hello my name is shelley freeland eddie i'm the mayor for the city of sarasota and i'm pleased to have as our guest for this episode for junior haley who is the president of visit sarasota county we're going to talk about tourism but in a little bit different way a lot of times when people hear about tourism they only think beaches hotels and entertainment but there are some other facets of tourism that impact us right here in the city of sarasota virginia welcome thank you very much there tell our residents what th sarasota county is and how it plays such a vital role not only in the county but in the city limits we are an independent not for profit entity that represents tourism for the entire us here sort of county including the city  we are funded both through private sector funding restaurants hotels the industry and in a contract with sears for the county government on the tourist development tax known as the bed tax that's collected from our because there were lots of folks here and it was a very busy so it was very busy it was not your typical september we saw all of our city hotels all the athletes their families their coaches fell in love with the area  right what can we expect as an outgrowth of that relationship well one of the things is we're already having conversations with the international body about what other events we can bring to sarasota we've already been awarded the world masters  developmental wrangling with countries in central and south america while getting into the tourism aspect specifically for the city if you have looked around anywhere downtown over the past eighteen months it's obvious that there are new hotels and new condos that are coming on board now we're starting to see that in twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen looking at the information both with your website and online we're expecting over a thousand rooms to come on board new rooms in twenty seventeen twenty eight seen at counted one two three four five six hotels that we are aware of more that we think are in the pipeline and there is always this love hate relationship between we want you to come but here you come and you got to drive to get here so that crux between sarasota being such a wonderful place to come and visit and the toke of traffic jam packed the bed tax as we've talked about is a tourist of element tax that can only be used for certain things can you talk about what that is yes it's a prescribed under state statute the different uses what must have towards him her bess here locally we use about thirty percent of that for tourism promotion that maybe many people don't realize that we have about thirty two different arts organizations that receive more than a million dollars of funding it's fun speech renourishment projects such as the lido beach project that will eventually be coming it helps to the renovation and small stadium here in sarasota and help create the wrong park and it needs to manderson parks we have a lot of different uses for it here locally but ultimately that testing is does it have a tourism promotion purpose looking at the way they've kind of summarized the statute the money can only be used on tourism promotion beach maintenance and rain nourishment the arts sports stadiums and they've indicated the suncoast aquatic nature center and we know that the rowing complex also is eligible for funding what i'd like to know is from a city perspective you know how can we make sure that we're able to direct some of those dollars particularly in the downtown to areas that can and improve or promote tourism in the downtown we have a number of different programs that visit sarasota some are direct assistance or marketing grants for example we can work with organizations to help you market your invent we know a lot of groups are small and nonprofit so rather than have you go out have to spend the money wait for the reimbursement we actually spend the money on your behalf we sit down we create a marketing program for you place the media it helps oss really get to know the local programs and then it also helps grow the local programs we also do a lot of promotion of the events going on in sarasota whether it's with a grant or not and we just we were best when we're in partnership with loneliness ations so if people feel that they need help there is a need for more promotion and we encourage them to give visit sarasota call get us involved in your project so we can help you getting to the marketing assistance proportion and other part of tourism you know we have been approached particularly at the city level with hot opportunities for historic preservation historic development and actually history as a tourism are one example that i can think of specifically within the city limits is a new town historic preservation district that was  supported by the city and the commission and they've done some tremendous things and having marker the route the community having trolley visits and beginning to establish regular activities that focus on the historical value of a new town is that something and that your organization could support and promote yes we have been promoting and in particular something like a new town history project is what we call new product and you know magazines and travel publications are always looking for something new and we know visitors from a lot of history and so that's something we've been pushing out through our media channels to talk about this new opportunity to learn this unique history we have on here there are a lot of times that we miss opportunities to have connector us and for me when i think of connections i think of from the time that you if you fly into say or so from the time it's you get off the plane at the airport and you drive into downtown and there is a lot of business arts entertainment that sometimes is overlooked because it's not as large as some of the more prominent organizations and they may not be aware that there are organizations like yours that they can you know reach out to for support and getting the message out about their event equally important from a tourist development standpoint you know with the newtown historic district as an example because of the efforts to alleviate some of the blight that's happening in parts of the community that we're trying to alleviate this is another tool of carrying the message and so  glad to hear that you and your organization are in tune to the needs i'm looking at some of the numbers with regard to the bed tax and it lists the revenue from two thousand and nine  depressant in millions of dollars in two thousand and nine to nine point six million increased eighteen and a half percent in the following year to eleven point three increased again to twenty two percent the following year and thirteen point nine a smaller percentage increase up to fourteen and going forward three more years to the most recent data of twenty fifteen sixteen twenty million and some change and so although there are increases there have been some significant dips and that the the data do you see that as a trend or is it an anomaly or what do you think obviously during the economic downturn chart we saw a downturn in people taking vacations obviously if you're worried about losing your job you're probably not planning a vacation and just as we began to recover we were hit with the uncertainty of the deepwater horizon oil that took a little while to recover and then you you saw a couple of years with a double digit increase right reflected in a lot of pent up demand people had been postponing vacations and so we saw a lot of demand now we're leveled off to what i think is a more sustainable path where you know you're looking at four percent towards tax growth we will see a jump this year because our tax collector has reached an agreement with iran be and b so that is a news source of tours tax that we were missing that we started collecting and matt what do you think about us on the aftermath of all the hurricanes that our state has experienced it again no anough our waste oh we're far enough out to determine what the changes might have been during that time we've looked at a couple things we immediately went into the field with our research company to look at visitor perceptions did they understand that sarasota was by and large untouched on its major tourism assets  there was certainly a lot of confusion in the early weeks after as to whether we were ok or not and that's when we really started using social media for he spoke showing real video real photographs of the actual conditions and and got that out so a lot of those misperceptions corrected and then being able to host the world rowing you had nine hundred athletes i think every one of them has their own instagram meads and i and they were sending out all those gorgeous pictures so that really helped us with what i think will be a speedy recovery i got to put my mayor head on as relates to  hotels surrounding the hurricanes you know i spent a lot of time giving interviews and television and radio and in person with regard to how sarasota did after  hurricane arma and now we are in post recovery efforts we've worked a lot with thema and a lot of our other state and regional partners and major complaint that we've received from residents who have needed temporary housing assistance is that they have received assistance from fema but no hotels in a three county region will accept the vouchers and so i am terribly disappointed if it's the case that our hotels are turning away individuals that are in need of temporary housing and i would ask that if your organization could support the city in any way this to get the word out that this is such a critical time if we ever go through another hurricane and we're still not out of the the woods yet hurricane season is november one but we want to be able to have those partnerships with the hotels in our region so that if there is a net there a situation like this that somebody doesn't have to drive to naples or as far north as orlando to find a hotel do you know anything about that process so i don't i apologize that i don't but i'd be delighted to work with you to see what the point situation is we did meet with air b n b last week and they have activated a housing situation where they're actually encouraging more of their homes to open up opportunities they were successful in houston and using air b n b to move people from the shelters who can go back home into some of those homes to homes part of that process is making sure that the host home is ready to accept a journal that they themselves haven't had damage but i think that's something where we need to work together and maybe bring the air b n b to the table and so you think it helped and you know it's like you said it's a two sided coin you know the air being to be on the private home onerous but the other side are the hotels and the bed and breakfast and the like you know that my understanding is that they had the option to participate or not and  know whether it's just that our local hotels didn't participate or whether there was an issue with the transfer of funding so that they could be paid i don't know the logistics but as a tourism partner any help that you can give us in figuring out that process so that if we go through this again we can make our residents aware that this is the process and it's not that folks are deliberately deciding that you can't stay here that hopefully there is something else so we can fix it between now and the next time excellent what seems like a big looking at the  other side of the hotel industry there are a lot of nonprofits that sponsor events are out the year as you know and these hotels that are coming on one of the biggest things that we hear from organizations that are want special permits for  events is that it's so expensive to reserve these hotels for conferences and the like are there discussions in that regard to make it more affordable or are there partnerships are there programs that smaller nonprofits can begin to take advantage of oftentimes will work with local groups and nonprofits to look for alternatives of the hotels and i think what people don't understand is the hotels have that meeting space in order to maximize the revenue and of the hotel room night so they're there less interested in having events in their meeting space as they want to tie it to rooms and that's why oftentimes locals have a hard time getting into the ho but we have an awful lot of other alternate meeting space we can work with groups and try to identify more affordable options are our challenge is we just don't have a lot of meeting space in the city in terms of you know meetings with lots of breakout rooms and availability you know within the hotels themselves the hotels that are coming online within the next twelve eighteen months who's got the largest capacity in terms of  meeting space not in of the new hotels have meeting space as large as the current high at regency so the west and has meeting space but nowhere near as much as the the ritz or the hyatt  the embassy suites will have some meeting space i think and it's they have some but it's limited right right and you know i guess just thinking from the other side of tourism that tourism should lead to  economic development other ways and to the extent that individuals or reserve rooms for conferences then maybe they will host conferences from the site and then possibly you know it's a doing business and so thinking of ways that beyond the traditional concept of tourism that we can begin to generate additional streams of revenue you know well and we've looked at a lot of the companies that have either expanded or relocated in this area and you talk to their c e o s they came here first as a visitor and that may have been the vacation or it may have been for a conference that they attended so they are very much the target and whenever possible we like to get our economic development team in front of those  different conferences so they can talk about doing business show here in sarasota chair two things this one i gave you a chance to give a snapshot by the numbers of last year as to what you know in terms of how many folks visited you know what you can tell us about that and then if someone wants to come and approach you or your position about assistance in the ways that you've talked about in terms of either hosting a that's advertising events that have a tourism impact or focus in on this new product which i think is a really significant what we do the easiest way is an email the haley h a l e y visit sarasota or or info at visit sarasota dot org or give us a call nine five five zero nine nine one i'm on extension want to go seven or just hit operator any one of us can can help you know tourism works in a community where it's part of the community right and if our promotions and what we're doing isn't a benefit for the people who are creating jobs and portraying sarah sort of the way people here in sarasota wanted to be portrayed then it doesn't work so we're anxious to work with the community because i think people may not be aware that there is a tourist of element council that is appointed by this or city county board of commissioners that has representatives from all of our municipal cities that participate can you talk about what t t c does yes so we do have we have an expanded tourist about my council here in sarasota county because it was important to have all four municipalities on the t t c it oversees all the uses of the tourist tax whether it's  promotions that we do the kind of marketing that we do our sports programs they hear from the county parks and recreation on how they're maintaining our beaches and our beach parks around the community and they provide us guidance and input on our major programs the next meeting the t t c will be looking at the economic impact from the rowing facility so they're really looking at a lot of the big picture items had the benefit of representing our city on the board and it's my first time as a member of more listening than talking but i do recall that you know all of the projects that are approved come through a pretty extensive application process and what one of the most important takeaways for me was there was a specific effort to level the playing field so that newer nonprofits could participate in the offerings and not that the standards are lower but th a knowledge meant there of a smaller group of nonprofits that might not have the per capita and the years of annual revenue as a united way or another larger more established organization but that doesn't mean they can't get support for their programs and i know that you were voted up about that support that effort and we work together on the arts alliance does an outstanding job of administering the arts crams but as you pointed out sometimes the group is too small right and so we'll work with through the tourism promotion dollars with those marketing grants funds again in one case of the crystal classic on siesta key is an example of a group that originally couldn't qualify for the arts grants we worked with them for a couple of years and now they are qualifying so it's a pretty good system we've developed and people should not assume that we have you know about their event or that they're too small and  application process as well where individuals can be assigned counselors for lack of a better word to help walk the process so that you're not right up against a deadline and then you figure out on my gosh this is just way too much and you can get this distance that you need in advance and i think that that is one of the things that makes our city and our county so dynamic is that there are so many different and you need and new and emerging events that come into our community but that there's an arm like your organization and c d c that does have funding in place to give them that initial push to be able to become self sustaining that's right dance it's about growing our local businesses is really what it's about is there anything from you can talk about what you think might be the projected increase in hotel jobs restaurant jobs and the like that are the outgrowth of these hotels that are coming along or i mean we're looking at a need for thousands and thousands of new employees everything from what people think about entry level line cokes or housekeeping to revenue manager accountants mid level management managers night manager and so a whole variety of different jobs and we often you know we'll hear from people who aren't convinced that hospitality jobs are the way to go and if you look at the top one hundred companies in the fortune five hundred in this country every single one of their c e o s have a job in hospitality at somewhere during their career and it is that training ground for working with people understanding complex problem solving so we've got some great opportunities and the other thing we have is great educational opportunities with on the university of south florida sarasota manatee had people don't realize has one of the country's best hospitality programs based right here in sarasota i'd be interested and kind of planning our hosting a meet and greet for those that are interested in going in the hospitality because you can't this overnight have a number of employees of jobs already that we're going to need we have a very real opportunity to improve the lives of several hundred family in my opinion to be able to have good employment good training jobs that have you know  full time salaries and opportunities for health insurance and the like that desser not necessarily experienced by a certain part of the population so it seems to me that if we start in advance to have kind of a focus group for folks that are interested plug them into the speaks to investment you know in the local community you know it is an investment and it's providing the opportunity for the young people growing up here people returning to the work force right there also a lot of jobs in hospitality that allow you to work while you're continuing your education right i know that everyone in the world and i have to work on getting my education that is just a fact of life and oftentimes these jobs give you the kind of flexibility with your schedule to work around your academic needs and some of the jobs and i'm not sure about these local whole hotels but some actually will assist with paying for classes while individuals go to go to school and make a commitment you know post graduation to provide you know maybe a year or two of employment i think it's an opportunity also to grow some management in some career level positions that might not have been available where somebody could feasibly which the top of their profession at their facility because it's just no place else to go and we could grow managers and we could grow them all nervous and we could grow and you know the other parts of the hospitality and the marketing side of hotels and the you know the  side of management and so it's not it's not only those jobs that we see on the front lines but it's those backdoor management opportunities and so i hope will take advantage of that and i thing people don't often realize they may look at say the resort long key club and then they don't necessarily know that's the same ownership group that has the holiday inn lido the sand castle the lido beach the news that went on long boat but that company ocean properties own beautiful resorts around florida and in the northeast so although you may start your career here at one of our local hotels on way you know there's opportunities if you want to see a little bit of the world to continue to grow that's what's exciting about the industry you can create your path but do you think that the new hotels that are coming on board have a unique understanding of the infrastructure impact that comes when they come and of course it's a good problem that folks always are coming to your hotel but then there's the where do they park and how long does it take to get there and the other things that kind of have to be intermingled from a policy perspective to make sure that life continues to move as folks are coming to and from you know these facilities i think one of the one of the things we began last year was looked at some visitor mobility and we did a whole year long visitor mobility study to understand are the ways our visitors used to get around where are they going when they stay here we know that almost all visitors no matter where they're staying in sarasota county are going to make at least one trip to st armand circle and it certainly seems as though they're all at the kissing sailor at one point to making their way there selfies so understanding where they're moving and then can we get five to ten percent of them off the road right because you can't solve the entire thing but if we can get some of them off the road in trolleys in our new vehicles downtown in the future and water taxis right that kind of incremental change becomes very important well we know that this is a continuing conversation and we just appreciate the partnership between visit sarasota county and the city of sarasota and we look forward to continue to be a partner as we address tourism and marketing and job creation and visitor mobility throughout the