to support that yes we've we've penciled that out and um it will be both a part of elite event funding next year and it'll be part of our marketing spend next year congratulations to the team on landing this anybody else so steve just i'm just looking at i'm i'm always mesmerized by maps and uh so they start in spain they go down around africa they head out towards australia and then brazil and then from us it from us it that's the last leg back no so for it goes from from actually let me pull the map back up um it's so there we go um it leaves saint pete um it'll go under the skyway and it'll go straight across the atlantic to qashqai in portugal um and then from qashqai it'll go through the mediterranean and actually finish in saudi arabia all all things being sorted out by the end of 27 okay so we're we're not quite the last leg but we're the the transatlantic leg is sort of one of the more iconic ones but uh yes it's um we're probably three quarters of the way through the race at that point so when they get to each of these stops they stay for a period of time they get regrouped they get re you you know yes so there's regrouping there's obviously you know maintenance and whatever needs to happen on the boats but there's also mini races within the event itself so um details are still being worked out but we're we're hoping to get events both in tampa bay um and then also along the beaches we'd love to see these yachts race up and down from you know pasa grill to pier 60 or or something like that so we've been talking to the organizers about you know how we can make this truly a county-wide event and not just downtown st pete so once they've done that then they take off on the race then yes then they'll all leave together and they'll all go under the skyway together and you'll there'll be a great great shot as they all head out to uh to uh the atlantic that's exciting it's gonna be yeah and there will be chances for you know ocean race live it's mostly it's a free like event for people to come check out the boats you know the simulators there's i mean it's it's really a pretty epic experience dylan so the group you mentioned usf the yacht club i assume they're working together on on development too because you're gonna have to develop dock space for this area so yes i i'm probably not the right person to give you the specifics on the dock space but right now the boats uh the plan is by the usf campus down there where the deep water docks are that basin is where the boats will be cool length of stay i'm sorry potential length of stay when they're it so it 12 days is approximately um there's a little bit of wiggle room because you don't know how fast the wind's blowing you don't exactly know when the boats are going to get here but they're they're pretty certain it'll be may may 4th ish to may 16th ish ish bill so is it a continual race do they start at different times from here to continue the race or they all go to the bridge at the same time um i they'll all arrive at different times and i believe they all leave together i have to swat up on my my ocean racing technology i don't know all the ins and outs but that's my understanding it was like a bunch of independent races or is it they are all racing each other but i think it's you know i would equate it to the tour of france where you're each leg you're you have a time and then those times are added together so it goes around fast they'll be leaving together so that'd be quite a scene yes hopefully yes don't quote me on that i was that's what i was wondering it's like if somebody comes in like a half a day ahead of the last place don't they leave in that same way to keep the stagger going i i'm i'm gonna wish that i had somebody from the ocean race here to answer that question yeah yeah bruce a mayor excuse me yeah i just uh i want to applaud this because i think it's it's the aspect of you know the grand prix that that it's not just that we get viewership on fox it's that we get viewership for auto racing all around the world um and valspar will get a lot of that too because there's a lot of golf fans throughout the world will watch it this week and and our designation in clearwater recently is you know one of the top 24 beaches in the world well i think all that's really important we all know that right now it's a very challenging time to draw international tourists with everything going on but that tends to run you know in cycles and when they do come back they tend to spend more than domestic tourism here so but i think the point people sometimes miss is that this kind of event helps domestic tourism as well or identifying our destination as an international recognized place really helps with domestic tourism because now i think it makes our destination more attractive to domestic tourism because they see us at elevated above what they might see other destinations so this is fantastic i think the more of this we can do the better so congratulations to the team thank you yes thank you a lot of people spend a lot of time trying to pull all of these pieces together to make it work but i i would just echo everything you just said i think the 20 the last race three years ago was seen in 107 countries so i mean that exposure alone is fantastic and then you know on top of that there's all of the other ancillary benefits that we will get and i think you know st petersburg area has had a long history of sailing um and you know caleb mentioned you know the sailing tournaments we have here i think this really quite literally puts us on the map as a marquee sailing destination um and i think that that's that's great for the future and what we can build on thank you thank you mayor um anybody else i would just add that from our focus obviously we're focused on the tourism driving awareness of the destination aspect of these the economic impact that this is going to create within the destination but you will hear more this this is more than just a a race to bring people to the destination and a race to watch on tv this is this is the research the sustainability aspects the connections to what's going on down at usf and college of marine sciences the research hub down there this is a pretty incredible event and so you'll hear more about that and it's a it's a really big deal and just to follow up with captain hubbard asking about where the space is going to be well they give you rides in the um indy cars and the two-seaters they're not going to take you across the atlantic on these so if that's what you were getting at but they will let you out in the boat yeah yeah and to your point and so much more there's still so much more to come and so much more benefits so much more excitement the connectivity around the world to our location at a time when connectivity around the world is more and more important um so i'm excited on so many fronts about this i'll just one more thing just building on what brian just said um in in places they've stopped before there's always been an education component there's already been conversations you know outreach to panace county schools i think there's there's so many ways that the tentacles of this event can spread out throughout the county and really have a positive impact agreed i think that's that's great okay thank you very much for a few little things that are going on wow okay well for the sake of time mr chair um i probably put one too many uh presentations on this agenda so i'm going to run through just a couple highlights i have that i want to make you aware of it's all positive news um last week dolly museum they finished in usa today's uh rankings as a top five museum in the united states um and in addition to being recognized for being a top five museum in the united states you hopefully read that they have announced their expansion project and you will be hearing more about that as they roll out additional information so we're excited about our friends down at the dolly southern living they released their the south's best of 2026 and none other than the city of saint petersburg was named as a top 10 best city in the south and they were ranked the number one best city in florida so give it up for our friends in saint pete and in saint pete beach the don cesar was named the number six best classic hotel in the south so they continue to bring home the awards they're not the only ones our team was recently recognized well in berlin at itb the golden city gate awards we received two recognitions uh we got a gold star for the pallet and pallet activation and campaign that we did up in new york and we also received the silver star for our brand video so i want to i want to give a shout out to the team who worked on both of those efforts and um last year we um were included announced that we have four michelin guide restaurants within the destination we get another shot because april 14th they're going to be announcing the 2026 um guide edition so uh keep a lookout for that those are folks who have won awards but we've also got some folks looking to remain uh on top of their categories for certain awards that includes the starlight cruises they're nominated once again they're there to defend their title as the best dinner cruise in the country and so um you can go on and vote for that now through april 13th i believe mr henderson every device every day every device every day i like it but we don't only have one boat on this board that's nationally recognized as a champion we have another one uh to our left defending their tight attempting to defend their title is the best charter boat um from usa today and that's uh hubbard's marina and that will open up march 30th so just after or i guess in in the middle of uh the other one so make sure you vote early and vote often um and i will wrap it up there mr chair okay thank you brian i appreciate it um and it has been a little bit longer a meeting but you know russ i think you made a comment a couple new presentations really good to have them on board here with us today and that's good stuff well my only thought is that this has been a great meeting great announcements and everything and now how are they going to top it for uh may may i don't know that's why they canceled april i guess because they're the guy if he thought this was good just wait until may because may is the budget wow there you go how's that for excitement put it right down yeah all right uh before we wrap it up uh anybody have any comments or thoughts chuck thank you chair um we've uh beaches thank you very much um the bcc um and the county managed to redo our beaches and they're more beautiful than ever so thank you i've seen the pictures up and down um but we've talked about from a federal standpoint over and over again over the years um and how we can get army corps to join back with us and help with this beach renourishment do we have any updates coming up or any dialogues going on yeah and i and i always whenever i talk about this i always commend we go back several years but kathleen peters and her efforts during her her tenure and then brian last year working with our staff and kelly um at our public works group uh working with our local representatives all of our state representatives our federal representatives um and um congresswoman luna has been a stalwart to help us get things really moving up there we've had a lot of positive uh input um but at the same time and more importantly they're receiving that input um really really well there's a new day at the army corps i think they have recognized that they want to put something in place that is more like what we've been doing that shared opportunity but that doesn't change every couple of years when somebody up there has a different interpretation so it's not only taking care of the problem so we have that partner but also making sure in the future we still have that partner and um because you know folks that the army corps come and go and interpretations come and go and we don't want that to happen again this partnership is extremely important and i know that we're not there yet but we're very close it i won't say inking a deal because i don't know exactly what we do with the federal government on that front but to make sure it's secure that funding partnership which is super critical but it couldn't have been couldn't be much more positive than we've had we've had like excitement maybe and then we back off and then a little and then we back off and so this time we really feel that we're right there um and everybody up there is speaking from the same thing uh brian and i think chris shear commissioner shear and commissioner um uh scott both went up on a naco trip to washington and met with a lot of the army corps upper upper brass and they were embracing all of this so very encouraging i don't know that we have anything finalized yet but encouraging we'll say so it's hard to meet the excitement of today's meeting in the ocean race but we'll stand by and hopefully that'll yeah that'll be our next big maybe maybe may no i don't know that'd be a lot to ask for but maybe you never know we always move it moves in slow anybody else have any final thoughts before we wrap it up all right well we'll see you all back here in may and this meeting is adjourned