Tourist Development Council meeting on 12/17/2025 - Dec 17, 2025

everybody. How y'all doing? On this beautiful Wednesday morning in December, I'd like to call the December 17th meeting of the Pinellas County Tourist Development Council to order. Why don't we start with some introductions? Chuck, you want to lead us off? Good morning. Thank you,

Mr. Chair. Chuck Prather, the Birchwood, St. Petersburg. Good morning. Happy holidays,

everyone. Tricia Rodriguez with the Travel Expo Tourist and the Clearwater Ferry. Good morning,

everyone. Dave Gattis, Mayor of Bel Air Beach, representing the Barrier Islands. Good morning.

Amanda Coffey with the County Attorney's Office. Brian Scott, Pinellas County Commission.

Brian Lowak, Visit St. Pete, Clearwater. Good morning. Russ Kimball, Sharon Sankey, Clearwater Beach. Dave Eggers, Pinellas County Commission. Good morning, Bruce Rector,

Mayor of the City of Clearwater. Good morning. Happy holidays to all Doreen Moore, Travel Resort

Services, TRS Vacation Rentals. Good morning, Clyde Smith, Bill Maher Beach Resort on Treasure Island.

All right. Well, welcome, everybody. Thank you. All right. I'm going to save my comments to the end, so we'll move on to approval of the minutes of the November 19th meeting. Motion to approve the minutes. Second. Motion by Mayor Rector. Second by, I believe that was Doreen. Okay. Do we have any comments, discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Passed unanimously. Thank you. Do we have any members of the public that would wish to speak? Okay. Don't see any mad rush to the podium, so we'll close public comment, and then we'll move on to presentations. And,

Mr. Chair, before we start on the department updates, I just want to say, you know, the team does, we meet once a month, and we talk about some of the things that we have going on. But throughout the year, it's the team that's in the back of the room, but also the team that's not in the back of the room, the team that's out on the road and back at the office that make the things we do happen and bring it to reality. So I, the way this is formatted is we want to highlight the team members that are doing that and talk about some of those, highlight some of those accomplishments from the, this previous year, but then also talk about what some of their focuses are going to be for 2026 in the year ahead. So that's what, what the intent was with this presentation that you're about to see. And I believe it's, the first one's marketing, so we can have the marketing folks come

on up. Morning. Good morning. Good morning. I'm Katie Bridges, Director of Advertising and Promotions at Visit St. Pete Clearwater. And I will quickly highlight for you four key accomplishments from FY25 and three priorities guiding our work in FY26. FY25, we launched two strategic campaigns in FY25. Still Shining was our immediate response to the storms, focused on reassurance, resilience, and confidence in the destination. That was followed by Ampersand, which we launched in January, which intentionally broadened our story, showcasing that St. Pete Clearwater was incredible beaches and so much more from our beach, from our arts to our sports, to our nature, all of those experiences combined. Together, these campaigns allowed us to stay responsive while continuing to evolve our brand. Second, we developed strategic Tampa Bay sports partnerships, high impact partnerships with all of Tampa Bay's professional sports teams, the Tampa Bay Lightning, Tampa Bay Rays, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And we hold official beaches designation with all of these teams. And this gives us year-round exposure across broadcast, digital, in-venue, and experiential platforms here in the Tampa Bay market, our top feeder market. Third, our Gulf to Bay Destination magazine. So we successfully launched in May our 2025 to 26 Gulf to Bay destination magazine. Over 100 pages of curated content, 500,000 print copies distributed to our key feeder markets this fall. And it's also popular for requests by mail. And we're doing social advertising to promote that. This year, our map came with stickers, which was a huge hit with our readers. We have suggested itineraries, annual events guide. And this fall, we also released a companion podcast, our must-dos and hidden gems to go with it. And we celebrated our 2024 to 25 magazine for being recognized at the U.S. Travel Association's ESTO Conference for Excellence in Print Marketing. And lastly, we developed a new role within my department, our business development marketing manager. This position bridges marketing with meetings and conferences, the Sports Commission, Film Commission, and Leisure Travel. It improves our coordination, project delivery, our booth activations, and content alignment between marketing and our business development. We promoted internally, which really helped us continue that continuity and keep things moving. Next, I'll touch on our 2026 priorities. As you know, we just have a new ad agency on board. They came on board in September. And so with them, we just launched a revamped ampersand campaign with some refreshed creative. And later this year, we will have a new brand campaign. The focus continues to be on differentiation, highlighting our beaches, beaches, but also our culture, our neighborhoods, and what sets us apart as America's favorite beaches. Secondly, we will expand our social influencer and content production capabilities, really expanding on our influencers to reach that younger and high-value audience that will help with our storytelling year-round. And lastly, with Envisionit's capabilities and their innovation, we will have a smarter technology and measurement for precision marketing. So really reaching that traveler who has the highest propensity to travel here so that we aren't wasting any impressions. We are reaching the most qualified audience to get them to travel to St. Pete Clearwater. And that's my presentation. If you guys have any questions, happy to answer.

Questions? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Hi, Katie. Good morning. So we're going to focus on differentiation in 2026 and move on to a new campaign. Do we know, is it first quarter, March, April? When do we get a presentation or get a little peek on what the new one is?

Sure. We are aiming for early summer, so maybe May, June, of bringing out that new creative.

And the ampersand campaign has been fantastic. So we'll just keep that rolling until we're ready to roll the next iteration out?

Yes, correct. But we did, just with some feedback that we had on it with Envisionit and also that we've been hearing, we did refresh it a little bit just to keep, you know, changing up some of the headlines and how we treat the headlines, just to keep it fresh for this new year.

Can't wait to see the new campaign.

I'd like to ask a question. I think this is where the question is supposed to go, but we do a co-op program where we send out to industry for co-op marketing and advertising and all. Can you tell us a little bit how successful it's been and how many hotels and all have participated other than the one magazine? Is it successful or are there things we should be doing different?

Sure, that's a great question. So we kind of divide our co-op into two parts. One is our owned opportunities, so advertising on our website and also within our emails. And then we also have our kind of paid opportunities where we go out and purchase media and involve partners in that. I would say we have about 30 destination partners that participate in one, you know, either magazine, either in our website or emails or in our paid opportunities. I think this year probably the participation was a little bit less. I think coming out of the storms, people were partners weren't quite sure where to invest their money. So we just met with Envision It. They have are putting together our marketing plan for next year. And we've talked to them about how to involve co-op with that as well. So in the new year, we will roll out more of those opportunities and really talk with partners about what works for them.

Just a comment. And I know they're reasonable when you do invest in those opportunities for industry and all. And I think it's so important if you can work with a new agency to really try and step up that participation, especially in times when business is just borderline, some areas are down, some areas are up a little bit. But it's no more than even. And what we can do with new products and different brands of products like luxury and all in the economy, that we can help make that happen more. So it's just a comment I have. And it's the same thing with the shows and everything. The more we can get industry, the more we need – we got them on our side to where their tax collections go. Thank you. Other questions?

No? Thank you. Thank you.

This is fun. I get to show you guys the different side of what I do for the destination. So, you know, I, as the kind of director of digital, oversee a lot of our social product, our website, and other digital platforms in addition to the data that sort of informs and directs our strategic decision making. So, you know, it's a mixture of hats, and it brings me a lot of joy to be a part and be involved in a number of these opportunities. But behind me is a team, Jimmy Bailey on my social and content team, and Didi on my data team. And we're all kind of working in tandem to do some of these initiatives. So just a few of the kind of highlights of the previous year that we got involved in. And one was we had a partnership with Vox Media that included content and digital marketing across a number of large-followed publications, including Thrillist, New York Magazine, Splendid Table, Eater, Vox Explained. And so what these produced for us was a number of pieces of really unique pieces of content that drove a lot of attention and conversation around our destination. In the Vox Explained world, we had a piece produced that went into the science behind why we're one of the sunniest destinations on Earth, and it was very thoughtful. It was a very interesting way to be able to kind of get our message out there and produce content. We also had two restaurant features in Eater, which is a YouTube channel that has millions of followers and generates millions of views for every video it produces. And we were able to feature a couple of our prized award-winning restaurants in the area. Across kind of the whole partnership within Vox, we had, you know, over 15 million impressions and over 3 million views towards that content. So it was really a great partnership. It was an instance of us really working with a premium publisher to get a lot out of, you know, a relationship and also develop, you know, a unique connection to a highly read, you know, series of content publications. Another opportunity that we really got to work and kind of magnify some of the work that my colleagues in the PR and communications department did with Michelin, you know, we highlighted a lot of our restaurants through this sort of saver social series. So this really took our dining scene in focus, and we kind of put a spotlight on the local chefs and the local restaurants in our area, and we took viewers kind of behind the scenes to see these chefs at work and the pieces of, you know, culinary artwork that they produce. This generated for us over 2 million impressions, and we had nearly 180,000 engagements across all of our media platforms. Another win for us was a relationship we built with a local influencer called Sarah Finney, and this opportunity highlighted a number of the kind of niche and hidden places to stay in our destination. So really trying to highlight some of these places that, you know, during this period where we really need visitation, we could take this unique perspective and have this partnership with a built-in audience, create this custom content that we collaborated on her channel, on our channel, and it really drove some great attention to these different local places. We were working with Sarah again this year. This time we're highlighting more of the communities and everything you can do in a day in Clearwater Beach, in a day in St. Pete Beach, in a day in Dunedin, and all these different communities around our destination. And really this is kind of the tip of the spear where we hope to generate a lot more kind of these direct relationships, relationships with some of these regional content creators that are really breaking through kind of the noise on social media. And then finally, kind of one of the last social series that I really wanted to bring to your attention that we did this year was Still Shining. So immediately after the storms, you know, Jimmy and Bailey went out there and went to these different local businesses to let people know that, you know, we were still open, we were still operating, we would love to have you guys come and visit. And, you know, we tried to do this in an effort to really get tourism back on its feet as quickly as possible in our destination. So this series also generated 5.3 impressions and, you know, over 330,000 engagements. So we're, you know, happy with these numbers. We hope to do kind of a lot more of it in the coming years. And speaking of that, these are kind of the overlying headlines of, you know, what we're trying to accomplish in 2026. One is that we really want to, we feel like we're at a pivotal moment with our data. We have a lot of different sources of data that we collect. We use this different data sources in targeted marketing, but I think that there's a lot more of a platform for all of this data and putting it into a presentable and displayable format. So we hope to really improve the Symphony product, which is our online dashboard. If you go to partners.visitsandpeteclearwater.com, our data is available in this platform. We hope to really improve it even further, integrating hopefully some of our visitor profile data and other sources like that to really have, you know, that available to the public. But then also, you know, we're working on a consumer data platform that we want to leverage across not just, you know, certain marketing channels, but as many marketing channels as possible. And that takes some time to build and takes, you know, some time to make sure that the dots are connecting. But this is something that we're really eager to look forward to doing. And there's a number of reasons for that. One is that we are going to be reimagining our Visit St. Pete Clearwater website. So we're going through a website redesign project with Miles Partnership. We're really planning not for the website of 2026, but the website of, you know, 2029 and 20-2030 and understanding how visitor behavior across the Internet is really going to change and shift. And, you know, what those needs look like is what we're trying to present in a visitor experience so people can easily find the information that they need and not have to click around a website and only get half of what they want. And then the last product is email. We think that there's a great opportunity for, you know, delivering content directly to people through email. So really, you know, investing time to understand a more personalized plan to deliver emails that feature content that people are interested in, where they are kind of in the lifecycle funnel. So if they're, you know, more interested in more of the kind of broad awareness of our destination and who we are, you know, serving content at that level. If they're more into a trip planning stage where they, you know, are more decided on our destination but they need to kind of flesh out their trip and plan, delivering a more personalized email to that kind of stage of the funnel. So those are kind of the three large goals for us in the digital world. It's ambitious to take on, you know, email, website, and data improvement all at once, but that's really what we hope to accomplish in 2026. Any questions for me? Questions?

Morning, Jason. Okay. Jason Latimer, Director of Public Relations. Just kind of looking back a little bit, I thought we did a really good job of building up our local media base around after the storms especially, but then looking ahead to 727 Day and just in general all the events that we have here, really trying to ingrain ourselves with the local media. And then in addition to that, elevating around the conversation around our dining. Off the Michelin announcement, we really felt this was our opportunity to really get into that and dive in more and more, like Eddie was saying, with some of our own social content but also externally with the media and creating more conversation. We felt really good about where that landed this year and what we can continue to build on. And I know that we've seen some numbers increase. I don't want to get ahead of Eddie's data. But, you know, when you start to see why folks are coming and that they're really coming here to eat, which is... Helps us drive business to a lot of other places in the destination. And then just continuing to expand ourselves out. Meeting people face-to-face. We want to have those conversations as much as possible. It's much more impactful to have folks either come visit us or go to them. But if we can get them on the ground, that's where we want to be. So making sure that we hit all of our key markets. Last year we did that where we got our nine international markets, especially the ones that have the direct flights. We got journalists here from those locations. And then looking ahead, just continuing on what I was saying about the local outreach, we really want to continue to dive into Florida in general. That is our largest visitation market. So how can we go beyond just the Tampa Bay market and have that same impact, specifically around some of the events that are going to be taking place here? And also not necessarily travel-focused in that outreach, but interest-focused. And I think that's where we bring in with Envision It and what their planning is and aligning both internally and with Envision It on what those pillars and what those demographics are and where we need to speak to people and meet them where they're reading or hearing or seeing about us is going to be super important for 2026. And then expanding that content creator strategy, like Eddie and Katie were both touching on, that seems to be where folks are finding a lot of their inspiration and getting them into the funnel. So where can we really tailor that message as much as possible? And then want to be as big and bold as we can and try to get as much national exposure as we kind of broaden that circle.

Just a comment. I want to thank you for your Monday update. I just think it's a great idea. I read it, and I think that I pass it on to people for certain parts of it or whatever. But I think that constant every week update is so good for industry and for me as a board member and everything. So thank you. Well done.

Thank you. Yeah, and again, that's an opportunity for us to kind of make sure you guys know what we're doing on a regular basis, the entire organization. So thank you.

Yeah, I want to ditto that. It's helpful for municipalities too, City of Clearwater, and I'm sure other cities too. It's really helpful to us. Great.

Thank you, guys. Jason, I've got a quick question. So how do we, the Michelin Guide program, how do we expand upon that? Was that a four-year deal we did with Michelin?

Two.

So we've got, this is, we're going into our second year?

Yes, sir. Okay. I don't think it's an easy question. It's, you know, we invested in that program because of the name Michelin, and we've seen that pay off. I think it's where you can then take that and get those mentions beyond that so that people recognize that you have that recognition. James Beard is another place that we've ventured into. James Beard Foundation, we did the event in July. We actually have two events upcoming in the spring here in February and March in New York City and Philly, respectively. So it's continuing just to have that conversation and keep us elevated where we can lean on the fact that we are Michelin Guide. I wear my pen everywhere. I don't know if you can't see it from there, but when you're up close, I try to wear it everywhere that I can so that people associate St. Pete Clearwater with Michelin Guide. And then as you can add in and layer in the fact that, you know, that we were one of the top food destinations in food and wine and that we were, you know, in the James Beard Foundation cooking, those are all collectively together, how you continue to talk about the dining scene. And then the chefs here are awesome to work with, and they're super excited about the fact that we have this, and they want to participate in as many programs as we can put forward to them.

Do we have any idea what a renewal with that program looks like? I mean, we're in our second year, but do we have any – to stay in the program, does the price go up after that, or is there additional add-ons?

That's a great question, Commissioner.

I mean, what does the future look like?

We shall have to get back to you on that one. Yeah, we haven't – those conversations have not started yet. It seems like in springtime they're going to announce the next iteration of Florida Michelin Guide recognition. So I think after that then we'll kind of see what that next year looks like.

Any other questions, comments for Jason?

All right. Thank you, guys.

Hello, everyone. I'm Kylie Diaz, Vice President of Community Engagement with Visit St. Pete Clearwater. In 2025, community engagement – and I want to just say thank you to everyone in this room because everyone worked very hard to get over $26 million back out into our community from those TDC dollars back at work for five deserving projects. And we were really excited to do that, and we're excited to get ready for the 2026 program. It just creates more reason for our visitors and our residents to enjoy our destination. So thank you to everyone here. Our Chambers and Visitors Center. After Hurricanes Milton and Helene, we had to quickly pivot with our chamber funding agreements. So thank you to Amanda Coffey for helping with that and getting those back out really quick. And that was just to allow for those impacted visitor centers to use some of those dollars towards their visitor centers that were flooded and damaged in the storms. In addition, we also installed new measurement technology in all of the chambers. So now if you're a visitor and you walk through those doors, you are going to be measured, and we'll be looking at those numbers so we have actual numbers on who's coming in and out of those visitor centers. Community engagement. So you have surely seen Oliver Kugler, the community engagement manager out in the community, out and about, either him or myself. And we're deeply passionate about this destination and what we do. And so as you can see there in that top picture, that is Oliver conducting a very popular golf-to-bay training at our facility. Those happen a few times a year. We try to do them quarterly, and they're very well attended. We also have our CEO coffee chat, which has been extremely popular. People love getting together with Brian Loak, our CEO, and engaging with him and having coffee. And it's very casual. It's just literally there talking to each other, and it's a great engagement. And our St. Pete College and FRLA course that we created, it is a hospitality and tourism course, and that has been gaining momentum. And all of the students who take that course just really enjoy it, and they're really getting an idea of hospitality from a different level. Golf-to-bay destination trainings. And then we had a focus group with partners on upcoming meaningful travel initiatives. What does that mean? I'll actually talk about that a little bit more in our next slide, but you can see that in the second picture focus there. So we did do a focus group on meaningful travel at St. Pete Collaborative Labs, and some of the work that came out of that, you'll see there in that second picture. So after today, if you go back and take a look, you'll see at some of the things that we talked about. Our capital project funding program. So for 2026, we really did work hard to improve those guidelines. We wanted to allow for increased transparency, prioritization, and ROI. We also wanted to quicken the process a little bit and make it a little bit more streamlined so we can get through it a little bit faster. And we also, as everyone here knows, we added beach park facilities to apply for this upcoming cycle. So we expect that to launch in the spring, so please keep an eye out for that. We are working on a visitor welcome center pilot program. We will be branding a county-wide visitor center at a critical gateway to our destination. This facility will be available to millions of vehicles traveling the Courtney Campbell Causeway, bikers along the Pinellas Trail, and community members living in and around the area. The center will educate visitors on offerings throughout Pinellas and connect people to other visitor centers and communities around our county. Lastly, I wanted to talk about our partnership with Tourism Care. So this goes back to the meaningful travel focus group that we had with our partners in the previous slide. We did form a partnership with Tourism Cares, and this is really to highlight more meaningful travel experiences. I know Eddie touched on it earlier with some of the more unique things about our destination, and that's exactly what this is. So we've come together with our partners, and we would like to offer more meaningful experiences to the visitors coming into the destination. So what that means is you might want to take a cooking class at the Dunedin Fine Arts Museum. You might want to walk along the Indian Cultural Heritage Trail and Whedon Island Preserve. You might want to do a volunteer opportunity with Keep Pinellas Beautiful. So we want to make sure that our visitors understand what those experiences are, and they can enjoy them while they're here and do them. And they'll go home, and hopefully they'll return because of those experiences because they had a really great time doing them, and then they felt like they gave back to the community. We also, alongside those efforts, we are working towards making our destination more accessible everywhere you guys go, and I'm sure you keep hearing this word, accessibility, and what that means. And I think for me, at least, I'm a little bit embarrassed to admit that after 20 years in hospitality, I didn't know everything. And so we have really worked hard and partnered with Wheel of the World, and we're going to be extending out a training to all of our partners. It'll be available to everyone. It's the same training that I did, and I learned a lot from it. And we'll also be working with our hoteliers and restaurants to make sure that they understand how to welcome people with accessibility needs. And it's not just people in wheelchairs. This is people that are deaf, blind, maybe are neurodivergent. We just want to make sure that everyone understands that those opportunities are available to them, and we can get our frontline staff trained and ready to welcome those visitors. Does anyone have any questions? Yep.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Welcome Center with the pilot program, where is it going to be located? Are we announced yet, or is it still a secret?

We're still working on it, but it is in the Clearwater area.

Okay. We'll wait for that announcement. We're very excited. And I applaud your efforts on the teaching us as a group of restaurateurs or hoteliers or anybody in the hospitality industry about the needs to be educated on accessibility. So, thanks for number three. I appreciate that. Looking forward to taking that class.

Yeah.

And that's available to all of you as well. So, we will be rolling that out.

I just have a comment. I just wanted to thank you for the community engagement that you've had. This has never been better, and I look forward to it getting better. Thank you. Thank you.

Anybody else? Thanks, Kelly. Yeah. Sorry. Oh, Clyde. Sorry, Clyde.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. From Tourists with Love, where are we at with that campaign? I know recently with the heightened density questions on Treasure Island, I went to the City Commission and talked about where all these tax dollars go and the nourishment and the events and all of that. But I haven't seen much from that campaign recently.

Yeah. Thank you for that question. And we are still moving forward with those efforts from Visitors with Love. And with our new agency, we will be working on the messaging on that, and that is still at the forefront because we really want to make sure that our residents understand how our visitors give back through ways like the capital funding and some other areas. So, we are still moving forward strong with that, and I think you'll see potentially some new messaging with our new agency coming out.

Great. I think it's real important.

Yeah.

And, Clyde, I would just add to that one. And that is a priority of mine as we move into this upcoming year is continuing to educate not only the residents but also municipalities, elected officials, who on – I think we do a good job, but we showcase top-line numbers. There's a lot of focus on the TDT collection each month and annually, but there are so many more benefits and ways that communities and residents and businesses are benefiting from tourism throughout Pinellas County. You know, the property taxes paid by tourism and hospitality properties, the sales tax, the penny for Pinellas that cities are using for capital projects that residents enjoy. The list goes on, and it's going to be a priority of mine to have those conversations throughout the community this year.

Thank you.

Thanks, Kylie. Morning. Morning.

Craig Campbell, Director of Community and Brand Engagement for Visit St. Pete Clearwater. First off, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays. Got to give a shout-out to the Brand Activations team, Brandy Bolden, Jake Herman, Daniela Slater. Just work tirelessly, and pretty much every weekend of the year, you'll see them out and about in the community spreading the VSPC messaging to locals and visitors alike. But happy to be here and provide a quick recap on our fiscal year 25. So first and foremost, we executed nine strategic and high-impact activations in London, New York, two in Atlanta, two in Philadelphia, one in Cincinnati, and two in Orlando. So Jason, Eddie, Katie mentioned the Michelin Guide, our foodie destination. Well, we took that on the road to the Taste of London, to the New York Wine and Food Festival, the Atlanta Wine and Food Festival, among others. So really taking that strategic messaging and hitting these strategic markets. On top of that, the team executed 56 local events. So again, every weekend, we're out and about in the community with a variety of assets. You can see some of the photos there, our trussing, which has our branding up in a very prominent way there. We have some fun photo op opportunities with the Adirondack chair, the concert stage. We have a new giant beach bucket this year, which has been a hit at events as well. So just really bringing out the toys and the fun and making it a great vibe and representing the brand. We also integrated with a number of different partners throughout the year. So Krabby Bills joined us in Atlanta for the Food and Wine Festival, Clearwater Marine Aquarium, Florida Rama, Pi, Creative Pinellas, the Dali Museum, among several others. But it's great to work with our local partners, integrate with them, have them join us in our booths, both locally and at these out-of-market opportunities as well. As far as this next coming year, so out-of-market, we want to continue to focus on some of these strategic markets. I'm excited to work with the marketing team and our new agency on identifying where we're going to be, what we're going to do, how we're going to execute, what our messaging is. It's all a big Rubik's Cube, and it's fun to kind of figure out the puzzle and collaborate with those teams. Elite EventWise continue to run that program. We have over 45 events in the program this year, and we've been collecting data. Thank you, Kylie and Eddie, for working with a number of different partners and tools and building this pilot program from the data standpoint to really measure and identify the impacts of those 45-plus events in the program. So we're hoping to kind of button up that pilot program and have more to share on that front soon. And then our brand ambassador and internship program, so two extremely popular programs. We have over 50 volunteers that, again, we can't be in 56 local events without a large volunteer base, so they really help us deliver those key message and points to locals and visitors. And then you've heard from our interns over the past few months, just have a really great program. Again, shout-out to Brandy Bolden. She and I created that program a few years ago, and it's just really taken off, and it's awesome to support the whole organization and give those students just a really great experience. Any questions?

No? Okay, awesome. Meetings.

I just wanted to say they did a great job at setting ovations, really very present right as you walked in there, and Brandy and her team just really did a great job greeting everyone. There were tens of thousands of people there, so well-represented.

I'm sorry, Clyde, I keep missing you over there. Just throw something at me, okay?

Good morning. I'm Stephanie Alexander-Priarchus. I am the director of meetings and conferences at Visit St. Pete Clearwater. We had a good fiscal year for 2025, but in order for us to increase our production for 2026, we're going to be utilizing the data that's available to us, as well as the feedback from our hotel partners, to implement very aggressive incentives, especially in the year for the year, and rework our client incentive program. And with doing this, we can also share any hotel specials with our third-party meeting planners, especially with Prestige Global Meeting Source. It is a third-party meeting planner that we've been working with since April, and as well as having their very large clients, they also specialize in small groups, and again, in the year for the year. We're going to be expanding and deepening the planner relationships, measure new contacts and engagements with meeting planners and corporate buyers. And we'll also be benchmarking our competitor destination activity to stay ahead of market trends. We also hosted an awful lot of site visits and farms this year, which is very popular, and once we bring people down to our destination, they want to host their meetings here because we have such a fabulous and amazing destination. We're going to be increasing that for 2026, and doing more sites and more farm trips, especially because we now have a full team at the meetings and conferences department. And by doing this as well, we're going to be increasing partnership activity with our hotels, venues, vendors, and tourism partners to ensure comprehensive site and destination support. Any questions?

Yeah, how do the numbers for 2025 compare to prior years? Are we growing these meetings and conferences?

We were slightly down in 2025 because we had such large group activity in September and October of last year.

I've got a suggestion or thought as I sit here. We just heard about the Michelin Awards and everything that we're emphasizing, food and all that, which I think is awesome. We took it to trade shows and stuff like that. Maybe we could also feature the events at meetings and the food events. For example, we do beach parties for a lot of groups and everything. I think we do a great job. And you can spend this amount or you can spend this amount. And maybe we can start featuring more of the food events or the events that are going on within this and maybe do take that with us on shows or something like that. I just thought about that as we were saying, because I think that food program now that you're just getting going one year into is awesome. So maybe we can work into the meeting side. I mean, it's 50 percent of our business these days, and it's very important to us. And then we have events outside the hotel where they go. So it's very important, and I know the mayor is very fortunate that we are, that he comes to visit them and encourage them to do an extra day or whatever it is. So that's where the events can help maybe do something also.

We're already in talks with other departments to be really focused on that, too, for next year.

I do have one other thing. And so looking ahead is really important to me, and I'm just, you know, I was sharing Sankey last night with Russ and their hospitality industry workers, their Christmas celebration. But I know we've relied in the county a lot on leisure tourism for so many years, and it's been very good to us. We have one of the most beautiful beaches in the world all throughout Pinellas County. But this purpose-driven travel for meetings and conferences and sporting events and all that I think is really important because those folks are going to come, whether we have red tide or we don't have red tide, they're going to be here for their meeting. So looking ahead, the last part on there, how do you see the market for this? Do you think we have a lot of opportunity in this area over the coming year, or how would you kind of forecast what our opportunities are?

Well, we're already looking very strong for 2026. As you can see, we've almost got 100,000 room nights already on the books, and we're looking to increase that with the aggressive incentive program that we're going to have. We're also going to be targeting certain markets, too. Experiences are becoming very popular within the meetings. They do want to, you know, as well as having their meeting here, they want to experience different things within the destination, and we have that to offer. So we'll be focusing heavily on that, too.

Thank you.

Thanks, Stephanie. Good morning, Andrea.

Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here this morning. Andrea Gabriel, Director of International Legion Sales for Visa St. Pete Clearwater. Sorry. Here you go. And I'm excited to share with you this morning a brief highlight of the fiscal year 25, our work, and our efforts throughout our crucial international markets, and the importance of the crucial international markets to our destination. Let's start with the global trade engagement. In negotiation with our biggest clients, the two operators, vacation, holidays, the travel agents, sometimes in collaboration with our partners, Visa Florida and Brand USA, we have conducted 78 destination training pieces, and we trained over 5,000 travel trade professionals. What is the importance of having the training pieces? It's the time that we have to connect with our clients one-on-one, and the time that we have to update them in the destination offerings. We also are in negotiation now with the two operators, the OTAs and the airlines representative. We conducted 27 formalization trips to our destination. We welcomed 184 travel trade professionals. And the importance of welcoming them to our destination is to showcase our destination offerings, to have one-on-one time with our clients, and very important, too, to really showcase the destination experience firsthand and in hope that they can take those experiences and transform in future bookings to our area. Next, co-op marketing can impact. We have negotiated with our biggest clients throughout, across the international markets, the two operators, the OTAs, and the wholesalers, and we have conducted some co-op marketing programs, and we have reached and generated over 15,000 room nights. I would like to highlight the importance of maintaining the relationship of our biggest clients. If we have the ability not only to proceed with those co-op marketing campaigns, destination packages, landing pages, but it's the opportunity that we have to receive firsthand from our clients the travel trends, the travel sentiments, to negotiate new partnerships with them in coming up years, and also what's working, what's not, that we can make some changes and adjustments. Finally, international sales and trade outreach. We know the importance of conducting some sales missions in our crucial international markets and maintaining our brand awareness. In fiscal year 25, we have conducted three sales missions, Brazil, UK, and Mexico. I did add the German mission, but it actually counts towards the fiscal year 26. The importance of conducting sales missions in our crucial international markets, it's a time that we have to conduct meetings one-on-one with our biggest clients, but most important to let them know how important the international markets are and how important the organizations are to our destination. Throughout our sales missions, we conducted one-on-one meetings with our clients. We had a time to carry some conversations about travel trends and travel updates and travel sentiments, but we also connect with the airlines to best understand and support the air connectivity to our destination. We look forward to continue to host some sales missions in this current fiscal year. And for fiscal year 26, our focus remains on the engagement and relationship of our biggest clients, the two operators, the OTAs, the bed banks, the travel advisors, in conjunction with our partners, Brind USA, Visa, Florida, and our Florida DMOs. I wanted to also to share a second really important fact for the focus of fiscal year 26, is the enhancing our destination training sessions. We want to enhance their sessions with some exciting experiences. And I look forward to continue to work the fiscal year 26 and international markets, how important they are to our destination, especially the shoulder months to our destination. I would like to thank you now for the opportunity to share with you a brief overview of the fiscal year 25. Thank you for your continued support. Thank you to our partners. Thank you to our team. And please, if you have any questions for me.

Questions for Andrea?

Thank you. It's really more for Brian. I know when I see the folks at the pier, for instance, more and more they're speaking a language that I don't understand. And it's not necessarily one language or another. It's all kinds of languages. So our international tourist, at least in my opinion, is growing. So as we turn the new year and you begin working on budgets for 2026, do you see a need for international – is their budget going to be flat? Are you going to bring it up? How do you feel about the budget, a little foresight for this department?

We're very bullish on our international markets and our investments in our international markets, specifically our key international markets. And we know that we have seen a trend in the last five years of increases, and we continue to see that trend in certain markets. I think one of the best things we have going for us, in addition to having the best destination in the world, is our airports, right? And they continue to be aggressive with their going out and getting new direct routes to new markets, opening new markets, and specifically markets that are feeder markets and connecting markets in the global network of air travel. So we're going to continue to work very closely with our friends at the airport, our friends at Visit Tampa Bay, and we're going to be aggressive on the international side.

Thank you. And as a follow-up, you do a great job of once a year, however often we get the folks from Tampa International and PAI to come in and talk about potential new routes or announced new routes. And I just would enjoy hearing that presentation again in 2026. Thank you.

You'll see our friends from the airports in the beginning of 2026.

Thank you very much. Thanks, Andrea.

Good morning. I'm Rosemary Payne. I'm the Director of Leisure Travel U.S. and Canada. So I'm going to talk about a few highlights from our fiscal year 25 for the Leisure Travel Department. It started out with a trade show activation that was very successful. We had this at IPW in Chicago, and we hosted over 60 clients and tour operators that came to this activation. And the activation was celebrating Pier 60 and our sunset celebration, and we kind of leaned into the arts and culture scene that was happening in our – that's currently happening in our destination. So it was a great opportunity to talk with clients outside of the appointments. And sometimes that's important because you never know when an idea is going to come up. One did at this show. We had an opportunity to meet with visit Florida and Porter Airlines and talk about a co-op opportunity. I'm really excited that that is launching right now in Canada as a direct result of this activation. Also, our co-op room nights this year went up. We were really excited about that. These are numbers just out of the U.S. and Canada with Brand USA across their Canadian initiatives and hotel beds, which was both U.S. and Canada, and additional international markets. So to see those numbers grow after a very challenging fall that we had after the storms was really wonderful to see. And then we also had great partner participation this year in our sales initiatives on the leisure travel side. We had 19 initiatives where we took partners with us. We took them to trade shows like the travel and adventure shows. We took them to IPW. We collaborated with our meetings and events team to have joint sales missions with partners in key cities like Minneapolis and Chicago and Ohio. And looking forward to some of our priorities in 26, one priority is research. We have access to some great research on leisure travelers that are coming to our destination. How can we better leverage that, use it differently so that we can make more strategic decisions on our sales initiatives in the U.S. and in Canada? Also, another priority is developing new partnerships. We've identified some key travel management companies that are bringing business to the destination, travel agent networks that are also bringing business. How can we build on those partnerships and grow our base of leisure travelers from across the U.S. and Canada? And finally, Andrea mentioned it, training is so important both internationally and domestically. And so we really want to make sure that we have platforms that engage and inspire the travel trade to be our partners in selling the destination. We also know how important FAM and educational visits are to the area. These people go back as part of our sales force. So, again, we're going to be leaning into more of those educational FAMs. And then we're also going to look for new opportunities to educate and inspire our tours and partners right here in Pinellas County so that they can learn to work better with some of our international and our domestic tour operators and build their business even stronger. So that's my presentation. Thank you very much. Happy holidays to everyone. Are there any questions?

Thank you.

Good morning. Caleb Peterson, director of the Sports Commission. Overall, in 2025, we saw a slight dip from 24. Ultimately, it was a result of the hurricane. And then we did see some slight dips in participation from our event organizers for teams. I think that was felt across the industry. And sports was not immune to it. As a result of, you know, some of the loss of events due to the hurricane, we tried to repurpose some of those funds to go towards sponsorships at trade shows, really to communicate the message that we were open for business and ready for events when they were ready to come back to our community. As we move forward into 2026, we've got some new developments and some renovations that we're excited about. The Sprouse Horizon Sports Park is going to be opening up in February in Pinellas Park. The Long Center just went through or is going through a renovation to revamp their pool. The pool in Largo just went through a renovation, and they opened up this past year, working with them to find some events there. And then Tropicana Field has a new roof. So we're excited to work with them to go after some large-scale events. That continues to be a focus of ours, finding those Royal Rumbles, those Savannah Banana types of events that we can bring into the community. And then kind of finally, one of the strategies that we're working with this year is to get more in our community and working with some of the local companies that have an interest to get involved with these large-scale events. We're finding that to be successful, you really need a community to get behind and support these events. It can't just be us and, you know, the venues. It's got to be a full community buy-in. So short and sweet. Any questions for me?

I'd like to ask the question is, in the last few years, our funding that we have invested in, development of new programs at baseball parks and different areas in Clearwater and Pinellas Park, as you just brought up, and all. Can somebody give us a toy town? I think there's a report out that I haven't seen. Is there any updates of time-wise that we can talk about here a little bit to say it's two years from now or one year from now or whatever, like time-wise and where we're going or don't ask until next meeting?

So we need to do some additional studies, essentially, before we can get a full plan from the developer that we're working with. That process is probably going to take through the end of this fiscal year, and then once we get through that process, we'll have a better idea of what that timeline is going to be. So it's really up in the air. It's probably not going to be within the next two years that that happens, but we're continuing to work on that.

And just to add to that, Mr. Kimball, one of the things I'll report on is actually last night the commission approved funding of TDT dollars to go towards that subsurface investigation to determine those data gaps that exist on that site. And so we're going to go ahead and start that work after the first of the year. I'll come, and maybe I can present to this board the same presentation that I provided to the BCC to show that timeline and what needs to still occur and what that looks like, how the grant from the state plays into that, how the board's actions last night play into that, and then where we're going from here.

Thank you. And the other part is I think we just approved the Clearwater baseball. Eddie Moore finally came through the county commission. Is there a timeline on that period that you know of, and maybe the marina, a couple things like that, if we can ask the people in here that are involved in that, what the time period is, so we expect more bookings in that type of a venue?

I can tell you. So essentially the plan is going to be after the ESPN event in 2027, the plan is to break ground, do the renovation project, and have it open back up, ready to go for ESPN event in 2028. So they're working with an architect right now to get the drawings done, and then they're also, I believe they're out for RFP to identify who the construction company is going to be. So they're working on it. They want to have it all ready to go so that, you know, the ESPN event is the prime event in the softball world for us, so we don't want to impact that. So we're just trying to have everything lined up so we're shovel ready once that event finishes in 2027.

Yeah, the marina is progressing nicely. I believe the west end, phase one, will be done here in the next month or two, and then the complete project here by the summer. I anticipate we'll probably be discussing that here in the next couple months.

I got a question too, Caleb. So last year, because we didn't have the TROP, I forget the exact number, but I thought it was like 80 events or something like that that we didn't get. So what's the projection for 2026? Are we kind of rebooking those things that we lost that maybe occur on an annual basis, or what is, can you talk about that a little bit?

Yeah, we do have a large gymnastics event that we host there every February that has already rebooked for next year. In conversations I've had with the Rays, they're really focused on getting back to opening day, getting everything done so they can start their season. But they are open to future events coming into Tropicana Field. I think there's more of a focus of when they do bring in events, they want them to be impactful not only for them but for the surrounding community. So I've had some good conversations, and we're just trying to figure out what are those next opportunities.

And then I see a time trial bike on that screen there. So there was a period of time where we had five years in a row where we had the Ironman 70.3 World Championships here, and it was like, I don't know, 2011 to 16 or something like that. Have we had any further discussion with them about maybe trying to bring that back?

Not recently. They've been up in Panama City and up in the middle of the state for some of their events in the past. The challenge with that one is because it is such a long race, it takes quite a few different municipalities getting behind it, supporting it. There's a substantial impact with road closures throughout the county. Not to say that it can't be done because we've done it in the past, but that's one that they've been looking at other communities here recently. But we can always reengage.

Yeah, I mean, it just doesn't hurt because, you know, that race brought in about 1,500 athletes, and triathletes spend a lot of money. I'm not saying that I know that from personal experience. I'm just saying. Thanks. Any other questions? Thanks.

Good morning. I'm Dave Caputo, the new film commissioner for Visit St. Pete Clearwater. Looking back into 2025, I'm going to go over some of the numbers at the top line here. So for shoot days in 2025, we had just under 500 shoot days with 1,552 local crew hires. That translated into room nights of 1,524 and a local spend of just under $5.3 million. That's a total of 124 productions for fiscal year 2025. Some other highlights from 2025 is the Screen Production Incentive Program, which was revised and rolled out on October 1st of this year. We've also increased our trade show outreach throughout 2025 with Gotham Week, which is a new trade show that we had not participated in in the past. Quinn Chittenden, the film commission manager, took that one on himself and looks to be a really good opportunity for us. That is a trade show that features a lot of independent producers, but also film financiers and film packagers, which tends to be a good opportunity for us to not only talk to one producer at a time, but also organizations to talk to multiple producers. So those trade shows are going to be good opportunities for us going forward. Looking ahead to 2026. So right now we're in the process of building out a strategic framework that will help us drive some stronger outcomes within our programs. And we're building on a really strong foundation that was already set by the organization in 2025. So 2026 is going to be something that we're going to look to lean into, not only the revision of our Screen Production Incentive Program, but also at this point looking at a pretty significant increase in the applications for that incentive program. So for 2026, we have a roadmap that will take us to a pretty significant portion of our incentive spend with higher quality productions, larger impact with greater distribution and more recognizable names. So we're very excited about the program for 2026. Some of the tenants of the strategic framework are to continue to elevate production awareness for Pinellas County. As you all are aware, Florida does not have a statewide incentive program, so the county programs are the ones that we really need to kind of get behind. So our opportunities here are to make sure that the production communities understand that we do have this incentive program and that we're here and that we're open for business. And we're looking to try and get them to come to feature our destination. Part of that process is implementing a production outreach and relationship program. We do go to the trade shows and we do reach out to our production partners, but I think we need to have a little bit more of a programmatic approach to that, where we have a regular kind of tempo of continuing to reconnect with them, reminding them of our destination and all the diversity that we actually do have to offer within the community. That's my presentation for now. Any questions?

Questions?

No?

Oh, Clyde. Sorry this time.

Thank you, Commissioner. Does Visit Florida have a counterpart to your role? Is there any, I know Florida itself doesn't, but does Visit Florida have a film commissioner?

I'm not aware of one at the Visit Florida level. The Florida Department of Economic Commerce Development does have some support for film, but does not have a commission in and of itself.

Might be worth seeing if Visit Florida could help with that a little bit.

There is a non-profit organization that is FilmFlorida.org, which is a coalition of all the film commissions within Florida that does allow us to align and talk about Florida as a filming destination, more so than just the individual counties.

Okay.

Thanks, Dave. Yep.

Anybody else?

Thank you. Thank you. All right, so I believe that concludes the department updates. Now we'll move on to destination metrics.

You get Eddie again.

All right. Round two in your regular scheduled programming. So the first bit of information I wanted to bring to you guys in the destination metrics is kind of a fiscal year update that is generated from our friends at Future Partners. This data, we collect about 5,000 surveys around that amount each fiscal year, and we combine that with our other data, such as TDT and accommodations data, to generate kind of this systematic estimate of basically the visitors' economic production for the fiscal year. So just sort of a top-line summary here. We had 14.9 million visitors in fiscal year 2025. For the fourth consecutive year now, this model is estimated $10 billion, more than $10 billion in economic impact. As you all already know, for the fourth consecutive year, we've also had more than $92 million in TDT and, you know, our destination. Just as kind of a reminder, and this will sort of be a theme, we continue to recover, and we do know and are aware of the broad headwinds that kind of exist heading into 2026. So this is a look at the top-line information compared to last fiscal year. And you can kind of see, while we're down in all of these, the total visitors is only down about 2.7%. TDT revenue was a little bit down more at 4.3%. And then the sales, the other economic estimates are greater than these two estimates. And kind of what part of the story is here is that, on average, when we talk to individuals, their length of stay for the individual staying in paid lodging was, on average, shorter than last year. So last year, it was 4.7. This year, it was 4.1. So by 0.6 nights, on average. The daily spend was actually up from the previous year. But on average, the travel party size was larger. So that spend as a whole was dispersed between more individuals during their party trip. We did see the planning window roughly the same. And we're happy to report, as always, that our advertising promotional recall was up significantly. And, you know, for the most part, the age and the household income was similar to last year. There are some small shifts. So we had our average age decrease by about two and a half years. And then the household income was slightly above last year, but ever so slightly. And this is kind of another picture of, you know, when we talk to people, what their primary motivation was for arriving here. As a ratio and as a percentage, people were more likely to say they're here visiting their friends and family this year than the previous year and less likely to say that they were here primarily for vacation than the previous year. And, you know, you would kind of expect this as, again, our market was recovering from the storms and that more people maybe wanted to visit their friends and family to make sure that they were okay. We will kind of have more visitor profile data, you know, as we kind of digest our fiscal year and hopefully have more to present. I do also want to kind of give a plug that our annual road show, we're very excited that we will be bringing future partners down for that opportunity. They will be delivering some tailored visitor profile data at each of the locations. So we will be sort of presenting some different regional visitor profiles for places like, you know, St. Pete and places like the Clearwater Beach area and those northern beach communities and our southern beach communities and some of our small towns and places such as Dunedin and Tarpon Springs. So very much look forward to seeing you all, and I hope that you do get a chance to make one of those presentations. So getting out of last fiscal year and moving into the first month of this fiscal year, our TDT collections for October was $5.65 million, which is 30% up from the previous year, but still slightly down from 2023. And on the right-hand side, by community, you can kind of look at where the status is in terms of recovery. So, you know, a lot of these have, a lot of these communities, especially the beach communities, showed a sharp increase from the previous year, you know, as they had, you know, significantly recovered from those storms. In particular, you know, St. Pete Beach being up 230%, that's great to see. It's great to see all of these beach communities up. We still have to recognize that there is some room to grow when we're looking at, you know, our 2023 data. Some of the key spots, though, is that it's positive to see St. Petersburg up still from 2023, you know, compared to this month. So some of that demand that came inland looks like it's still kind of there. So we hope to see more positive growth from these numbers moving forward. And our lodging performance by sector kind of mirrors some of the stuff that we saw in the TDT. So, again, you know, for 2024, a lot of that data is kind of where our market was right after a hurricane. So we're looking at our 2023 data in comparison as well. And for a lot of those, you know, we see short decreases from 2023, just like in the TDT numbers. And we do hope that these numbers continue to improve as we get more of our hotel supply online. But, you know, we are also kind of cautious. You know, in October, of course, there was a government shutdown. There was other factors that could have impacted overall demand. And then just looking at kind of the next six months to really paint a picture of where we are in terms of pacing. And what this data is showing you is our sample of data from hotels and from vacation rentals and what it looked like in early December for the next three months and then the next three months after that in terms of what is on the books for rate, for check-ins, for guest nights, and the same for vacation rentals. And one thing that is just wanting to say that this is directional because it's unclear how much of this could be recovery, how much of this could be individuals waiting to book their reservations, how much of this could be some economic stress. But one thing that I kind of did want to highlight, too, is that, you know, there's been a lot of news out there from the hotel industry about the bifurcation of hotels. So, you know, the luxury market tends to be performing really strong. It's doing quite well while the economy and the mid-scale markets are not generating as much demand as they were previously. And this potentially indicates that some of that bifurcation is happening in our market as well. So we see the rate in hotel remain strong, really, you know, continuing for kind of the next six months. That's likely because our luxury market rate is still strong, whereas the overall volume when we're looking at check-ins and guest nights is below last year. And so one thing that that could indicate, and then on the opposite for vacation rentals, we see, you know, pretty strong growth in both rate and that visitor volume. So it could be that, and this is, again, this is just a hypothetical. We don't know this for certain, but it could be that some of that demand from those economy and mid-scale markets are starting to shift towards the vacation rental space where that larger travel party size can stay in one unit, and some of that cost for those accommodations are split between more individuals. So, you know, again, this is not for certain, but that's one thing that we're kind of looking at as we look at this data. That is the presentation for destination metrics. Happy to take questions from you all.

A couple of comments. One is I like the idea of comparing to 2023. I think that's really important for us to go back that other year to compare where we are and where we're down and everything, too. So I like that idea. Yeah, my other question is we were showing reports of other destinations in Florida, like reports, and we aren't seeing that again. Is there a reason, and should we be, especially like Fort Myers and that area is coming back? We were getting some of those. They've gone back. Fort Lauderdale, we understand, has taken some of it. Should we be looking at 23 or whatever, 25, rather, and saying where are they going or did they go to other areas also? Is it like product? Where's Orlando on it? The other comment I would have is in your visitor metrics is showing that special events held its own for that period of time, and sporting events in that area has actually gone up almost from 4 to 7 percent, and meetings went up 1 percent. But some of those specialty areas have gone up. Yeah. And we've heard today what we're doing, and I think we need to back up information to them, to those departments, to say keep going, keep moving, because that's what's still moving that leisure business is where the problem is.

I think that's absolutely right, and I also think we've received reports and information from event organizers and looked at our own event data. And in November, we saw really strong participation in events such as the Sandy Novations and some of the other events in our area. So we certainly know that there is an enormous demand out there for events and, you know, sporting competitions as well. And to your comment about comparing us against other destinations, we can absolutely re-include that moving forward as well.

And I think also any updates you can do with the Canadian market and the European market and the South American market, where we are in those and comparing to two years ago or a year ago or whatever, that makes sense for us to look at. Are we really down in all of them, or are we even with some of them, it looks like, and some of them we're down on? So I think that's why it's important to look at those things. Chris?

Yeah. I just want to ask us to collectively pause for a moment and just point out that when I see on one of your first slides that we generated more than $92 million in TDT for the fourth consecutive year. If you would have told this group in November of last year that we would be where we're at today, the success we've had over the past fiscal year, to where even if you go to 2023 and compare the October numbers to 2023, we're not that far off. After the damage all of our tourism properties suffered throughout the past fiscal year at the beginning of it, it is amazing what we have done collectively as a county. And I mean not just the municipalities and the county government, but all of our private property owners to work together to achieve these results. And I want to compliment Brian and you and your team because you've played a huge role in that too at St. Pete Clearwater. The messaging and all the things that you've done to get us here, it is just amazing what we have done together to achieve these results. And I just hope we all pause to reflect on that because, as I said a minute ago, November last year, I don't think any of us would have believed this was possible and to see what we've done together. But with your leadership and the business site, Pete Clearwater's leadership, it's just amazing. I'd just like for us to reflect on that. We have challenges going forward. We know that. It feels like, you know, sometimes out on the beach it's a little slower than what it's been in past years. But where we're at now compared to where we could have been is just amazing. And thank you for all of us for what we've done to get us here.

Certainly. Thank you for that. I think that there has been a lot of work done and a lot of, you know, hard work to continue to do.

Eddie, I've got a question. I don't know if this is a question that you have the answer to or if this is more for hotelers in the room. But how are our advanced bookings looking into 2026 for hotels? Do you have that information?

I don't know if, you know, Russ or any of you guys would kind of like to weigh in on that. I mean, this pacing data is a sample of the direct hotel. Not this. I'm sorry. This one is a sample of the direct of what is on the books now for our sample of data for up through May. So I mean.

May of 26?

26. Yeah.

Okay.

Mr. Chair, if I can just add to that, this is the best forecasting pacing data that we have. But know that this is only a sample of properties that report into this. Right. I think the question that maybe you're asking or the absolute answer would be, no, we do not have directly from the properties what they have on the books. So this is a snapshot and this is a sample size, but we don't know the absolute number.

If I can ask Russ, what's your gut telling you for next year?

First of all, we have to be very careful what we say and everything that we give out and all, as you know, in your business too. But for our hotel, the group business is what's saving us and we're doing well with it. Okay. I think that also that leisure business is where it's off still. We can still take business for Christmas and the first part of the year for sure. I think also Clearwater has done well in the tax collection and everything because of the growth of the number of new properties and holding rate and everything too. So I think we're fortunate in Clearwater for that. I think that we're dividing up that leisure business a little bit more. I think Europe is coming back a little bit. But I've seen this in the past and I'm predicting is what I'm telling people with our staff and all that there's going to be a hemmed up market. People have not gone on vacation for the summer. I didn't do anything with the kids and I got a Christmas coming or I got a spring break coming. We're going to have to do something. We're going to tap that credit card and we're going to go to Florida for a few days and it's cheaper to go to the beaches than it is to Epcot right now or whatever for that. So I think there's a hemmed up market some and I think that we need to, and that's more in the leisure business, but I think in other areas too. I think it's going to be very interesting with the Canadian business with the traditional spring training and how well they did this year for the championship and how far they got of whether that market is going to say, you know what, I'm going to cross the border and go there. So I think that's going to be something to look at for northern Pinellas County on it. I think that also the sports I think is so important in off season and everything. And just like as the mayor said, he doesn't mention, but I think the investment the city put into the sound in that area, that's that piece of business that's helping us with the sand events and everything else that's going on that's bringing it in. And so I think that's where we are. I think we've got a ways to go, but I think there's a hemmed up market is what I'm predicting.

First of all, mayor, thank you for that perspective that like slow down a little bit and kind of appreciate what we've had this past year given where we were. I think that's going to be, I think it's going to play itself out a little bit. But you talked about bifurcation, that term you used, like the high-end versus low-end users. And to me, that smells of opportunity, especially as it relates to some of the other markets. And you just mentioned some of those potential users. Any thoughts on that? I don't know what, I don't want to call it lower-end market, but folks that maybe don't have the same spending power as others. Any opportunities there that you see that we can kind of?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's encouraging that what we see is that there is strong vacation rental demand. It's not like that the demand hasn't gone away. I do think that, to I believe Russ's point, new product at whatever scale generates demand as well. So if you have refreshed, you know, redesigned hotels and rooms, which, you know, from the storms, a lot of our hotel properties and condos have had to renovate and, you know, update their products. I think really demonstrating that these are great places to, I mean, I think that there is an opportunity to demonstrate. These are some really great, like, unique stays, unique finds that you can have this amazing vacation, you know, at an affordable price, you know, on these amazing, wonderful beaches. I do believe that there is an opportunity to really tell that story, and that's some of the kind of social media work that we, you know, are working into our plans to, you know, really demonstrate kind of these hidden and less known properties, you know, and making sure that people are aware of all of the different opportunities, you know, in our destination. At any level, we really are a very diverse, you know, destination of accommodations. So there is opportunity there to kind of tell their story.

You know, the other thing I would just say that the pent-up demand comment, your feeling about that, I mean, whether that's coming from Europe or coming locally, you know, in the greater Tampa Bay area, I think there's some of that going on as well. So I think there's opportunities to kind of backfill a little bit of that, maybe shortfall of where we would like to be in terms of demand. But I just think that we have that local market that we can ramp up a little bit to. So those are more based on feelings and not necessarily the numbers that you look at. But certainly that seems to me an area. Folks that just haven't had the opportunity. This past year has been a very tumultuous year for a lot of folks. Just getting that chance to kind of tread their wings and have that pent-up demand might be an opportunity.

Well, and I think we have seen growth in the kind of greater Tampa Bay market in terms of the percentage of people visiting and staying in our destination from there. And then obviously with the success of 727 Day and some of these kind of more locally targeted events, you can really see the enthusiasm for people to celebrate and enjoy their own destination. So I think absolutely there is some opportunities there.

Thank you. I can confirm Russ's, at our much smaller hotel, but our group business is doing well, whether it's weddings or corporate meetings or local folks having parties in our event space. That's an important piece, and it's still doing well. Now, when you look at the investment that the towns have made, we as a council have made in events, whether they're big events or smaller events, there's more and more of those certainly in downtown St. Petersburg. And when those events happen, you can see a tremendous increase in folks walking around downtown spending money. Certainly in our business, we see it. So when we invest tax, bed tax dollars in these elite events, it pays back. So I still encourage, once again, when you do the budget next year, those events are important to us in the tourism business, it's our employees in our cities. So that business is doing well, and hopefully we'll continue to grow if we continue to support it.

Anybody else? All right. Betty. Thank you. All right. All right. That concludes Destination Metrics. Moving on to our CEO update.

Excellent. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. And I will try to be brief here as we wrap up the last meeting of the year. Did want to touch on two important projects. One, Clearwater Marine Aquarium. That was in a capital project that you all recommended. That was approved, the funding agreement, finally, with the Board of County Commissioners last night. So funding agreement signed, and that project is a go. Also, the Toy Town we touched on, the funding, the $250,000 to do the subsurface work will now get with the contractor that we have here. They will do some subsurface work. Depending on those findings, those will be given to the county as well as shared with the respondents to the RFP. We are in Phase 2 of the RFP there. And then the hope is that by the end of, or excuse me, by approximately October of next year, we'll have a final proposal to bring forth to the Board of County Commissioners on that project. Partner Summit, we do have, Eddie mentioned it, this year again, we took that on the road. Instead of doing one location, we broke it up into four. So January 13th through 16th, these will be spread out throughout the county to give different perspectives, and they will be tailored towards the audience of that geographical portion of the county. So those will be taking place at Beach Theater, James Museum, CMA, as well as Innisbrook. So if you have not registered, I encourage you to do so. Share it early and often with your networks. I also want to just touch on, we're hoping to have some more news here in the coming week regarding Beach Nourishment Project. I know that initially was supposed to be wrapped up right around spring break time, but all indications are that it is well ahead of schedule. For anyone who's been out there and seen those folks working on that, you can attest to that. The beach is beautiful. As I like to say, it's bigger, wider, brighter, and better than ever. And we hope to have some news here shortly about the completion of that project, and we'll look to take advantage of that and drive some business to the beach. And the last thing I want to say is just, you know, Chair Scott, it's been an honor and a privilege, both personally and professionally, to work with you this year. We've known each other for a long time. It was a joy to work closely with you on some big deal things this year. I value that, and I know you are busy. Anyone who's been Chair of the County Commission can attest it's a busy job on top of running a business. And so for you to commit as much time to this board's work as you did, it's greatly appreciated. And I can tell you the folks in the back, the staff, they really appreciate, they noticed your involvement with us. And really just want to thank you for everything that you did for our team, for me, and for the Pinellas County tourism industry this year. And I really appreciate it. And we've got a gift for you. So let me.

I had a couple ideas today. As you presented, I think we ought to get up together and get one photo somehow of the whole group, all of the board, presenting this to him. Because you've done an outstanding job, Brian, and the trips that you've taken. I want you to recap a little bit some of the places you've been. All right.

Thank you. You want me to stand on the chair?

Keep tapping my heels. Come on. You're at the front.

You should have turned around and then.

Well, thank you, everybody. That was extremely nice. And Brian, thank you so much for those kind words. And the feeling is likewise. I have enjoyed. We've known each other a long time. And I have really enjoyed working so closely with you this year. And with all of the staff. The staff at Pizzas St. B. Clearwater is amazing. You guys are true professionals. You know what you're doing and you have. I'm just so impressed every time we talk and ask questions. And you always have great answers. And you always know where we're going and how we're going to get there. And I don't, you know, I've been in the tourism industry for 40-plus years. And I've, you know, worked with and known a lot of people in CVBs all across the country. And I can say with authority that we have the best. We really do. We have the best right here. And I know a lot of folks around the country in this industry. And you all do a fabulous, fabulous job. And I just want to say to Brian and Dave and Chris Latval is going to be coming in as well. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. You know, I love this. I love this board. I love this industry, you know. And if you need me, I'm here. If you need help at a sales mission, a trade show, call me. I'm here. If we've got a fam trip coming into town and you need an ambassador, I'm here. So this is my home. This is my community. This tourism industry has been good to myself and my family. And to me, this is just like the ultimate way of giving back to it. So call on me. I'm not going anywhere at all. And to kind of recap, Russ, some of the trips, I really did three trips this year. The first one was down to Brazil in January. And it was like three nights, and two of them were in aircraft. And that was when I got a taste of how hard these guys work when they go on these. These aren't leisure trips. We got off the flight in Brazil, and we went straight to an appointment. No, don't go to the hotel. Don't shower. Don't freshen up. We're going to an appointment, right? So then we finished there, and we go to the hotel, and it's like, all right, you've got literally 20 minutes to check in and shower, get back down here because now we've got a dinner appointment, right? And then the next day was the same thing. And then before you know it, you're on a flight. I landed back in Tampa like 10 a.m. the next morning. And I went, what just happened? You know, what just happened, right? And then it joined the team in Chicago at IPW, and that was a real – I've attended IPW, you know, many times in the past, but this was in a different capacity, you know, with St. P. Clearwater. And going into the media room with Jason, and then you realize that all of these mentions that we get in the media, they don't just happen, right? You have to work those. You have to work that media room to get those mentions and to get that press out there. And that was a real eye-opener to me, just to sort of see how that side of the business really works. And then we just returned from Germany. So we were five days, four cities in five days. So we were in Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hanover, and Berlin. And in those four days, we visited, I think it was eight different media outlets, visited seven tour operators, one airline, and I presented two keys to the county, one to the CEO of Discovery Airlines that has this flight that we took from Tampa direct to Frankfurt. I think that's run in – was it run in five days or seven days a week, is it? Six days a week. And they're looking at starting a new one from – between Tampa and – was it Stuttgart? Munich. Okay. And then key to the county to the CEO of Dare Tour. So – and during that time, we trained with probably 35 sales agents on selling the destination. So it was a busy trip. It was a very productive trip. And we met Axel, who is our kind of boots on the ground there, our contractor, who manages those relations for us in Germany. And he set up kind of the itinerary, and we made the rounds. We made the rounds. And a couple of key takeaways from that trip. One, I was shocked at how popularly the NFL has gotten in Europe and in Germany in particular. So we were talking about sports earlier. That is an opportunity. I mean, NFL has really turned into a big thing there. And one of the – we did kind of a fun contest at Canoosa. We were doing – we were training the sales agents there. So we said, all right, whoever has the best Tampa Bay outfit, you know, visit St. Pete, Florida outfit, you know, we'll give you a prize. Well, the girl that won was dressed in full Buccaneers gear, right, with a football. And she bought all of that in Tampa because she went over to a Bucs game in Tampa. So, of course, she won because she was full, you know, full Buccaneers gear. So it is really amazing how big that professional – U.S. professional sports is really becoming in Europe. So that's just something to keep in mind. There is a definite opportunity there. The other big takeaway is, you know, we all know international tourism is down. And in Germany in particular, in Europe, a lot of that is just driven by – they don't like the immigration posture of the United States right now. And what was sort of surprising, I think, to all of us is that I think they have more 24-hour news stations in Europe than we actually have over here. And every time you turn it on, it is U.S. immigration with zero context and the worst coverage that you could possibly imagine. And they're just repeating it and repeating it and repeating it. And even the tour operators were surprised. They thought, well, this will kind of die down in a week. They'll move on to the next, you know, the next conflict, the next issue or whatever the next hot button is. But it hasn't. They continue to just kind of run with that. And that is really, really hurting demand right now. The other piece of that was that – and I say this with hoteliers in the room, and I'm going to qualify this statement in a minute because I know what you're all going to be thinking. But that the hotel rates have gotten very, very expensive in the United States, and they really don't like resort fees. They really just don't like them. Now, I've been in the international tour operator business for 40 years, and they're always complaining about price on something. So with that said, but I do think that there's an opportunity there. One of the requests they had was if we could find an off-season rate that was all-inclusive, that they would be very interested in something like that. And they don't mind traveling when it's 100 degrees here. And I understand why now after spending five days over there and only seeing the sun twice, okay? They don't mind coming here in August because they want as much of that heat as they can get because they know what's waiting for them a few months down the road. And when the sun is out there, it's not like the sun here. The sun comes up at 8.14 in the morning and sets it like 4 in the afternoon. And when the sun is out, it's not like this brilliant sun we have here. It's like this dull. It's, yeah. So now you know why they come. So the silver lining in all that is, Russ, I think you nailed it here earlier, is there is going to be pent-up demand. And this pendulum swings back and forth, whatever it is, whether it's currency valuation, whether it's world events, this pendulum will come back. And when it comes back, it will come back pretty hard. Just the question is, is when is that going to, when is that actually going to happen? But a great trip. And my hat's off again to all the staff. You all do an amazing job. And so, Dave, if you go on any of those trips, be ready because you're going to be working.

You're going to be working. Well, I wanted to just thank you. Looking forward to next year. I was sitting there thinking about, you know, small business I have and, you know, maybe running for office. And being the chair. And I'm thinking, how do you get through all this? And then I look to Brian and what you've done this year. It's been exemplary. As part of the county commission, we're so doggone proud of you and the work you did here with these folks. But the work you did with us. And we went through it a little bit last night. So, again, to the staff over there, you had a pro with you this year. Now, next year, you're going to have to coach me up a little bit. Because I'm coming down that curve of knowledge of the industry. But I really tip my hat. A really good friend of mine. And I look forward to working with you in many ways. I've already said, you know, you've been so involved on the beach stuff and traveling. I may have to call him in from the bullpen and get some assistance next year. But thank you, Brian, for all of your time and all of your energy. And you can even hear it today as you're talking. It's infectious. And this board needs it, needed it, needs it. And our staff continues that as well. So thank you very much.

It's been an honor and a pleasure. It truly has. And I'm here for any board members as well. I think all of you have my cell phone number. If you don't, just see me before you leave. And I'll give it to you anything I can do to help you. I'm always here. And it truly has been an honor and pleasure to work with this fine group of individuals. So thank you, everybody.

If I could just take another minute, Brian. Over the history of the, since 1978, we enacted this statue and go through. And first time I went by myself to Berlin for the ITB show and all. And through the years, it is so important for our elected officials to go with us and to take the time to visit over there. And they can tell you as they do a trade show or whatever it is, when you have an elected official with you, it's like the statement, it gets in the press, it gets other appointments and everything. It's so important. And we thank you for that. It's just the way it is. And we really appreciate that. I can give you a history. When you said DER, dear to us, Wilbur Niederkopfler is still a great friend, lives in San Diego. He's an Austrian. He used to take me to Austria and learn to ski back when I was 40 years old for so many years. But anyway, he visited us in 1978. And I had working for us a man named Morris Ford. Morris Ford had been the director of tourism for Alaska, California, Louisiana, when they did the Superdome, and Florida. And he wanted to come work for me. And he spent a few years. He went and called on his old cronies at Deer Tours. Walter Storer is how we got started here. And he called on Stuart Alderman with Cosmo in London. And that's how those two spots go. Before that, they were going to the Ivan Hotel in Miami only. And they were just starting to go into Disney World and that area. And we had a picture we would take with us. And it was a space shot of the state of Florida. We marked it. Orlando, Clearwater, St. Pete, and Miami. And we're saying it's only so many miles away for why you could come here. But that elect official that showed that poster is what made us on the map for all these years and everything. It's rewarding. You're in the business. You're in the family. So you know what it's about. But Dave?

I got your message.

You heard that. To the best team here, as Brian said, we've ever had. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year's. And happy Hanukkah to all of you. Thank you. Absolutely.

All right.

Well, Merry Christmas, everybody. Happy Hanukkah. Happy New Year. Look forward to seeing you all again soon. And with that, we're adjourned.

Thank you. Thank you.