Visit Boerne Advisory Board

MINUTES TO THE REGULAR QUARTERLY MEETING OF THE CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU ADVISORY BOARD MUNICIPAL COURT COMPLEX 124 Old San Antonio Road Boerne, TX 78006 October 7, 2021 - 4:00 p.m. Present: Chairman Joe Granados, Board Members Mary Kanafani, Ross Partlow, Guy Sanders, Tommy Mathews, Brad Wilson Absent: Vice-Chairperson Michelle Ernst, Elizabeth Castle, Cristal Bitar 1. CALL TO ORDER – 4:00 PM - Meeting was called to order at 4:02 pm. a. Make any necessary announcements and/or introductions 2021-846 1. Welcome Tommy Mathews - President of Westward Environmental and Owner of Tusculum Brewing Company Chairman Granados introduced Tommy Mathews to the board and gave a short background on him. 2021-847 2. Larry Woods Lifetime Achievement Award Recognition Chairman Granados announced to the board that Larry Woods had been awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Texas Travel Alliance at their recent annual conference on September 15, 2021. He read the announcement from TTA and played the video that had been presented at the TTA Awards Banquet. Afterwards the board presented Mr. Woods a gift on behalf of the board for his service to the CVB and the City of Boerne. 2. CITIZENS COMMENTS: There were no public comments from the audience. Chairman Granados recognized Vin Patel and Hilary Harper, in the audience; introducing them to the board as the owner and general manager of the Fairfield Inn, Boerne. 3. APPROVE MINUTES 2021-848 Approve Minutes from Meeting of July 1, 2021 City of Boerne Page 1 Printed on 4/4/2022 Convention & Visitors Bureau Official Meeting Minutes October 7, 2021 Advisory Board Joe asked for a motion to approve the minutes: Guy Sanders made the motion, Brad Wilson seconded, the motion passed unanimously. Tommy Mathews abstained from the vote as he was not in attendance at the meeting of July 1, 2021. 4. RECEIVE UPDATE ON HOTEL PERFORMANCE 2021-849 a. Fair Market Share for 2nd Quarter 2021 - Hill Country Competitive Set Larry explained the fair market share spreadsheet to the board and reiterated how Boerne did in comparison to our competitive set. Joe asked how the other hotels are doing to which Larry responded that they were all doing very well. He then talked about how the ADR has gone up and stayed up through 2021 and pointed out that Boerne had the 2nd highest average daily rate for the 2nd quarter as compared to other hill country towns. Brad Wilson added that the ADR's for short term rental properties mirrored that of the hotels and their occupancy rates were going up as well. Tommy Mathews asked how many units (short term rentals) were ever out of service – do we know? And also, if our hotels were ever at 100% occupancy. Larry responded that we do not know when rooms are taken out of service and that "no" our entire hotel room supply has never been at 100% occupancy. 2021-850 b. STR Summary through September 2021 Turning to the Smith Travel Report spreadsheet, Larry explained the 3 year comparison and how hotel revenues were far exceeding 2019's. He reviewed the spreadsheet month-by-month, went over the increases and how well we were doing and how other cities are doing as compared to us. Joe asked about a discrepancy between the occupancy in the two reports to which Larry pointed out that one included short term rentals and the other did not. 5. RECEIVE UPDATE ON MARKETING AND ADVERTISING 2021-851 a. Next Edition Boerne Visitor Guide City of Boerne Page 2 Printed on 4/4/2022 Convention & Visitors Bureau Official Meeting Minutes October 7, 2021 Advisory Board Moving on, Larry talked about the new visitor guide that would be coming out and where we send them: i.e. hotels, other hill country communities, and TXDot points of entry into the state, adding that Orange Texas was the busiest travel center into the state. Joe Granados commended the CVB on making the digital shift for the guide. He also commended Tori Bellos on her social media activities. He reiterated the digital component that we provide and said he was very impressed. 2021-852 b. AJR Media Digital Marketing Tori Bellos then addressed the board to talk about AJR Media and their ability to provide digital programmatic advertising. Joe asked about the zip code drill down and Tori then moved on to the Datafy report, explaining how the information collection works. Joe said he was interested in the details because we should all align our strategies in the same direction by sending out information to the same zip codes. Joe talked about wanting to continue to work toward a whole downtown marketing initiative and all getting on the same page with our target audience. Larry said he would share information as it becomes available. 2021-853 c. YOLO, TX - New Segments for 2021-2022 Larry then moved on and talked about our next set of T.V. segments with YOLO (You Only Live Once) television show, stating that, "YOLO" loves Boerne and continues to run our segments as re-runs whenever possible at no extra cost to the CVB. 2021-854 d. Influencers Status Report City of Boerne Page 3 Printed on 4/4/2022 Convention & Visitors Bureau Official Meeting Minutes October 7, 2021 Advisory Board Moving on, Tori talked about the social media influencers that we work with and how much content we receive from them. She gave some examples of how Boerne was doing and what the reach and impressions were. Mary Kanafani asked if the photos the influencers took could stay up longer as it seemed that one influencer in particular (SA Foodie) did not keep her (Random's) photos up on her wall very long, stating that she could not find pictures from her business on the social media account. Mary added that she liked this influencer a lot, but would like to see her pictures up longer. Joe talked about how the Kendall operates with individuals in order to work with them and acquire their deliverables. To which Tori added that the CVB always attempts to acquire all photos from the influencers we contract with. Larry said the goal is to have two influencers per quarter but we tend to get more. 2021-855 e. 2023/2024 Eclipse Report Larry then talked about the upcoming annular solar eclipse on October 14, 2023, stating that this would be a partial eclipse that may draw a small crowd, but that we are expecting 50- 60- 70 thousand people in town for the total solar eclipse happening on April 8, 2024. Larry added that the city is working on ways to accommodate watch parties; Tori added that the solar eclipse committee was discussing crowd control, and also stated how the CVB is preparing for it through branding ideas and logo items for the event. Tommy Mathews added that he attended the one in Nebraska and how the traffic impacted his departure. 2021-856 f. Update - Tik Tok Archiving Larry moved on to TikTok and asked Tori to give an update. Tori said we are working with the city on meeting legal requirements and also working with outside companies to get a quote in order to use TikTok with archiving. Joe gave the example that when both Facebook and Instagram shut down recently, The Kendall shifted all of their advertising over to TikTok and that is what makes it a good and necessary tool to be used for advertising. Mary asked about the ownership of TikTok, but no one really knew who owns it. Board discussion ensued regarding the ownership of it. 6. RECEIVE UPDATE ON DEPARTMENT NEWS 2021-857 a. TACVB Annual Conference - August 2021 City of Boerne Page 4 Printed on 4/4/2022 Convention & Visitors Bureau Official Meeting Minutes October 7, 2021 Advisory Board Larry moved on to talk about the TACVB Annual Conference and his position on the board and gave a brief overview of what the speakers at the conference had to talk about. 2021-858 b. TTA Annual Summit - September 2021 Again, Larry gave a brief overview of the TTA Annual Conference and that the majority topic of the meetings and speakers centered around digital marketing and how to reach leisure travelers. He went on to discuss how the meetings markets were still slow to return as most corporations were still working from home and meeting remotely. 2021-859 c. City of Boerne New Year - October 1, 2021 Larry moved on and talked about what was going on in the city with the departmental goals and how they tie into upper management goals, which tie into the City of Boerne Master Plan. He talked briefly about the new assistant city managers: Danny Zincke and Kristy Stark, goals for himself and the CVB staff, and also his upcoming review. Joe asked Larry how he was doing with the city re-branding initiative. Larry said he had contacted 3 marketing companies that put in bids and it was in the budget for next year, and that he would be working on it this next year with the assistant city manager, Kristy Stark. Larry talked about the upcoming City of Boerne Executive Leadership Summit scheduled for November. He went over how every city department took a survey and that the CVB scored in the 90’th percentile, adding that the CVB scored the highest in the city, and that our goal is to increase our scores the next time around. Joe said he thinks the city is doing very well. 7. RECEIVE ADVISORY BOARD MEETING INFORMATION 2021-860 a. Regular Meetings Schedule Jeanette Teague then pointed out the schedule for the regular meetings that was in the board packets. 2021-861 b. New Advisory Board Meetings Location City of Boerne Page 5 Printed on 4/4/2022 Convention & Visitors Bureau Official Meeting Minutes October 7, 2021 Advisory Board Larry mentioned that he was working on moving the CVB Advisory Board Meetings over to the new City Council Chambers in City Hall for the next meeting. 8. COMMENTS FROM BOARD AND STAFF Joe then asked the board if there were any more questions or comments, to which there were none. 9. ADJOURNMENT There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 4:55 p.m. Larry Woods _________________________ Boerne CVB Director Jeanette Teague______________________ Secretary City of Boerne Page 6 Printed on 4/4/2022