Butler County Tourism & Convention Bureau Thursday, July 20th, 2017 Board Meeting: 9am – 10am In Attendance: Ed Tanski, Buttercup Campground Scott Choura, Lake Arthur Golf Club Wil Taylor, Jennings Environmental Education Center Andrew Allen, Armstrong Farms Nancy MacFarlane, The Perfect Piece Home Furnishings Bill Landefeld, Courtyard Pittsburgh North/Cranberry Woods Vicki Hinterberger, Butler Media Group – Chair Zachary Shumaker, ShuBrew Fred Caesar, Saxonburg Museum/Cooper Hall Jack Cohen, Butler County Tourism Leigh Baxter, Butler County Tourism Not in attendance: Roxann Booser, Maridon Museum – V Chair Veronica Minke, Locust Brook Lodge Paul Lueken, SRU Athletics – Treasurer Clayton Findon, Airquest Aviation The meeting was called to order at 9am, by Vicki. Approval of Minutes: Vicki asked if the board had any questions on the June 15th, 2017 board minutes. No questions. It was moved and seconded by Ed and Andy to accept the minutes. All in favor. No one opposed. The motion carried. Financial Report: Ed Tanski gave the financial report as Paul Lueken was unable to attend. Ed starting by explaining that we have two financial years to look at, one for 2016-2017 completion, and our new fiscal year 2017-2018. Looking at the monthly basis report we are up in revenues, this is due to our bed tax increase. Year to date we are also at an increase and Jack said looking at the six month average we are up over a million dollars in revenues. Ed said looking at the report we are in a really good financial position. The staff is being very diligent and managing funds really well, and that shows in the report. Bill asked why salaries were up. Jack stated that was due to hiring Jackie, interns and also included bonus for the staff. Bill also asked why advertising was higher than last year. Jack stated that due to the increase in income we have been able to advertise and market more. Vicki asked if there were any more questions on the monthly financial report. No questions. It was moved and seconded Nancy & Bill to accept the June 2017 financial report. No one opposed. All in favor. The motion carried. Ed continued to give a report on the 2017-2018 Budget. Some revisions were made based on the board from the last meeting. Projected income increase is at 2 million+, which is $325,000 over what we had last year. This should be doable with the increase in bed tax. We have a buffer account to help with income and expenses if needed. The staff salaries are within the national average, which reflects between 22% & 23% nationally, with tourism being at approximately 33%. Ed said over all the budget looks clean and “I like what I see”. Vicki asked if there were any questions on the 2017-2018 Budget. No questions. Vicki welcomed our visitors. Visitors: Bob Graham – Kelly Automotive Park/Pullman Park Stadium Jacob Hogofsky – Buttercup Campground Susan Krol, Krol Media Paula Slomer, BCTCB Amy Pack, BCTCB Visitors Comments: Bob stated it was his first time attending a board meeting. The stadium is doing ok and managing to stay afloat. He is thankful they were not affected by the flooding that the city of Butler experienced in the past two weeks. He hopes to bring more awareness to the stadium and all that it has to offer for tournaments, and all other events that it can be utilized for. Jack Cohen - Staff Reports: The web stats, PR report and sales report were emailed to all board members. The advertising, newspaper articles, publicity and member promotions binders were passed around. Jack also passed around the Monthly Legislative Report. Jack started by filling in the board on his recent travels. In June he visited Iceland and Germany using the new flights now available through Pittsburgh Airport to Frankfurt and Reykjavik Iceland. Each trip was well received and Jack took information on our area to showcase Butler County. Jack said these flights offer a whole new gateway for our region, our businesses, recreational and tourism in general into Europe. The flights are at a fraction of the cost of typical flights. Jack also was in Alaska on a family vacation and met up with Bill Spear, a man who is a collector of antique vehicles and the author of recently released book about the Bantam Jeep, “War Baby.” He has a full set of original Bantam’s, a model of every jeep that was made. He was excited to hear the bureau owns a 1939 Bantam. As the board may or may not know the City of Butler owns a Bantam jeep in the care of the Historic Society. These vehicles are housed in a building without proper conditions, and this is not suitable for long term. Jack has a meeting coming up to discuss what can be done to keep these vehicles in a more suitable environment. Earlier in the year the bureau hired Laura Adams to complete an application for Destination Marketing Association International (DMAI). This was to apply for a global accreditation that serves as an industry distinction defining quality and performance standards for destination marketing and management. It took Laura approximately a month and a half to compile the complete application of information pulled/created by the staff. Jack was pleased to announce that we recently receive notification that the bureau was approved on its first attempt for accreditation. There are only 350 businesses across the globe that have this accreditation, so this is a huge accomplishment and the bureau was approved on the first attempt. To give you an idea of the significance, only 20 businesses have been approved so far this year. Achieving DMAP accreditation positions a DMO as a valued and respected organization within the tourism community and increases our credibility among stakeholders. Paula Slomer Staff Report: Paula and staff are extremely busy. Tiffany attended a meeting in Harrisburg with Jack and Debbie. They met with our representatives and senators to discuss the importance of tourism and economic impact that tourism has in our county. Tiffany did a wonderful job at presenting, and continues to impress Paula with her work. Jack added that he, Debbie and Tiffany gave a PowerPoint on the return on investment that tourism brings into Butler County, and why we need the government to support our industry. Jack added we need to help our government officials understand that an investment needs to be made in marketing to get a return; it’s just basic business principles. We said he and staff did a great job at explaining what we do and the returns we see. Hopefully they will support us and have a better understanding on how important it is to support the tourism industry. Paula handed out a flyer that she recently designed for an event Amy was attending. This was for the PA Bowling Association’s annual conference. Paula said beer is BIG business and Butler County has grown in this area for sure. We know people will travel to have these experiences, so this is step one in promoting our counties beer industry. Ads Placed (See binder for examples) Online: • Digital campaigns (search engine advertising and remarketing) o General tourism o Campgrounds o Sports Commission o Service Excellence Program • Butler Eagle • Crowdriff (see below for more information) Print: • Sports Events Magazine • Meetings Today • PA Meetings • Where & When (PA focused-publication) - Rt 422 co-op, Farm Tour ad • Butler Business Matters • Butler Eagle o Saxonburg tab o Horse Trading Days tab o Service Excellence program and nominees ads • Rodeo Program • Celebrate the Bloom program Sheriff event program The Butler County Tourism Service Excellence Award program continues with Ambassadors out in the county looking for great service. We are advertising the Service Excellence Program along with the nominees on several media outlets. Our website has a page dedicated to the program and it lists the nominees. We are also placing ads to showcase this program, as well as working with the radio station, placing digital ads and using social media. Jack added that we see our ambassadors have been nominating non-members to the excellence program, which is great to see our community doing such a wonderful job, but we do want all businesses in our county to be included. Susan added that she and her team do daily outreach to supplement advertising locally and nationally to promote this program. Jack added that we hope to go viral with this and really spread the word. Fred added it would be great to see this program gain momentum and grow a life of its own. Maybe the bureau can research and see what type of surveys can be implemented to reach out to visitors. Bill added Trip advisory is also a great way to get the word out on a product or experience and is utilized by many. Paula also talked about the ticket give-a-ways we have had recently due to sponsorships that the bureau has supported. She said it’s amazing how many hits our social media outlets receive when we give anything away. Our Facebook page gained over 300 likes within the last month with ticket give-aways. Our top post was regarding a ticket giveaway to the Big Butler Fair. 15,600 people were reached with 803 reactions, comments and shares. Paula told the board we recently incorporated CrowdRiff into our marketing plan and had training sessions on how to apply it to our department. This visual marketing platform turns user generated content (UGC) into a valuable resource. Our homepage will feature a banner ad with an assortment of pictures throughout Butler County that users have “shared” on social media outlets.