MANATEE COUNTY – The Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau (BACVB) is engaged in post-hurricane marketing to help bring tourists back to Anna Maria Island.
BACVB Executive Director Elliott Falcione discussed the tourism bureau’s crisis management plan and post-hurricane marketing efforts during the Nov. 14 Manatee County Tourist Development Council (TDC) meeting.
Falcione said every tourism bureau should have crisis management plans for hurricanes and other extreme weather events, red tide, oil spills and more.
After hurricanes Helene and Milton, the tourism bureau worked side by side with the Manatee County Public Information Outreach office that conveys the county’s hurricane-related information and actions to the local and regional media.
“What we’re doing is monitoring what they’re telling the community and then we’re taking that message, sometimes tweaking it, to talk to our target market,” Falcione said.
“Let’s be careful with the types of adjectives we use locally that could confuse or potentially embellish our target market. We always want to be 100% honest, consistent, but one word that was used by an official related to tourism – they used the word ‘clobbered.’ ‘We were clobbered on the west coast of Florida.’ The optics of that is ‘leveled.’ Those are adjectives that are going to cost more (tourist tax) money to correct,” Falcione said.
Regarding the bureau’s post-hurricane actions, Falcione said they quickly assessed the damage, talked to industry members, talked to city officials on Anna Maria Island and responded directly to emails from disgruntled tourists who were not getting refunds or credits for their canceled vacation accommodations. He said the bureau sent goodie bags that included beach towels and Tervis tumblers to some of those disgruntled tourists, which he hoped would produce some positive social media feedback.
Falcione said the bureau doesn’t tell people how to run their businesses, but they did relay those cancellation refund and credit concerns to some of the Island’s vacation rental management companies.
Falcione said the county contracts public relation firms that monitor the local, national and international media coverage of news items that could impact the county’s tourism marketing efforts.
“CNN and the Weather Channel really did a poor job of the messaging, the embellishment. You have journalists that find the destructive area as the backdrop. And then it’s out there, so then we have to go and correct that messaging,” Falcione said.
Falcione said the annual TDC budget always includes $1 million for emergency marketing and $500,000 is being used “to attack our primary and secondary markets, radio influencers.”
Those efforts included bringing radio journalist Larry Richert from KDKA Radio in Pittsburgh down to do a live broadcast from the Bradenton Beach Pier on Nov. 15.
“If he’s saying the beaches are beautiful, Anna Maria Island is open for vacationers, they’re going to believe him,” Falcione said.
“We are seeing curb appeal get better every day, every week. We’re now correcting the mis-messaging. We’re cross-checking that with social media. We’re cross-checking that with our website. Every day a business reopens, it’s shown on a map. Now we are, through digital advertising, blitzing our secondary markets and we’re partnering with Visit Sarasota on our primary markets through digital advertising; and probably in about three weeks to a month, we’re partnering with Visit Florida on a dollar-for-dollar co-op to overlay all of our target markets,” Falcione said.
ADDITIONAL BUSINESS
- The TDC members supported Falcione’s request to recommend county commission approval to temporarily provide the city of Bradenton Beach with $375,000 in tourist tax revenues to repair the unrepaired portion of the hurricane-damaged floating dock next to the Bradenton Beach Pier. When FEMA reimburses the city, the city will return that $375,000 to the county.
- Having lost his county commission primary race, County Commissioner Ray Turner will vacate his role as TDC chair, with a new chair to be appointed by the county commission. Palmetto Mayor Shirley Groover Bryant and vacation rental industry representative Ed Chiles are also vacating their council seats and their replacements will soon be appointed.
- The council approved Falcioe’s request to recommend county commission approval of a $100,000 expenditure to serve as seed money for the Realize Bradenton’s new Bradenton Art and Music Festival (BAM) that will replace the annual blues festival that has been moved to Lakewood Ranch. The BAM festival will take place along the Bradenton Riverwalk on Saturday, April 5.
- The council supported Falcione’s recommendation to seek county commission approval of a $50,000 expenditure to support a Multi-Cultural Festival to take place at LECOM Park in Bradenton in July.
