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Clearwater gets tourism update
By LESTER R. DAILEY
| Article published on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 |
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CLEARWATER – Pinellas County’s bed tax revenues for the period of October 2008 through April 2009 fell 8.5 percent from the same period a year earlier. But D.T. Minich, executive director of Visit St. Pete/Clearwater, isn’t panicking.
“While that’s not good, it’s not that bad,” Minich told the Clearwater City Council at its June 15 work session.” He noted that, while Pinellas bed tax revenues were down 14 percent in April, Miami’s were down 21 percent. He added that his agency is working hard to reverse the downward trend.
“This summer we’re really focusing on the in-state market,” Minich said, adding that his agency has launched a $1 million advertising blitz that includes inserts in the Orlando Sentinel newspaper. “In-state bookings have gone way up since then.”
But he isn’t ignoring the national and international tourism markets.
“We are very much into guerrilla marketing,” Minich said, explaining that his agency “took over” all the advertising in two New York City subway stations. It paid for one month but got nearly two months of advertising time because no other advertiser was ready when the month expired. And fortunately, it snowed during those two months.
Chilly commuters were greeted by signs asking if they wouldn’t “rather be going to the beach,” and faux buoys declared St. Petersburg and Clearwater “no shivering” and “no black ice” zones.
Minich said that his agency has satellite offices in New York City, Chicago, London and Frankfurt and shares office space in two South American locations. It has sponsored coat-check tickets in a London airport saying “If you were in St. Petersburg/Clearwater right now, you wouldn’t need these.”
The agency is also in the second year of a three-year advertising campaign at the Sanford airport, where all Orlando-bound tourists from the United Kingdom land, and where they arrive hours early to shop in the duty-free shops and get a good seat on departing flights, which do not have their seats assigned in advance. A 3.5-minute continuous loop video reminds the tourists that an award-winning beach is just 90 minutes away.
“It’s quite a unique experience,” Minich said, adding that St. Petersburg/Clearwater is also the “official beach destination” for German tourists landing in Orlando on Lufthansa. And a billboard on Interstate 275, near Tampa International Airport, will tout upcoming Pinellas events.
“With the Harborview Center closing down, we don’t have a convention center of any size in Pinellas County,” Mayor Frank Hibbard said. Minich replied that the county needs a convention center of 100,000 to 200,000 square feet near hotels with a total of 800 to 1,000 rooms, and it should be inland because convention organizers are reluctant to pay the prices that beach hotels charge.
Vice Mayor Paul Gibson noted that the annual Ironman 70.3 triathlon accounts for more than 25 percent of the local hotel bookings and suggested that Minich court other sporting events. Minich said that his agency is trying to diversify beyond baseball and softball games and has booked an AAU regional track and field championship whose participants are expected to stay for four nights.
“It was somewhat disconcerting that (Super Bowl) Beach Day was held in a stadium in downtown St. Pete,” Mayor Frank Hibbard said. “Why create a beach when we already have a world-class beach?”
Minich answered that the Super Bowl organizers found that it was cheaper to truck sand into the stadium and create an artificial beach than it would have been to create stadium-style amenities on a real beach. He added that he will try to have the local beaches included more if the Tampa Bay area gets another Super Bowl.
“In the last two years we’ve seen a 100 percent increase in the room nights our department has been able to bring into Pinellas County,” Minich said, adding that such things as an upcoming travel writers’ convention are expected to bring in even more bookings. “We’re very excited about some of the things we have coming up.”
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Article published on Wednesday, June 17, 2009
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