9/23/1991 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Board and told of his background in the St. Augustine Community Chorus. That group received funds from the tourist development council based on matching funds. He agreed the tourist council should be a broad-based group, independent of the Chamber of Commerce. Jim Merrill, General Manager of Guest Quarters Hotel, 3500 Ocean Drive, came before the Board and stated he was pleased with our fine community but felt we have an awareness problem and we need to aggressively pursue the marketing of our community. He felt that print advertising and the media should be utilized because if we do not aggressively pursue tourists, other communities will get our share. He mentioned that only about 10 percent of the tourist tax fund was spent actually on media marketing advertising, and this year, $150,000 of it is being used for parking lots and parks. His concern is that money is being used to promote events but not for advertising the events, and continued to stress the importance of marketing to build awareness of our fine community. He believed there.are two issues, and he personally felt a majority of the funds that are collected from the bed tax from our hotels and motels should be used for activities pursuing bringing people back into this community to spend more money so that tax can continue. Ralph Sexton, Post Office Box 2187, a citizen of Indian River County, agreed with Mr. Merrill's contribution to the discussion. Mr. Sexton stated his observation over the past six months is that the Tourist Development Council is an impartial group and felt they should meet more often, meet with the various groups and should make the decisions of allocation of funds. Jean Marks, Grove Isle, thought Mr. Merrill, being young and healthy, wants to grow and move ahead, but -she felt there are people who do not want to grow too fast and perhaps more thought should be given to that aspect. Commissioner Scurlock commented that the whole purpose of the bed tax was to promote reasonable growth. J. B. Norton, representing the Chamber of Commerce, came before the Board and reported that while St. John's tourist tax revenue in 1990 was $1,147,987 and Orange County received $42,000,000, Indian River at $359,043 was down 4 percent from 1989. He stated that whatever the Commission decides, the Chamber will cooperate fully. Mr. Norton.noted that a full year report is due - in a week, and he felt they have covered a large territory very well with the small amount that was available, but the bottom line is heads on beds, and to be able to spread the word about Vero Beach and Indian River County will take a greater amount of money. Mr. Norton discussed the number of"visitors to Indian River County 7 SEP 2 3 1rul