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TDC supports Holmes Beach funding requests

TDC supports Holmes Beach funding requests

Written by Joe Hendricks on . Posted in Community News, Holmes Beach.

HOLMES BEACH – The Manatee County Tourist Development Council (TDC) recommends county commission approval of the city of Holmes Beach’s request to use $395,011 in tourist development tax revenues to install a multi-use path along a portion of Marina Drive and a connecting, perpendicular brick paver sidewalk along 65th Street.

During their Oct. 30 meeting, TDC members also voted in favor of recommending county commission approval of the city’s request to use $15,000 in tourist development tax revenues to pay for the city’s 75th anniversary celebration on Friday, Dec. 5.

Manatee County’s county commission-controlled tourist development tax revenues are generated by the 6% tax levied on all vacation rental, resort and hotel/motel stays of six months or less. In 2023, the county collected $30 million in tourist development tax revenues.

Multi-use path, sidewalk

If approved by county commissioners, the $395,011 in tourist development tax revenues would be combined with a $133,401 contribution from the city to complete the $528,412 multi-modal transportation enhancement project.

Multi-modal transportation systems include pedestrians, bicyclists, automobiles, e-bikes, golf carts, scooters, rollerbladers, public transit, water taxis and provide connectivity between the various transportation modes.

Holmes Beach Development Services Director Chad Minor attended the TDC meeting and was prepared to make a presentation and answer questions if needed.

TDC supports Holmes Beach funding requests
This diagram illustrates the project components and locations. – City of Holmes Beach | Submitted

Before the meeting began, Minor said the proposed project will fill a gap and complete the existing multi-use path along the east side of Marina Drive that already connects to the multi-use path in Anna Maria. The remaining section of the multi-use path will be installed from 56th Street to 66th Street, between city hall and the Gloria Dei church property, where a much narrower sidewalk currently exists.

TDC supports Holmes Beach funding requests
The image illustrates what the brick paver sidewalk along 65th Street will look like. – City of Holmes Beach | Submitted

The project will also include the installation of a brick paver sidewalk along 65th Street from Marina Drive to the 65th Street beach access, a lighted crosswalk at the Gulf Drive/65th Street intersection and wildlife habitat-related educational signage.

TDC member comments

When presenting the city’s funding request, Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director Elliott Falcione said it’s significantly lower than a similar request the city previously proposed for approximately $800,000.

Falcione said the city’s current request aligns with the county’s desire for an integrated, seven-mile-long pedestrian and bike trail that runs the entire length of Anna Maria Island and connects all three Island cities for the benefit of tourists and residents.

Falcione noted the existing Marina Drive multi-use path already passes by the Waterline marina basin the county hopes to use as a Gulf Islands Ferry stop.

“Please keep in mind that the city of Holmes Beach is the second highest collector of the tourism tax – with unincorporated Manatee County being the number one collector,” Falcione said.

TDC supports Holmes Beach funding requests
A similar multi-use path was previously installed near city hall. – Joe Hendricks | Sun

Off-Island hotel owner and TDC member Rahul Patel questioned whether the installation of a multi-use path is an allowed use of state regulated tourist development tax revenues, but he voted in favor of the request.

Holmes Beach-based Cedar Cove Resort Manager and TDC member Eric Cairns said, “The amount of taxes that are generated on the Island and in Holmes Beach would warrant. So many people are trying to walk down sidewalks that don’t exist.”

Holmes Beach commissioner and TDC member Dan Diggins said he also owns a vacation rental home in Holmes Beach and tourists probably make up 90% of the multi-use path users.

Citing information provided by Falcione’s office, Diggins said Holmes Beach has generated approximately $45 million in tourist tax revenues over the years and to date has only received $144,200 in return.

Palmetto Marriott Resort managing director and TDC member Tony DeRusso said, “Multi-modal transportation is an amenity for tourism. People who visit want a jogging trail. They want a place to ride a bike. I think this is a perfect situation for us to contribute.”

DeRusso said the Florida Department of Transportation and other agencies also need to help fund multi-modal improvements: “It shouldn’t be solely on tourism, because this is also for the residents.”

County commissioner and TDC Chair Amanda Ballard said, “When people come to a beach destination, they want that laid back lifestyle where they can ride a bike, walk down the sidewalk, ride on a golf cart. Being able to provide that kind of amenity is huge for the tourists and there’s an ancillary benefit for residents as well.”

Anniversary celebration

If approved by county commissioners, the $15,000 in tourist development tax revenues will help fund the city’s 75th Anniversary Celebration being held at City Field on Friday, Dec. 5 from 5-8 p.m.

TDC supports Holmes Beach funding requests
The city of Holmes Beach’s 75th anniversary will be celebrated on Friday, Dec. 5. – City of Holmes Beach | Submitted

The anniversary celebration will include live music by Jah Movement and Trevor Bystrom, food and beer vendors, children and family activities and more.

TDC supports $750,000 ferry funding request

TDC supports $750,000 ferry funding request

Written by Joe Hendricks on . Posted in Anna Maria, Community News, Manatee County.

ANNA MARIA – The Manatee County Tourist Development Council (TDC) recommends county commission approval to spend up to $750,000 in tourist development tax revenues for capital improvements for the county-contracted Gulf Islands Ferry service.

Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director Elliott Falcione presented the funding request to TDC members for their preliminary review during the Aug. 18 TDC meeting held at The Center of Anna Maria Island.

If approved by county commis­sioners, some of the funds would be used for the construction of a new standalone ferry landing to be built adjacent to the Anna Maria City Pier walkway when that new walkway is constructed to replace the pier walkway that sustained catastrophic damage during Hurricane Milton last October. In June, Anna Maria Mayor Mark Short told TDC members and other county officials his goal is to have the pier walkway rebuilt and reopened by October 2026.

According to the Aug. 18 TDC meeting agenda packet, the current initiatives to be funded with the requested $750,000 include $228,427 to be put toward the design, permitting and construction of a new City Pier ferry landing to be located between the shoreline and the T-end buildings that currently stand isolated without a walkway.

TDC supports $750,000 ferry funding request
The county-funded ferry landing will be built alongside the new City Pier walkway when the new walkway is constructed. – Manatee County | Submitted

Earlier this year, Manatee County Natural Resources Director Charlie Hunsicker estimated the Anna Maria ferry landing would cost approximately $1 million and include a wave attenuator wall that lessens the impacts that waves and currents have on the ferry boats.

In June, the TDC members recommended still-pending county commission approval of the city of Anna Maria’s request for $2 million in tourist development tax revenues to be used for an anticipated $8 million pier reconstruction project.

Coquina Beach Trail improvements delayed

Coquina Beach trail improvements delayed

Written by Jason Schaffer on . Posted in Bradenton Beach, Community News.

BRADENTON BEACH – Improvements to the Coquina Beach multi-use trail have been delayed.

The trail is a paved path about the width of a city sidewalk that begins at the Longboat Pass parking lot and runs 1.5 miles along the beach north to Fifth Street South.

Manatee County commissioners approved $1.3 million in tourism funds for improvements to the trail at an Aug. 8 meeting. Under the scope of the new project, workers will resurface and widen the trail, but its location and length are planned to remain unchanged.

The project also includes the removal of 96 Australian pine trees whose roots are damaging the pavement.

The removal was scheduled to take about eight months to complete, but work was recently halted.

The Sun contacted Manatee County Information Outreach Manager Bill Logan to find out why. Logan responded with an email statement from Manatee County Public Works Senior Project Engineer Michael Sturm.

“The trail restoration project began back in October, clearing the area around the trail of 20 trees,” Sturm said in his email. “We are currently installing root barriers in areas where the trees could impact the trail in the future. As for the actual removal and replacement of the trail, I received an update yesterday (Nov. 29). The asphalt plants are getting ready to shut down until the beginning of the new year. This supply issue will impact our schedule and push out the completion date. We plan to mill segments of the trail that can then be paved on the same day. So, the actual work on the path will start in early January, making it hard to provide project phasing and timeline estimates.”

Manatee County leaders are no strangers to delays due to supply chain issues. The drainage project at Coquina Beach, which caused the long-term closure of hundreds of parking spaces in 2021-22, also fell well short of the original completion timeline due to supply issues.

The county currently spends between $35,000 to $40,000 a year maintaining the trail and public works says that the steps being taken with the new trail will save that money because the tree roots will no longer be an issue. If this holds, about a third of the cost of the project would be covered by the nearly half a million in repair dollars that wouldn’t need to be spent over the next decade.

Bradenton contractor Woodruff & Sons has been retained for the trail project.

Tourism up, record set

Tourism up, record set

Written by Jason Schaffer on . Posted in Business, Tourism.

BRADENTON – As the busy tourist season approaches full swing, Manatee County’s tourism consultant delighted tourism officials with a milestone set in 2022.

“When we look at the entire calendar year, we see that for the first time ever, we exceeded over a million overnight commercial lodging visitors,” said Ann Wittine, of Tampa-based Research Data Services. “We also had a first-time-ever economic impact of over $1.5 billion for the year. That’s a 20% increase and a 50% increase from pre-COVID 2019.”

Wittine presented her state of tourism update to the Manatee County Tourist Development Council (TDC) on Feb. 13, featuring the latest available statistics related to the tourism industry in the county.

In December 2022, total visitors, number of room nights and economic impact were all up from December 2021, with 73,300 visitors (7.5%), 186,200 room nights (5.8%) and $91,956,200 in economic impact (14.5%).

“We gather this information in a number of different ways,” Wittine said. “We have face-to-face interviewers who are out talking to restaurant and lodging visitors for random surveys. We also talk to management companies, condo associations and others to make sure we get length of stay and party size, so we can calculate these estimates.”

Room occupancy for December was up slightly up (.7%) after being down slightly in the September 2022 report from RDS. The average daily room rate is also up, at $211.38 per day in December 2022 compared to $182.55 in December of 2021.

RDS also keeps track of where people are coming from when they visit the area. After being down in the last report issued in September 2022, visitors from Florida rebounded in December, up 13.9% from the previous year. While European visitors are up 115% from 2021, they have yet to rebound after COVID with only half the number from 2019 before the pandemic. With 12,610 visitors, the Midwest continues to be the largest visitor origin location outside of Florida, but that is down from 2021 by 10.2%. The Southeast region had the most growth with a 22.3% increase from 2021.

The report also included information about Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ). Data from these reports helps the airport locate markets that are underserved, so they can work to get direct flights to those markets, which boosts tourism to Manatee and Sarasota counties. SRQ reported serving 3.85 million people in 2022, up 21.6% over 2021.

Wittine predicted that the spring tourism season underway on Anna Maria Island will be busier than ever, saying that almost every property surveyed in January is reporting more bookings than last year, with many being fully booked through March.

Four hoteliers keep their seats on the TDC

Written by Jason Schaffer on . Posted in Business, Tourism.

BRADENTON – Four hoteliers have been reappointed to the Manatee County Tourist Development Council (TDC).

In a meeting on July 27, county commissioners voted to retain the four TDC members for another four-year term.

The four members are Ed Chiles, Juten Patel, Eric Cairns and Rahul Patel. Commissioners voted for each seat individually, meaning they could choose to keep the current member or replace them with an applicant who meets the criteria for membership and garners enough Board votes to take the seat.

The TDC is made up of nine volunteer members who make recommendations to the County Commission concerning the operation of projects set forth in the Tourist Development Plan. They also make recommendations on Tourist Development Tax revenue is spent. Members are appointed by the commission in the following categories:

  • Three elected officials;
  • Four owner/operators of hotels, motels or other short-term rental accommodations in Manatee County that are subject to the 5% resort tax;
  • Two citizens who are involved in the tourist industry and who have demonstrated an interest in tourism but are not subject to the 5% resort tax in Manatee County.
Bradenton Anna Maria Island Longboat Key

Tourism on the rebound as visitors lengthen their stays

Written by Jason Schaffer on . Posted in Business, Tourism.

BRADENTON – After struggling to stay afloat throughout the worst of the COVID pandemic, area businesses may be getting some relief with people once again coming through their doors.

In her monthly state of tourism update, Anne Wittine, director of quantitative research for Manatee County’s tourism consultant, Research Data Services (RDS), released data showing tourism is increasing on Anna Maria Island and surrounding tourist destinations.

“In January we saw a turnaround – we saw more out-of-state visitors than Florida visitors,” said Wittine. “A lot of this has to do with the public perception of air travel, as well as more Americans being vaccinated. These numbers would be much higher, but Canada and Europe are still locked down, so international tourism is almost nonexistent at this time. That could change as early as May or June, but there is no guarantee. Statistics are showing that the largest number of out-of-state visitors are coming from the Southeast.

“The data we are seeing implies that as we move through the summer, we are going to see longer stays,” Wittine added, concerning a comparison of February 2020 to February 2021 showing an increase in length of stay. The research suggests this will be a trend for months to come. 

“People have felt like they’ve missed out, so when they get to take that vacation, they really want to make it count,” she said.

RDS also released the March traveler sentiment study, which is done every month and gathers data from respondents who are planning to visit the area. The March study showed that 37.1% of respondents currently have a trip booked. According to Wittine, this is the highest number since they started the survey, and up from 25.2% in February. In addition, 24.4% of respondents said they were planning to travel in the next 30 days, up from 16.6% in February.

Another statistic of interest in the RDS study was how optimistic would-be travelers are about personal health, with more than 81.3% of respondents saying they are optimistic about personal health. Wittine noted there isn’t 81.3% of the public vaccinated, so it shows a general increase in optimism overall.

“In terms of feeling safe, we’ve got 50% saying they feel safe dining in a restaurant, 61% saying they feel safe shopping, 38% are OK with visiting indoor attractions, and taking a domestic flight is at 35%. All of these numbers are the highest we’ve seen since we started this,” Wittine said.

TDC supports Bradenton Beach dock expansion

TDC supports Bradenton Beach dock expansion

Written by Joe Hendricks on . Posted in Bradenton Beach, Community News.

BRADENTON BEACH – The Manatee County Tourist Development Council (TDC) is supporting the city’s funding request for the expansion of the public dock near the Bridge Street Pier.

The request, from the Bradenton Beach Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), received unanimous support on Monday, April 19, when TDC members recommended that the county commission approve up to $850,000 in matching tourist tax funds for the improvements. The money would go toward lengthening the floating dock, attaching more perpendicular finger docks and replacing the aging dinghy dock near the foot of the pier boardwalk.

No date has been set yet as to when the CRA’s request will be presented to county commissioners.

When addressing the TDC members, City Attorney Ricinda Perry said the CRA has already issued a request for proposals (RFP) seeking a contractor to take the lead on the project. The RFP does not address the restroom improvements to be pursued as a separate phase of the project.

Perry said the floating dock currently provides enough space for about seven vessels and the expanded dock and new fingers docks would provide temporary dockage for about 26 vessels.

Perry noted that in addition to recreational boaters, the existing floating dock is used by local tour boats, fishing charters and other commercial operators to pick up and drop off passengers. Perry said the hope is to someday have a water taxi service at the dock as well.

“We have stood ready, willing and able to support a water taxi if that would, in fact, come to fruition in Manatee County,” Perry told the TDC members.

As is the case with the floating dock, the additional finger docks would be available free of charge on a first-come, first-served basis, with no overnight mooring allowed.

The finger docks were originally proposed by City Commissioner and CRA member Jake Spooner in 2016 to accommodate more boats and encourage alternative means of transportation to the pier and the nearby Bridge Street business district.

Perry said the additional dockage would help support the pier-based businesses that include the Anna Maria Oyster Bar, Paradise Boat Tours and the Tide & Moon Jewelry store, and would also benefit other businesses in the Bridge Street area.

Serving as a replacement to the existing dinghy dock, the new dinghy dock will provide temporary dinghy dockage for liveaboard and transient boaters who anchor in the waters south of the pier.

TDC supports Bradenton Beach dock expansion
The existing dinghy dock near the Bridge Tender would be replaced with a new one. – Joe Hendricks | Sun

CRA and TDC member Ed Chiles said the dock expansion project falls right in line with the purpose of the Bradenton Beach CRA and the allowed use of the Tourist Development Tax revenues. Chiles also stressed the need to finally implement a water taxi program.

TDC member and Bradenton Mayor Gene Brown agreed and said, “It brings opportunity for the water taxi that we’ve been talking about for so long.”

TDC member and Island resort manager Eric Cairns said, “A few years ago, when I got on the TDC, I brought up a water taxi and it just wasn’t the right time. I totally feel it is the right time now. It would be a great opportunity for all the cities on the Island.”

TDC member Rahul Patel asked Perry about the anticipated service life of the new docks. Perry said the materials used for the dock expansion project are expected to last 30 to 50 years. She said this was also a concern with the existing floating dock that was installed in 2019 using matching Tourist Development Tax funds.

“This particular area of water has a lot of wake action. I believe it was designed to withstand category 3 hurricane wave action and we would require the same standards for the installation of the additional floating dock segments,” Perry said.

“With the last tropical storm that went through, we had a number of vessels that broke loose from their moorings and crashed into our floating dock and did damage to some of the pier and the dock. That is a hazard we anticipate,” Perry said.

She noted the Bradenton Beach Police Department conducts regular marine patrols of the waters south of the pier in an attempt to ensure those vessels comply with state boating regulations.

Bradenton Beach Mayor John Chappie said the city’s partnership with the county and the West Coast Inland Navigation District has resulted in 56 derelict, abandoned or non-compliant vessels being removed from those waters since 2012.

TDC Chair and County Commissioner Misty Servia expressed support for the funding request and also for a potential water taxi service that would originate in Bradenton.

“Any way that we can remove cars from the roadway going to the Island is such an exciting thing, and I look forward to the city of Bradenton developing a water taxi from their end,” Servia said.

Tourism is rebounding in Manatee County

Tourism rebounding in Manatee County

Written by SUN contributor on . Posted in Business, Tourism.

MANATEE COUNTY – Tourist Development Council members received some encouraging news just before Christmas.

During this morning’s meeting, held at the Bradenton Area Convention Center, representatives from Visit Florida and Research Data Services gave TDC members updates, and the news was good – tourism numbers are going up despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Jen Carlisle with Visit Florida said that while the numbers they’re seeing are an overall 37% decrease in tourism from the same time last year and a 57% decrease in tourism from Canada, travel increased in the second and third quarters of the year by 71%. Carlisle attributed the increase in numbers to the Visit Florida-led marketing efforts.

Beginning in September, she said the organization targeted Florida residents, urging them through marketing to take a trip in their own state. In October, the target area of that effort increased to include drivable markets within a 700-mile radius, such as Atlanta, Charlotte and Nashville.

From these rebound advertising campaigns, Carlisle said that Visit Florida has had 300 million impressions and that 70% of people who saw the marketing spots were more likely to visit the state than they were beforehand. And while international travel is still largely on hold due to travel restrictions, she said that Visit Florida is still marketing in other countries to keep the destination at the forefront of potential visitors’ minds when restrictions are lifted. Elliott Falcione, director of the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, said that his organization also is making sure that they continue marketing in other countries, particularly in Europe and Canada, to make sure that the Bradenton area is on visitors’ minds when they’re ready to book future travel plans.

Speaking on behalf of the central European market from Germany via Zoom, Dorothea Hohn said that her research has found that people are ready to travel to the United States again, particularly to beach and outdoor destinations like the Bradenton and Gulf Islands area, however, she added that those visitors are pinning their plans on the availability of a COVID-19 vaccine and the lifting of international travel bans and restrictions.

Anne Wittine of Tampa-based Research Data Services, the county’s tourism consultant, gave a presentation on the current state of tourism in the area, noting that the number of visitors is down only 10.3% for the year so far from 2019. The economic impact of tourism, – the amount of money put into the local economy by tourists – is down 13.2% from the previous year. And while occupancy is down 14.3% from the previous year, Wittine said that may largely be due to a lack of reporting from privately-managed vacation rental properties. She said that the majority of the occupancy numbers received come from hotels, motels and professionally-managed vacation rental units, and that it’s hard to get numbers from individual vacation rental owners or those rented through services such as Airbnb.

Some of the challenges facing the local tourism industry, Wittine said, are that visitors are waiting until the last minute, often one to seven days out from their expected travel time, to book vacations and that visitation from Canada and Europe, where travel restrictions are in place, is too small to count at this time. Another issue is that cancellations of trips are going up as the number of locally-reported COVID-19 cases increases.

And while the number of people feeling more confident and safe about traveling is steadily increasing, Wittine said one key element for the local tourism businesses is to provide good information on what is open and what kind of experience travelers can expect when they arrive at their destination, information that is often difficult to come by online.

Related coverage

 

Tourism remains down in pandemic

 

COVID-19 heavily impacting tourism

 

Coronavirus may be increasing tourism

Bradenton Anna Maria Island Longboat Key

Tourism board meets Vacasa

Written by Cindy Lane on . Posted in Business, Featured, Tourism.

Updated Feb. 13, 2018

BRADENTON – A local vacation rental agent told the Manatee County Tourist Development Council (TDC) today that his company has gone international.

John Lefner, of Island Real Estate, explained that the company has sold the vacation rental portion of its business to Portland, Oregon-based Vacasa, which manages 7,000 rentals with 1,800 employees worldwide.

Vacasa’s Anna Maria Island branch will have a strong, local presence at 419 Pine Ave. in Anna Maria, important for guests who want to do business face to face, not on the Internet, Lefner said.

The Anna Maria City Commission is reviewing the Pine Avenue office’s compliance with the city’s formula retail and formula commercial establishments ordinance.

Vacasa will produce more bookings for rental owners and will have a wider reach than Island Real Estate did in the European market, Lefner said, adding that Island Real Estate will continue to offer real estate sales services in Holmes Beach.

Lefner said Vacasa is sensitive to local residents and will enforce the rules in a five-page guest agreement that covers parking, noise, quiet enjoyment and other issues.

“We want to be a good neighbor because we don’t want to kill the golden goose,” he said. “We want to keep that livability.”

Vacasa also wants to keep the Island’s quaintness, he said, adding, “They don’t want to change it, they don’t want to turn it into spring break, they don’t want to turn it into a wedding destination.”

The sale to Vacasa reflects a growing trend of real estate companies selling off their vacation rental business, which is going digital, Lefner said.

“We’re in a new learning curve when it comes to how people travel,” he said, adding that while he plans his vacations two years in advance, more and more people use their phone to book instant travel.

About 84 percent of Manatee County’s vacation rentals are condos, single-family homes, duplexes and triplexes, with about 16 percent hotels and motels, Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau Director Elliott Falcione said.

Vacation rental legislation

The TDC voted Monday to recommend that Manatee County commissioners formally oppose Florida Sen. Greg Steube’s proposed vacation rental legislation, SB 1400.

The vote came after Bharat Patel, a representative from the Asian American Hotel Owners Association, representing a large contingency of its members from about 20 hotels in Manatee County, said the bill would kill tourism jobs and harm the economy.

TDC Chair and Manatee County Commissioner Carol Whitmore said the county has opposed the bill on its 2018 legislative platform because it would replace local government regulation of vacation rentals with state regulation.

“The state is going to usurp that, and if you believe that the state will inspect these rentals for safety, I think you’re foolish,” TDC member and Anna Maria Commissioner Doug Copeland said.

“We’ve watched many investors buy homes that were owned long term because there’s so much money to be made,” he said. “It’s destroying the fabric of the Island communities.”

Tourism up in first quarter

Visitation was up in the first quarter of Manatee County’s fiscal year, October through December 2017, said Walter Klages, of Tampa-based Research Data Services, the county’s tourism consultant.

A 5.8 percent growth in visitation to 155,100 people from the same quarter the previous year is “significant,” he said, with the 9.7 percent increase in economic impact to $152 million even more significant.

While occupancy was slightly down from 65.3 percent to 64.9 percent because inventory has grown, Klages said the market absorbed most of the new inventory, all but .6 percent.

The average daily rate increased 3.4 percent to $155 a night, he said. The Florida market grew by 3.8 percent and the European market increased by 6.8 percent. Average party size stayed stable at 2.5 people per party, as did the length of stay, 6.1 days. The length of stay is desirable, Falcione said, explaining that the state average is 4 days, but at 7 days, visitors begin spending less money each day.

The couples market decreased from 58 to 54 percent, but there were increases in other markets – the family market increased from 32 to 34 percent, the single market increased from 13 to 14 percent and the extended family market grew from 9 to 10 percent.

Business travel grew from 8 to 9 percent while vacation travel decreased from 73 to 70 percent.

The average age of visitors is up from age 49 to 51, and the average income of visitors grew from $115,000 to $120,000.

Tampa International Airport is still the primary airport for tourists coming to Manatee County, with 59 percent of local visitors arriving in Tampa.

County tourism officials must pay attention to a decrease in first-time visitation from 37 to 34 percent by targeting marketing and promotions to attract first-time visitors, Klages said.

Klages predicts strong tourism growth this year in the 2.6-2.7 percent range, slightly above national projected growth, he said.

In other business:

  • Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport announced new services: Elite Airways to Portland, ME and White Plains, NY, and Allegiant Airlines to Indianapolis, IN, Cincinnati, OH and Pittsburgh, PA.
  • Manatee County Administrator Ed Hunzeker reported that negotiations have stalled on getting a hotel at the Bradenton Area Convention Center in Palmetto.
  • The TDC board met Judith Tilton, the CVB’s first Director of Cultural Affairs, who will work to promote arts and heritage organizations in the county to enhance tourism.
  • Board member and Anna Maria Island vacation rental owner David Teitelbaum was re-elected vice chair.