05/11/23 Tourism and Convention Commission
commission to order and we'll do roll call First and we have Brittany Chandler president Sherry Franklin Mr President Neely Glenn president Marquez absent Howard Cottrell president Lisa Leclair present Hank Locklin is absent Shannon Sanders and Q Taylor okay we do have a quorum of five so we will proceed with the meeting uh first order of business is approval of our February minutes so I could get a second second it has been moved improperly second for the approval of our minutes are we ready to vote all in favor if you would raise your hand acknowledging yes everyone yes uh any nose the mo the minutes will stand approved as read next order of business is our financial report by Jeff Medford good morning the March 31st financial report is in your packet uh and through the month of March which is three quarters of the way through fiscal 2023 the financial performance of the city and the CBC continues to be very positive the city has reported on hotel tax collections received through February thus far and year-to-date for those eight months the actual Hotel occupancy taxes collected by Metro has totaled 82 million 643 000 of which one-third is dedicated by law to tourism promotion this exceeds the total from the prior year for this period by about 28 percent and brings the string of record-setting months for tax collections on a month by month basis to 13 months in a row it's worth noting that since sales taxes are based on the same Hotel Revenue stream that by definition means that sales tax is generated from these hotel stays in Davidson County have also increased by 28 percent this year over last year as is reflected on the financial summary the total that's been billed to the city for this fiscal year through March under our contract with Metro it's 22 million 838 22 million 838 as the contract is a reimbursement-based contract this total represents only the amount required to cover our actual expenses the tax receipts themselves go directly to Metro therefore all funds collected above the ultimate contract reimbursement remain with Metro for future tourism promotion use expenses for the year thus far are tracking very much in line with budget budget expectations and in most instances are coming in under budget overall our expenses for these nine months have totaled 30 million five hundred and seventy thousand dollars of which about 72 percent was funded through our Metro contract in looking at a few of the report details our overall direct sales expenses which is are summarized on line 24 of the report are running under budget this year in large part due to lower than anticipated costs that we incurred to successfully host the ASA annual meeting earlier this year this is a good illustration of our efforts to spend money effectively but not unnecessarily as we reported at our previous meeting the one category which is comparatively small but which is running noticeably over budget on a percentage basis relates to the operation of our visitor information centers at the request of the airport Administration we moved up the timing for the opening of our new music City shop in the newly redesigned Airport terminal into this current fiscal year and the build out and operating costs for this new facility along with the renovations undertaken for the first time in about 20 years at our Bridgestone Arena Center while easily covered by the available funding have caused the expenses reported on line 36 of the report to exceed the original budget and just for your reference I wanted to just send around some pictures of the the air with the airport shop and the newly redesigned Bridgestone Arena Center look like just so you have some idea of what we've been up to there are no other exceptions to report at this time but I'll be glad to try to address any questions if anyone has some are there any questions or Jeff in regards to the financial report they like coming under budget there even hosting asae I think is quite the accomplishments in 13 months 13 months awesome we're going for 14. absolutely absolutely all right good start off to a good start are we ready to vote can I get a motion to approve our financial report so move second it has been moved improperly second are we ready to vote all those in favor of the financial report if you would acknowledge by saying yes yes yes yes and he knows the motion stands approved we will start with our CDC reports but I forgot to acknowledge we've I see a new face in here so if you would uh introduce her Dina yes um like to welcome Heather Middleton who's our senior VP of marketing and she will be given the marketing report today but I'll jump into the president's report if you're ready um last weekend set new records for tax collections you'll recall we had three nights of Taylor Swift We had three graduations from universities and Oprah Winfrey and we had um Janet Jackson in town as well as the Brewers convention so we had a number of of people in town that set records for tax Collections and Bruce will get into the details and Jeff did mention how well tax collections are um it is event season we're getting into planning for several Events first one is Fourth of July you may have seen that we announced our talent we have Brad Paisley back this year we have Warren treaty we have Tiara Kennedy and lot Langhorne Slim as well as five other bands at Family Fun Zone it's a good way for us to showcase the diversity of the music and the talent that comes out of Nashville we are on track with our sponsorship dollars to meet and hopefully exceed last year's which helps offset some expenses and we've had National TV interest from CMT once again CNN and fox to cover the event this year so we'll work out all those details the NHL draft and award show is here June 26th and 28th it's the first time that they have been together in 17 years in the same city and it's the first time that they've ever been together in the United States so it's it's really great that Nashville is able to host this and it will also be on ESPN and we will have a stage on Broadway where the players will come out we'll have music and make it a fan experience as well the next event is SEC media days that's July 17th through 20th we will have a thousand credentialed media in town it will also set us up for great future events with the SEC and this event will be on SEC network we'll have a stage on Broadway around the arena and we will have some talent but also live broadcast on SEC network so it's another event to look forward to and this year Nashville will be on National Television for 11 events which is a record we have several others coming up like Grand Prix and CMA Awards and New Year's Eve so 11 times the rest of this year and then one last event I want to tell you about that we have already hosted was the James Beard Foundation fundraiser some of you may have attended it turned out great it was called sound bites of Nashville and then it was followed by a James Beard award nomination uh breakfast the next morning it was a way for us to showcase our great restaurants we ended up with about 12 no 13 restaurants participating between the two events and so it it set Nashville apart as a foodie City in James Beard's uh the organization's eyes so hopefully we can host future events with them but we were also able to use it as a fundraiser if you'll recall it was the night or you may not have been aware it was the night after the Covenant shooting so we ended up donating ten thousand dollars of ticket sales to the Covenant School for that event um last thing I'll leave you with there we have gotten some great accolades for Nashville yolan was just named the reader's Choice restaurant for Food and Wine magazine last week it's a Top Choice top restaurant in the country and then earlier in the year Locust and Audrey were also recognized as top restaurants in the country by Food and Wine in New York Times we have some fantastic independent restaurants here and Nashville was named one of the 50 best places to travel by travel and Leisure and one of the best cities in the U.S by Conde Nas traveler and we got another Accolade yesterday which is really good but we can't mention it because it's not released until June 15th you got my teeth but we're at the top of the list of best cities I'll tell you that or something for something for a good publication of Travelers okay okay we'll keep hitting 15. yeah and that concludes my
report and like I said Heather Middleton will get the marketing report up that's great news just to uh see that Nashville continues to be recognized uh 11 Year events for the remainder of the year we only have what six more or seven more months in the year so that's uh that's amazing so looking forward to SEC media days Heather happy to have you thank you happy to be here um I'll just give you a few highlights recent highlights um from your that have happened since your last meeting in March PR and tourism sales visited Glasgow Manchester Dublin and London surrounding the country to Country Music Festival that features Nashville artists and the team held 14 one-on-one meetings with the media six trade meetings trained 45 agents and hosted 165 journalists and clients at events throughout each of those cities uh to help reach a more upscale audience you may remember last year we partnered with Saks Fifth Avenue online for digital content showcasing the city and it was a very successful campaign that delivered 15.7 million impressions so we are partnering with Saks again this year for content and this time around we just completed the photo shoot that was done throughout Nashville with nashvilleian supermodel Karen Elson which was fun and the digital content campaign for that will launch at the end of June and will run for four weeks upcoming on the marketing side we are getting ready to launch our summer advertising which is focused on our core traveler as well as a higher household income audience some of those initiatives include Conde Nas digital ads across their different titles and we are doing a larger partnership with architectural digest that includes digital ads as well as editorial content we'll also be working with goop.com travel TripAdvisor Priceline booking and connected TV in the UK on July 24th through the 29th we are hosting five journalists and five tourism sales clients to experience the city in support of our British Airways flight and um on the research front we are conducting a visitor profile study through ugov throughout the month of May so it's happening currently it's an online research platform and it will be conducted in the U.S Canada as well as the UK and we look forward to having those results by June 1st and excited to see what that that looks like for us thank you been busy thank you all righty we're winding down so winding down so let's hear what's happening in our tourism and uh convention calendar all right winding down as Sherry mentioned the end of our fiscal year is coming up on June 30 we're certainly not winding down in terms of art records um June 30 end of our fiscal year we are currently on Pace to hit our numbers which is very exciting if all contracts issued by a hotel Community close so big thank you to our hotel Partners at the table who are helping to make that happen alongside our our team we conducted two sales blitzes last month one of which was in Denver the other in Scottsdale we took 15 partners with us in that effort and a songwriter Emily wiseband performed uh two back-to-back receptions one in Denver and one in Scottsdale we conducted four days worth of sales calls so we've really been focusing sales blitzes in markets that have traditionally traditionally performed well for us but post covid have been slow to come back so that's where we've been focusing our efforts our next sales Blitz will be in DC uh following the American Society of Association Executives or we'll take eight partners with us as part of that effort a songwriter event and also sit down with our definite Citywide clients that are booked over the next year and a half to really listen to some of the challenges they're experiencing in planning uh in the city right now and also listen to uh what's working well for them so we're excited that effort will be in an effort to rebook those clients uh in the future I mentioned asae as you all remember and as Jeff mentioned we hosted that Event Annual Meeting in August of 22 that resulted in two hundred and twelve thousand lead room nights we've booked 44 000 of those uh room nights they're now definite however we anticipate that number will continue to increase as we continue to follow up with those groups uh in April and May our tourism sales team attended Tennessee tourism German sales Mission uh they hosted travel counselors agent fam from Ireland and they also hosted a Destination America super fam welcome reception uh recently for top 50 top selling travel agents from U.S UK Australia New Zealand and Asia they also participated in The Travelers Edge conference at Opryland and coordinated pre and post fan trips for those travel agents in attendance and later this month the team will attend ipw and host three books of appointments and seven seven participating Partners will come with us we appreciate the community support those Partners help offset the costs that are required as part of exhibiting at those events and Marie has updates on the Multicultural sales I do good morning um and I can tell you that I'm Multicultural clients are definitely paying attention to what's going on in Nashville and those accolades and all the development Etc um and most Multicultural customers also rely on community support in the cities in which they meet but the two particular groups I'm about to mention require Local Host institutions when they select cities so we're very excited to welcome these in two influential groups in the next two months the first is the national newspaper Publishers Association they'll be here in about six weeks I'm very excited about that they were here this is our second time hosting them they were here in 2013 and the customers were just in town for a planning visit not too long ago and we're really excited about the development since their last visit and the experience they feel their attendees will have but these attendees represent black Publications from across the country and I think we're expecting approximately 150 to almost 200 people so if you could imagine the um the exposure will get from from that media but we're excited about showcasing the diversity of Nashville and also hoping to grow the diversity of our visitors as well as a result of this meeting and then the second one I'll mention is the association of African-American museums oh I forgot to mention um they published newspaper Publishers association their host institution is the Tennessee Tribune which is here in Nashville and it is and is Tennessee's largest black newspaper um but the association of African-American museums they will be here late July this is their first time coming to Nashville because they now have an institution to host if you can guess that is the national museum of African-American music and they are thrilled I did attend their events in Miami last year and exhibited and every single person that came to our booth was just so excited about Nashville so and actually the client thinks they may have a record-breaking attendance in Nashville this year so we'll see um but these are black museums represented from across the country they're leaders and staff and so just to share that the ncbc is heavily involved engaged in the planning of these two groups um and in connecting the the customers with community and resources in the city that's the end of my report if you have any questions please let me know thank you I I have a question Marie yes how many people will attend that um Publishers the museums um they're thinking about 800 okay and how many museums are there that's a good question and I think about maybe 150. wow okay great yeah I'll get that answer to you just curious yes yeah thank you you're welcome are there any other questions you all have been very busy so just excited to see all the um activity that's going on and looking forward to a great year in as the hotels do support you all to uh achieve those goals and I heard very good comments in regards to the blitz that you all did in Denver as well as Scottsdale so thank you all for doing that next up we can't wait to hear Bruce's uh report so what do we have going on from our research we can just talk about Taylor if you want to I could yeah um so good morning everyone Bruce McGregor VP of research here at the CVC um today I'll Focus uh on lodging data the positive results that have happened in the first four months of the year also I did get the reporting in so I have extraordinary numbers to report looking at the impact of last weekend May 5th and 6th thank you so this is a chart and I have I have the slides for you after the presentation that you can have and take home but this looks at the first four months of the year uh the occupancy over those four months was 68 average daily rate was 205. we sold a 1.8 million room nights
across the county uh these Hotel results earned 369 million in hotel room Revenue of these all these Hotel metrics it was higher than same time last year for for all these metrics so looking at January through April uh the number of rooms sold was up about 10 percent year over year the hotel room Revenue brought in was up about 19 and um you can see there was a rise in hotel rates the average over four months was 205 same time last year in 2022 was 190. um next I will focus just on what happened last month um in April Davidson County occupancy was 76.2 percent that's down just slightly about uh three tenths of a point but the number of rooms um was up year over year about 3.9 839 219 rooms sold in the month ADR the average rate was up 7.5 percent Hotel revenues um brought in a 199 million that's up about 11.7 versus April 2022. on Saturday April 15th the average daily rate hit somewhat of a record of 301 uh 301 that was key uh take notice of that because I'm going to be highlighting what happened over the weekend so that was the record sure what was April 13th April 15th after 15th it was a Saturday um a lot of leisure activity in the city and I think it was the Luke Combs yes as well Luke Combs and their event at Bridgestone also so here are the weekend results Nissan Stadium reported record-breaking attendance Friday and Saturday nights over 70 000 concert goers to Taylor Swift Sunday they're roughly estimating 71 000 despite the storms and lightning the show went on um you add up all three nights 212 000 attendees to this three-night Extravaganza um weekend record attendance um Taylor Swift Nashville history for playing three headline shows at Nissan Stadium over three nights also as mentioned a lot of other activity throughout the city graduation ceremonies in Belmont Lipscomb and Tennessee State University Oprah Winfrey was the commencement address speaker for Tennessee State there was a convention in town Brew Association at 14 000 attendees Janet Jackson performed at the Bridgestone Arena comedian Trevor Noah had three nights at the Ryman so all these results coming in the co-star Str report it's astonishing numbers this slide shows you Hotel results for Friday the 5th and Saturday the 6th I'm looking at you can see David's accounting on the left and on the right is just segmented for downtown hotels so if you just look at Saturday alone year over year in the county there's an increase of 31 percent when it comes to room Demand on that day uh 74 up in Revenue I'm sorry in rate so rates went up 74 Revenue went up 129 for that day occupancy numbers through the roof about 96 percent in the county 98 in downtown uh the the Saturday hotel rates throughout uh Davidson County were 385.
if you just look at exclusive to the downtown properties it was 578. in recent history there really hasn't been these high rates for this a weekend or a single day um in the single day we sold 37 547 hotel rooms room revenue from that one day was 14.4 million on that Saturday downtown hotels they sold 12 614 rooms and that brought in nearly half the room revenue for that day so just extraordinary numbers um if you combine the two days of that weekend so just Friday Saturday if you if you look at the the estimated six percent Hotel occupancy tax brought in to the hotels that's estimated 1.67 million dollars in tax revenue for those two days that's the six percent so I know this commission has been also curious about short-term rentals so I did a little digging into that as well so um this looks at a company called air DNA so these are from airbnbs vrbos throughout the county and downtown oh next this is the slide I think yes so if you narrow in on Saturday again the available rentals across they were 98 occupied on Saturday night the adrs were 602 but you have to think that's looking at apartments that's looking at houses of various sizes that can consist of one rental so it's not really Apples to Apples to hotel rooms but it's still money coming in for sure uh the taxable lodging Revenue was estimated at 3.77 million on May 6 during the height of this tourism Perfect Storm of activity throughout music cities so what can this city do on a single day there's your answer so yes right and and how many new rooms are in the pipeline um I don't have the math on that for you I'm trying to recall uh roughly five thousand yeah roughly five thousand under construction and there's more in the pipeline that means planning so there's I mean and a number in my head that we've talked about is somewhere around seven thousand five hundred I don't know if that's correct or if that's just and it sounds about right it does fluctuate but that that sounds like there are more there are hotels being built right now and they're more in planning um as the stadium deal has gone through what's going to happen on the other side of the river is fairly significant with the amount of downtown growth and planned hotels as well so we are absorbing all the new when you look at the occupancy levels that they're yes and where demand is is up year over year so keep up what keep up this momentum for sure any other questions where are you going to frame that slot yeah that's a hish that's it that's history Nashville's never seen that before Hometown girl Taylor Swift did good and everything the compression of everything else everything else going on in the city well when business is down in the future we know who to call right and you know when you think about that the the that's just the lodging aspect of this right restaurants coffee shops attractions [Music] my word we had 11 events at our venues pretty good pretty good week seven years and Cinema brunch Saturday it was a lot of times yeah we did like twenty thousand dollars in brunch Revenue a brunch and one day for brunch but it's it's important though like as we continue to see our city Thrive like making sure that whoever having conversations with people who are looking to do business here keep in mind the small local businesses whether it's a coffee shop or your favorite hair salon or your favorite local Boutique or Candle store or art store like if we don't continue to have that authenticity throughout this growth we'll be commercialized so that's what's cool about Nashville is that there's a bunch of cool local people here and that we have to continue to support so I I think that's I think that's key I think that's key to the demand drivers I know from our sales aspect you guys use that all the time right even for the like the new hotels that are getting built like don't put a Starbucks in your hotel don't put a Gap store or something like find local boutiques and local things that that's what's cool about Nashville so I hope that we don't keep an eye on the prize on that stuff so don't and I've seen that you know so yeah tell us a little bit about your events over the weekend I think we had four weddings um we did a hair show for two days um another corporate event yeah it was slammed well a great weekend I think that one definitely will go down in history so we thank you all Heather for getting your team out uh internationally uh to continue to support Nashville and then Dina you know again having Nashville being on the air 11 times for the remainder of the year will continue to support our city but again to your point we still need to maintain being that authentic City that we are great to have Janet Jackson Swift but it was I was so excited to see you know to revisit the control album thank you to your point um Heather and I just had this conversation this week about making sure that all of our marketing that we continue to just promote what's authentic and unique to Nashville we we always want to look at an ad and cover up the name and make sure that it can't be any other city so all those images everything that we use we have to keep it authentic and I think even with the upcoming Multicultural conventions that they will see a new Nashville um as well or Nashville and so I'm excited about having those two organizations here and that's it's a common question and not just with the multi of course Multicultural conventions are looking for that that um the community but we're seeing all you know most conventions are asking you know we want to support our black businesses we want to support LGBT you know it's just it's across about I think people are very really getting engaged and are aware and want to do their part too so that's encouraging well I was going to say then there was the bench we haven't even talked about the bench do you all know about the bench at Centennial Park okay I I got a video of the bench and the line to get there so this was for Taylor Swift there was a this did help me understand how that all came together so this was a combination so I'll say it um the mayor's office and Ben and and his team called us about helping come up with an idea to um to attract and excite all the swifties in town and all the other cities had been doing you know big signs and some had done murals and we wanted to do something that was more authentic and unique to Nashville so Andrea being a Swifty herself knew the lyrics of one song is about Taylor going to Centennial Park to read and came up with the idea of putting a bench in Centennial Park so that people could go and sit and read and the mayor's office got that done with parks and put a little plaque on it and the next day there was a line all the way through Centennial Park and probably throughout the entire weekend but it was just something again that was just special to Nashville and special to Taylor been this this been her hometown and I will add it was TJ over at the mayor's office who did a phenomenal job he got it immediately picked up in People magazine it was a billboard it was on iHeart and the Holy Grail of all of this city competition with this tour is to try to get the artist's attention because her social media is you hit that you're done and she mentioned it from the stage on Saturday night this first time she's any of these little gimmicks that the cities are doing that she's recognized so that from a marketing perspective we're that's the way I took it so well done I mean yeah well done that's the perfect example if you uh keeping it local keeping it authentic and doing something really different and that this team is really really good at yeah well done they excel at that so do we have any other announcements or any other business um well our next meeting will be on September 14th at this location 8 30 and at that time we will um elect a new chair as well as a co-chair so put your thinking caps on in regards to who that will be but we appreciate all that you all do uh for us thank you all for being uh Commissioners so thank you all very much and with that the meeting is adjourned foreign this has been a service of the Metro Nashville network if you would like to see this presentation again or for more information on this and other programs visit nashville.gov
2023-05-17 18:06
