Economic Impact and Visitor Tracking Report – Destination Management Organization – To Provide Economic Impact of Tourism and Visitors Profile Information for Findings of the Study Conducted in Fiscal Year 2023 – No Funding Required

2:34:13Move on to uh R forty one presentation.

2:34:23Public services.

2:34:29Adam's had a long day.

2:34:32Who doesn't like a little tourism talk at the end of the day? Good afternoon, Commissioner's Adam Thomas Tours, I'm Director of Pasco County. Uh today we're just going to take a little quick overview of the 2023 visitor economy to Pasco County. And forgive me, for the sake of time, I'm just going to skim through this real fast and really look at the big picture, the overall picture, and just kind of detail some of the economic impact indicators for the Pasco County visitor economy. This year or 2023, we

2:35:02actually uh went over a billion dollars of economic impact, which is up 12% year over year from 2022. And I want to call out real quick sports tourism, because sports tourism is a big part of our business, and it's really the lifeblood of who we are as a destination. And in 2023, our results just and sports tourism in general. We welcomed over 4,500 teams into Pasco County. That's over 83 events throughout

2:35:32the county, not only at Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus, Sarah Vandenberg Tennis Facility, Advent Health Center ICE, but also Mitchell Ranch, Starkey Park, Wesley Chapel District Park. We're working on other events at Sunwest Park as well. So those events actually generated over thirty-two and a half thousand room nights that generated over a thirty-one million dollar economic impact. And we're we're outpacing those numbers this year for twenty twenty-four. So that

2:36:02economic impact is derived from their visitor spending, and their visitor spending was up uh over 12% year over year, over $712 million. That spending came from 1.4 million visitors to Pasco County. You know, even though we're starting to become real flat um in in who we're inviting or the amount of uh visitors we're we're inviting to Pasco County, uh we're we're seeing our numbers getting back to pre-pandemic levels from 2019. So we're stabilizing there, but

2:36:32it's the quality of visitors that we are attracting year over year to Pasco County, and I'll get that.

2:36:40But the economic outlook or snapshot for the the lodging statistics, and this is just for hotels. We have different modes of of of lodging for Pasco County. This is strictly for hotels. You can see that our occupancy is down almost 10%, but our rate is up uh over 6%, which is driving our revenue per available room, and that's where our Where the rubber meets the road, uh so to say, when it comes to tourist development tax.

2:37:08Yeah, so I'm staying on the slide for a second. So I was looking at the math, and when I take 68.1 minus 61.8, I get like 6.3. But you got nine point three. Why d why is that number different?

2:37:22Um not

2:37:23sure. It's there's I mean then then and then the next slide's got the same thing. It you've got a difference is six percent, but it's actually seven point one four on that. And the next one over is

2:37:35Which one?

2:37:36That that six point number I get like seven point one four. And the next number I get when I set

2:37:41up the arrow down on the first one? That percentage is the one the commissioner is questioning. So

2:37:48that I get an occupancy rate that doesn't drop as much going by that number. When I flip over I'm I'm looking at the same thing. It's only s it's it's actually gone up seven point one four. And the other ones. Three point one three, I don't know. I'm just wondering where these numbers are coming from.

2:38:02Uh they come from our our the star report that we get on a monthly basis. And I can I can double check those those those numbers. But right now the occupancy is down almost ten percent because of the inventory that is up across the board for for Pasco County. We've actually increased our our our room inventory over year, so that's why the the the numbers are actually down. But I'll check I'll double check the uh the accuracy on on on the on On the percentages.

2:38:29So room nights again, uh we are down three percent because of the inventory is up. Um so 1.4 million rooms that were sold in 2023. Uh job supported. So we are a job generator, job supported throughout Pasco County. And in twenty twenty-three we were actually up eight percent, generating over twelve thousand.

2:38:52It's because it's the rate of decline in the percentage. Nine, nine yeah, just easier.

2:38:59Show off.

2:39:08So those those uh uh jobs within Pasco County generated uh salary and wages over thir three hundred and thirty two million dollars and that was up year over year fifteen percent. And we know that every 21, uh 121 uh visitors we bring into Pasco County creates one job, one additional job. So the more people we bring in the county, the more people we are putting to work. Tourist development tax up 35% year over year. We went from $5.2 million to $6.7

2:39:38million year over year, which is gonna help us pay off some of the debts, the services, the bonds, and the payoff amount for Rad Sports. And then here's here's the big um return for investment for us. You know, people uh ask us all the time, I'm not in the tourism industry. I don't work at a hotel. I don't work in an attraction. What does tourism do for me? Well, this is what tourism does for the citizens of Pasco County. It saves over $417 in local state and taxes. Local taxes and state

2:40:09taxes in 2023. So I'm not gonna get into the weeds on the pre-visit and uh some of the um uh

2:40:21information. I'm just gonna uh skip through this real fast. Whoa whoa whoa I want you to touch these two. You want to touch you wanna go through this? Okay. So the trip planning cycle, fifty fifty percent of visitors actually plan their their their trip to the Florida Sports Coast, Pasco County within th their first month. And here's how they're searching for us. They're looking for us on Google. They're organically talking to friends and family about Pasco County and what Pasco County has to offer in terms of a visitor experience. And then they're also checking us out on social

2:40:51media, on Facebook, Instagram is really big for us. It really tells the story and captures the story of the destination through video and images. And the reason why visitors are visiting Pasco County, again, visiting friends and family, over 30%. 20% is actually attending a sporting event here in our destination. And you know what, 18% just want to get away. They just want to get away to a nice quiet destination, get out of a metropolitan area and uh see some of our natural assets that that that

2:41:21make up Florida Sports Coast. Transportation mode of transportation, we are still a drive market. So the southeast region of the United States, we are still seeing ninety-one percent of our visitors drive into Pasco County, whether that be uh their own personal transportation, rent in a car, or RV. And nine percent actually flew into Tampa International Airport. So recall of advertising. So this is our return on marketing investment. We know up to 25% of our visitors who plan their trip to

2:41:51Florida Sports Coast Pasco County have seen, read, or have heard, or have been influenced by an advertisement. And we know that up to eighty percent were influenced by Said advertisements.

2:42:05The top source of medium or platform they're noticing our advertisements on is social media, 38% billboards. That would be digital billboards or out-of-home billboards that we're strategically placing within the state of Florida. Or online advertisements at 22%. And here were our our visitor of origin and the regions that they that they come from, and we're seeing a bigger increase of visitation in the Midwest. Last year that was at 13%, but

2:42:35it's starting to grow right now at 16%. And the bulk of our visitation actually comes from the state of Florida at 72%. Followed up by New York, Georgia, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky. Top markets of origin, again, the bulk of our visitation, 38%, is coming out of the Tampa Bay market. Orlando market and actually the city of New York.

2:43:03So who are our visitors? Well, we know they're uh the medium age is 50 years old, earning over $81,000 of income, and they're primarily females. Females are the decision makers in all households across the US and are visitors, and they are deciding where they're going on their vacation. Top accommodations 25% of our visitors are staying in hotel motels. 17% are staying with friends and family once they're in market. And 44% did not stay

2:43:33overnight in our short-term lodging. So that's the conversion that we're trying to hit. We're trying to decrease. that overnight or did not stay in overnight accommodations. We're trying to decrease that number while increasing our hotel stay. So there's a conversion market that or um uh metric that we're trying to change. Java party size. We know that uh up to 238% were spent during the uh each day per day uh while they were here in market, and every party size actually spends

2:44:03over a thousand dollars while they're in Pasco County. Top visitor activities, we all love to eat, so casual dining is the top activity while they're here in market shopping. Again, spending time, quality time with family and friends, and also visiting our natural assets with our nature and parks. So I want to stop here for a second because here's where the areas that they visited the most while Here in Pasco County with the top two rounding out Newport

2:44:33Ritchie and Wesley Chapel, because it makes sense because the bulk of our hotels and our lodging accommodations start in Newport Ritchie and in Wesley Chapel.

2:44:41But hold that moment. Five of the top five of the top six. Uh from Shady Hills Over. along the coast. Just Focus to that as we look at all these numbers.

2:44:53What is 10? Is it uh there's a hotel in Hudson? Is that from that hotel in Hudson?

2:45:00There's a motel.

2:45:02Okay.

2:45:03And there's there's also short term lodging. There's vacation rentals in in in Hudson as well.

2:45:07Okay, okay, so this includes short term rental rentals? Rentals. So one, is that kind of like downtown Newport Ritchie? But then there's a lot of short term rentals in Gulf Harbors.

2:45:19This is just areas areas visited.

2:45:22Areas visited. This is not hotels. This is this is where people actually

2:45:26Oh so they're doing a survey, you're not getting responses back from hotels where

2:45:30this is face we so what they what our research firm actually does is face to face intercepts um at at key points of interest um here in Pasco County and they also do email surveys.

2:45:42Okay. So numbers one, three, four, five, six, and ten are all from the west side.

2:45:48What's

2:45:48six is?

2:45:49But scalping has a big play in that.

2:45:51Correct.

2:45:53Yes sir.

2:45:56Visitor satisfaction. So this is one of our key performance metrics because the the retention of who our visitors are. is really key for us. So if we keep the rent retention rate high, We can focus on new markets and new areas of growth. So right now, uh one out of ten um People gave us an eight point six one as a place they like to visit and ninety-two percent of our visitors will return with sixty percent of sixty-six percent definitely we will will return to Pasco County for a future

2:46:26vacation. Top desired additional activity. So we also ask our visitors, what else would we like to see? What else is What else would they like to experience while in market? So more restaurants, fine dining. It it's great that we see uh uh Cooper's Hawk coming in to to Wesley Chapel. It's great we have Bella Brava coming in, but we want more additional dining options.

2:46:49We are

2:46:50getting

2:46:50Cooper's Hawk too, you know. Trinity.

2:46:53We need we need more we need more options, more uh casual dining options, more family uh activities, more shopping options, more sporting events. The bigger our portfolio expands as a destination, the more these these numbers actually go up. Perception of Pasco County or Florida Sports Coast, we ask them, what do you think about Pasco County once that you were here on a vacation? The perfect uh relaxing vacation spot to get away. You can sit and watch dolphins jump in a sunset over the water. There are so

2:47:23many opportunities for indoor outdoor activities here, truly something for everyone. So detailed findings. So the Tourist Development Council actually asked us to go and take a look over the past five years to see how we were progressing, see where we're at from 2019. And you can see our lodging metrics kind of fluctuate from pre-pandemic levels. To post-pandemic levels, and now we're getting back stabilizing for pre-post uh pre-pandemic levels in terms of

2:47:53occupancy. Our rate is still increasing with the uh with our average daily rate, uh, and revenue per available room is actually. uh stabilizing right now because occupancy is going down with the uh fluctuation of inventory and the Florida fatigue. I really want to harp on that for a second. The Florida fatigue is real. We're not only seeing it here in Pasco County. The whole state of Florida is actually down in occupancy in terms of visitation while International travel is

2:48:24up still. It is up. So Floridians domestic uh visitors uh are are actually going overseas and now that new markets have opened up so you can see a decline in occupancy and visitation to the state of Florida and the domestic So, economic impact of tourism, you can see our visitors are steadily increasing since 2020, coming out of the pandemic. Rune nights have gone down over year over year. Economic

2:48:54impact and direct spending is still outpacing prior years.

2:49:00I do want to take a second to focus on the taxes supported. by the visitor economy, over ninety million dollars in terms of taxes. This is your gas tax, this is your property tax, it's um Sales tax, tourist development tax, all the taxes that are generated from the visitor spending over the course of the past year.

2:49:26So I'm gonna go on and get down to more of the details because this is the uh the visitors uh to Florida Sports Coast that that have paid that have stayed in paid accommodations, unaccommodations, and day trippers. So we kind of use this this information to start building future campaigns, future marketing campaigns, and future business plans um and uh future initiatives in terms of attractions uh or attracting the the right visitor. Direct spending by category. Again, paid, unpaid, and

2:49:56day trippers.

2:49:58And you can see how it's broken down year over year from two thousand nineteen.

2:50:06Direct spending by visitor type, so visitors that sp that spend in market one week or less. up to a visitor that spends three to six months in market. So those are your long term visitors uh over the course of uh Snowbird. season which is now which is our high peak season. Yes sir.

2:50:27If you go back one slide, Adam, your day trippers. Is that made up of our residents just going out and hitting up Popstroke and hitting the mall or going to the

2:50:37No sir, these are all um Visitors that are coming from the Tampa Bay MSA. So it's not our own residents and citizens. These are folks that are driving in from a fifty mile or greater distance.

2:50:50Okay. Thank you.

2:50:56Reason for visiting, again going into the details of why the visitor is here.

2:51:06Recall of advertising, social media, billboards, these are all of our media placements, our platforms that we are investing in to reach the right consumer at the right time on the right medium to get the right return on marketing investment.

2:51:25Regions of origin of where the traveler profile has come from. Again, fifty fo over fifty-four percent of the uh the the traveler is coming in from Florida. One percent international. So there's your opportunity of growth, and that's why we're investing heavily into international marketing and international sales.

2:51:47Just skimming down into the regions of origin from the traveler profile.

2:51:54Markets of origin from visitor type to overnight visitor. You can see all all visitors are coming from the markets of Tampa, St. Pete, Orlando de Tono, Mel Melbourne Beach, New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, DC, Hakerstown, Baltimore, Boston. And then the overnight visitors. In terms of visitor mark uh digital origin. Travel party size. We know that at least two point six visitors are coming

2:52:24in a consistent uh basis on for travel party size and over thirty six of all visitors travel with one Children or more.

2:52:35Average income. An age? Over the course of the previous year of 2023. 61% female, 40% male.

2:52:51Length of stay. And this just goes on and on and on in more detail. So I won't bore you with bore you with the minutiae of the this. I know it's late in the day. I'll take any questions.

2:53:02Can you go back for a second? What's the length, the day tripper? So the biggest one is six nights.

2:53:10Six nights, over six nights in market. So that's again, that's your long term visitor. That's your Not you're an international visitor, but those are the snowbirds that are staying here for for the next four months.

2:53:23Mr. Chairman Mariano. Yes. So Adam, thanks for the presentation. I and I wanted you to go through it because uh there was a lot of good stuff that was in there. Um One of the things you mentioned about international travel are one percent.

2:53:32Yes.

2:53:33And we've got a new line in from Virgin Atlantic. Uh that may be something if we haven't touched on advertising, maybe something to look at. Maybe all those foreign airlines are of some sort to do something. Um but I wanted to talk about the family people, family visits, visiting friends, coming down, special events. I know for years we always struggle in the summertime air. Uh we try to focus on what we're gonna do in the summer for trying to promote events. And those get uh heavily scored. Uh we learned that Chas Chasco Fiesta, the Zephyrhills Uh

2:54:04events they have here, Come Cod Festival, all those things are good for families to go say, you know, come see me, we'll go here, we'll go there, that type of thing. Um Sculloping. We started out with a ten day season a few years back. Uh Adam, thanks for your help 'cause we went up there. Uh we were able to convince him eventually up to thirty seven days, the science showed that the scalloping supports a forty day season, so we're gonna get that. Matter of fact I'm driving up tomorrow I'm I'm driving up tonight to go talk to Fish and Wildlife, they get their final meeting where they're gonna make their final vote. And I was

2:54:35asked to go up there after participating to to make sure we lock that in, frankly. Um so in getting that, uh we're gonna have our weekend uh I think it's gonna come out to at least four, maybe possibly five weekends. And I reached out to Drew Sasser who's actually running the um Shrimp from Crab Festival this weekend at Sun West. He's done it for like nine years now, eight years now. uh done a great good job. I reached out to him a few weeks ago to try to get with Adam and Keith about setting something up. um to do something

2:55:05for that five week period. So every weekend, every Friday, Saturday, Sunday we get something going out there. Um I think When you take scallopings in activity, especially along the coast. Now you can drive it to say okay, not only can you go do your scalloping, but now you get an event to go to take the family their during or after and do something more and create some more activity. It's a huge opportunity for us. Last year we got started too late on it. Right now if we move quick enough we can. Um So I knew Drew's starting

2:55:35the contact. Um little later than I want him to, but I know you got a T D C meeting tomorrow. I don't think it can make that. But I'd like it to be part of the conversation as you go forward with it and put him on the event between now and then, Adam, to work with you and Keith. Number one to try to cut cut the fees down for him as far as with parks, but number two to f to you to find out what we can do to help him do promotions. So he can do the promotions. and make this forty day period A r a real big impact. W what was the impact last year? We said Twelve

2:56:05million dollars? Uh a little over eleven million dollars. Eleven million dollars.

2:56:10For which you could do something too.

2:56:12Well i it e everybody can move up and down, but I'm just saying for that forty for that for that season we can go everywhere. I mean guild dogs may want to jump in too. Again with Sun West up there with the beach right there. And all we got going on with the new volleyball tents. there could be some great activities together. So

2:56:33And then let's let's see what we can br to bring back, bring back for an idea and get it for the next agenda item so we can stop preparing.

2:56:39Are we starting our scout season after the fourth of July?

2:56:42Yes. It's gonna it's gonna start probably the Wednesday after the fourth and they're gonna kinda do that so we don't get go crazy on Fourth of July weekend, but it'll be the following weekend after that it'll kick in. This way a fish and wildlife and Pasco uh Sheriff's Department get a ch kinda rest and recover for a couple of days and after that it should be stable, but it's all those weekends get better and better uh for the scalping anyway.

2:57:07You could've looked out my window, you could have walked. right across the water.

2:57:11It was it was crazy. That was one of the discussion points. He says, okay, we'll push it back to make it easier for everybody, but it was a spectacular. amazing seeing all those boats out there. But yeah, we th we're comfortable going back a week. 'Cause we figure Everybody is gonna be out Fourth of July and a boat's gonna go out there whether they can scallop or not. But after that point it's a nice push for the family activities, getting together and just having a having a good time out there.

2:57:36We had our best galloping trips. of of my career. last year in September in northern Hernando County. In September.

2:57:48Yeah. Then they get bigger and bigger, they get bigger and bigger.

2:57:51No, they were humongous and we we finally, for the first time, hit a limit. Um We're not I don't know. Trey's very good but the rest of us maybe we're too social. I don't know, but

2:58:04It's so much fun. We know what they

2:58:05have.

2:58:14What's going to make them have a heightened experience once they're here? to stay a little bit longer, spend a little bit more money and market. And again, uh there's other destinations in the state of Florida that offer scalloping, but nobody offers a scalloping festival. So this is a great opportunity to actually capture that audience and keep them here a little bit longer. So yes, I told you.

2:58:35So let's let's go make it happen. And I and I I want to say that I you know I appreciate you know working with you on TDC because it was really quickly that we then reestablish getting those volleyball nets which will be in by March they say, so coming right up. And I know Consuelo's been great getting some things set up so it's gonna be a big boost for that area and you know I wanna thank the board again for the uh the allocation of the money to go build the structure we need to make it leave and look better.

2:58:58We do have something we need to talk about and Ralph's sitting over there. Um And it not only affects sports um money, it affects transportation money. So the the talk about sunsetting ta uh uh sales tax referendums. And it includes the um The bet the trick the Tourism tax. They wanna They wanna sunset it. And then you have to go back out again to see if the red that's the okay, that's the Dumbest one. I mean that that's other people paying for

2:59:28our our stuff. So is that really moving?

2:59:32So that is the proposal in the House tax budget. The Senate came out yesterday. It's not in that one. Uh the house would be the t uh T D T would have to go back to the voters every six years.

2:59:44I I don't I don't uh even understand that one. That's so counterintuitive to flo what we are in Florida. We're dr you know, tourism is such a big part of where we get our revenue from. Um okay, so Uh do you want to talk about the governor's baseball dinner? I have a picture.

3:00:03Well, last week we had uh the honor of sponsoring the uh the governor's baseball dinner to kick off spring training for all 15 Major League Baseball teams uh in the state of Florida for the Grapefruit League. And uh this year it was um at Steinbrenner Field.

3:00:17Yeah,

3:00:18and they honored uh Tino Martinez as as um as honoree of the Florida Sports Foundation. So last year, Commissioner Mariano had an opportunity to come uh with us to Dunedin, and we're gonna continue to support the Florida Sports Foundation and Uh and Commissioner Starkey was there as well.

3:00:35Were you there? Oh yeah, you're right, Dunning. Yeah, I got to go to that one. Yeah.

3:00:38So uh unfortunately the governor didn't come this year. He came last year, he didn't come this year, but it again still a great time, great opportunity to to to really get our brand out. Um there are other destinations uh that were sponsoring but we were the headline sponsor of the uh the governor's baseball dinner so

3:00:55very good yeah it was a nice the weather was absolutely spectacular and uh Tina was so humble so Okay.

3:01:06Anymore? I did? Sure. All right. Thank you very much.

3:01:10Thank you. Appreciate it.