HomeMy Public PortalAbout01-09-2018 Minutes Tourism Board Regular MeetingPage 1 of 6
Draft Minutes
Tourism Board
6:15 p.m. Jan. 9, 2017
Town Barn, 101 E. Orange St.
Present: Chair Mary Catherine McKee, Vice Chair Erik Myers, Libbie Hough and Matt Hughes
Absent: Mark Bateman, Kathleen Ferguson, Tommy Stann and Kim Tesoro
Staff: Economic Development Planner Shannan Campbell
Guests: Sarah DeGennaro and Matt Novik
Item 1: Call meeting to order
Chair Mary Catherine McKee called the meeting to order at 6:26 p.m.
Item 2: Consideration of changes or adjustments to the agenda
Economic Development Planner Shannan Campbell requested adding Item d under New Business Items
to discuss a grant and funding application online platform.
Motion: Board Member Libbie Hough moved to approve the agenda as amended. McKee
seconded.
Vote: Unanimous
Item 3: Consideration of minutes from Dec. 4, 2017, meeting
It was noted that McKee was absent and Hough was present at the December meeting.
Motion: Hough moved approval of the minutes with these corrections. Vice Chair Erik Myers
seconded.
Vote: Unanimous
Item 4: General public comment
There were no comments.
Item 5: Monthly reports
a. Alliance for Historic Hillsborough Director’s Report:
Alliance for Historic Hillsborough Executive Director Sarah DeGennaro introduced Matt Novik,
the Alliance’s newly hired Communications and Visitors services coordinator. Novik said he
moved here from Massachusetts a year and a half ago and has a lot of co-op marketing
experience. DeGennaro reported that:
• A total of 345 visitors were counted at the Visitors Center in November.
• The Alliance staff and volunteers participated in a CPR training at UNC Hospitals.
• The Alliance partners are continuing to meet. In November, they met with the
Hillsborough Garden Club to talk about activities to coordinate with the club’s World
War I commemoration poppy project.
• A workday for the Occaneechi Village replica site took place Nov. 11.
• The Alliance is continuing to work on the Hillsborough/Orange County historic
properties book with the Orange County Historic Preservation Commission.
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• 2018 Picnic in the Park planning has begun.
• A new lease was signed in December between the alliance and Orange County for the
Alexander Dickson House property.
• Holiday Home Tour planning meetings are taking place.
• The contract for the folk art shop at the back of the Visitors Center has been evaluated.
• She and Campbell attended a meeting at the Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau
and saw a marketing presentation from the new company with which the Visitors
Bureau is contracting, which was helpful.
b. Visitors Center Communications Report:
DeGennaro reported that Jeremiah DeGennaro led a Regulators tour the day after Thanksgiving
which was a big success. Volunteers donated 148 hours in November.
The Visitors Center social media numbers were not as strong in November because the
communications position was vacant, DeGennaro said. The Visitors Center gained 10 followers
on Twitter. She reviewed some of the most popular posts.
The Visitors Center has been open on the day after Thanksgiving for the last two or three years
and has a good number of visitors on that day. DeGennaro said she wonders whether it should
be open between Christmas and New Year’s because few people visited.
Myers said he had a lot of business that week and it was his highest grossing week of the year,
but the two to three weeks after New Year’s are completely dead.
DeGennaro said the cost of heating the historic house may outweigh the desire to be open with
such few visitors.
McKee suggested offering programming between Christmas and New Year’s and marketing it at
Thanksgiving so that people know to come.
DeGennaro reported the electronic newsletter featured the Day of the Dead festival and other
events.
c. Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau Report:
Campbell reported that there were some concerns by Chapel Hill hoteliers regarding what kind
of impact AirBNB is having on the local lodging market. A representative from the company
AirDNA will present findings on this matter to the Visitors Bureau in January. Campbell noted
Airbnb is remitting occupancy tax to the Town of Hillsborough, but she would like the company
to provide the town with an itemized report. She said that one of the pieces of information she
would like to get from AirDNA is how much they estimate should have been collected in the past
year to compare it with what’s actually being collected and see how close (or far) those numbers
are.
d. Tourism Board Staff and Food and Beverage Tax Revenues Report:
Ms. Campbell reported that:
• The Tourism Development Authority partnered with others to cosponsor the bee hotel
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build in Gold Park. Many people came out for the unveiling. There were several
activities. The TDA hopes that this added, special interest item will draw more tourism
into town.
• The final draft of audit reports will be available soon.
• The downtown sidewalk improvements project is complete.
• There was an ad ran in The Herald-Sun letting people know that the construction had
come to an end and inviting people to shop and eat downtown.
• Campbell joined the Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau subcommittee on sports
and leisure activities. There is strong support in Chapel Hill for indoor pickleball courts.
There were some concerns from Tourism Board members that pickleball is a trend that
won’t last.
• September was a strong month for Food and Beverage Tax, up almost 12 percent or
$3,000 over this month last year. Overall, the food and beverage tax revenue is up 6
percent and $5,800 this fiscal year over last year.
Item 6: New business items
a. Chair and vice chair positions
Motion: Myers motioned to table the nominations until a meeting where more members
are present. Hough seconded.
Vote: Unanimous
b. Add a member to serve on Official Visitors Map and Official Visitors Guide & Relocation
Subcommittee
Myers volunteered.
c. Draft tourism work plan for remainder of Fiscal Year 2017-18
With help from the Visitors Center Staff, Campbell would like to put together an annual report
for Fiscal Year 2016-17 with highlights including the income, number of visitors, how much
money this board allocated, and responses to the grant program. Additionally, many other plan
implementation projects are anticipated to be started and completed in FY18 per the workplan.
d. Added item — Submittable online grant funding software demonstration
Campbell reviewed that she tried three software demonstrations after trying to problem solve
what would be the best/easiest ways for Tourism Board and Tourism Development Authority
Board members to review, score, and comment on funding requests, particularly with the
Tourism Board’s grant program. She thought Submittable was the easiest to use and offered
what is needed at the best price. This would cost $1,692 annually or $1,353.60 annually (20
percent discount) with a three-year agreement. It could be shared with the Tourism
Development Authority, with the authority paying a percentage of the cost. Campbell shared
the demonstration with this board.
Board members liked the features available with Submittable and expressed interest in the
software.
Board members asked the following questions for follow-up: Can it generate personalized
automated emails? What are the reporting and reminding features? Could the discount apply to
the second and third years if a decision was made to keep the software after paying for one
year? Also, would other departments benefit and, therefore, could the town set up an agency
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account?
Campbell said that it may get complicated to include the Town and every way various
departments may want to use it. She indicated that the quote was really for the Tourism
Program (Tourism Board and TDA) and possibly Visitors Center, at a later date.
Campbell said to have this software in place for the upcoming grant cycle, she would need to
move forward with Submittable before the next meeting of this board.
Motion: Hughes made a motion that Campbell move forward with Submittable, asking if
the company would honor the three-year price if the town decided to sign up
for two more years after the first year and asking the Tourism Development
Authority to pay a percent of the cost, with the condition that the maximum
amount to be spent by the Tourism Board is $1,692. Myers seconded.
Vote: Unanimous.
Item 7: Old business items
a. Draft grant cycle schedule for 2018 (FY19 grants)
To accommodate the presentation meeting where grant applicants present their projects and to
allow roughly three weeks for board members to score the applications, the grant applications
would need to open Monday, Feb. 5, which is about a month earlier than in the past. But to
keep the window open for six weeks and accommodate the presentations and scoring, that’s
what’s needed, Campbell said.
McKee said she would hate to open in February and not have anything coming in for a month.
Board members decided to keep the early review deadline with a statement that the courtesy
review is only checking for completeness. Board members discussed whether the presentation
would be optional or required and whether they really needed to have grant presentations at all
if the applications were complete and there were 3 weeks for scoring and/or questions. Hough
said presentations vary greatly regarding quality and length when presentations are given. She
thinks there should be parameters on what the presentation is expected to be. Myers said he is
not a fan of the presentations; the applicants should write a good grant application. McKee
suggested a meeting be set aside so board members can ask questions. Myers and Hough were
more interested in getting that in writing and had concerns about grant applicants saying
whatever they think Board members want to hear in a presentation and then not being able to
actually deliver if funding is awarded.
Motion: Hough moved to remove the presentation from the grant application process.
Myers seconded.
Vote: 3-1 (Nay — Hughes)
Myers said that having no presentation makes the process more fair. Hughes said he would like
a question that asks, “How does your project fit with our tourism plan and/or identify a tourism
plan strategy that your project helps us to achieve?”
Campbell said that was a good idea and noted the question for addition.
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b. Draft grant scoring updates
Board members gave positive feedback. Campbell explained that the numbering system should
be a good compromise between those only wanting to use whole number scores and those
wanting the flexibility to use halves. She noted that board members asked her to remove “grant
project” from each description.
Motion: Hough moved that the board accept the amended scoring rubric as outlined in
the agenda packet. Myers seconded.
Vote: Unanimous
Item 8: Staff/board comments and discussion items
• AirDNA data — Campbell reviewed that the Orange County Visitors Bureau paid for this
study and reviewed the information. She indicated that she’d be emailing the
information.
• Accountability — Campbell said a board member clarified to her after the discussion
about financial accountability at the last meeting that the board member did not believe
there was fraud on the part of any of the grant recipients but rather wanted to set
additional reporting standards regarding tourism funds. Campbell added she spoke with
the Finance Department about auditing. The entities with which the Tourism Board has
contracts are not audited by the town. Legally, the Tourism Board is meeting all of its
responsibilities and grant applicants do sign a contract obligating them to spend the
funds as they’ve outlined in their grant proposal with the requirement to return any un-
used funds.
Hughes wondered if the board should fund particular line items and the grantees should
pay the board back if the event comes in under budget. Hughes advocated for this board
paying invoices rather than giving grants.
Myers supported this idea and said there is incentive to save money. Hough agreed that
how the money is spent and exactly what on needs to be documented.
Campbell used Hillsborough Running Club’s first marathon as an example in that the
club generated income through holding a marathon event and this board did not ask for
its original investment back. Because the marathon is revenue-generating, the running
club is unlikely to ask for more money. Campbell expressed concern based on the size
and capacity of many of the organizations in town if it would be too onerous to ask
every grant recipient to keep every receipt for every item purchased for the grant
project. She explained that some may be easy, but keeping all invoices and receipts for
putting together large events like River Park and Hog Day may be more difficult for
volunteers. She also expressed concern with the dedication of additional staff time to
having to process so many receipts and reimbursements.
Hughes and Myers said it is not that hard to keep receipts and is expected by many
employers (like universities). Campbell noted that often those applying for funds are
volunteer-run organizations and not employees of the organization.
Hughes said once the grant recipients would have to get used to doing it.
Hough agreed to increase the transparency and amount of documenting. Hough asked
Campbell to investigate possible scenarios. Hough noted it is a culture shift. Campbell
pointed out some organizations may not have the up-front funds to be able to be
reimbursed by the grant instead of getting the grant funds up front. She indicated that
there would be many pros and cons to this and would put together some additional
information for a future meeting analyzing what this approach would look like.
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Item 9: Adjourn
Motion: Myers moved to adjourn the meeting at 7:52 p.m. McKee seconded.
Vote: Unanimous