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hey hey hey [Music] [Music] [Music] heat heat
[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] let's uh say the pledge of allegiance and then we'll do roll call to the flag of the United States of
America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay let's call the role julie here mayor Connor here vice Chair here
here alice here mayor present wayne here chairman here okay we have a quorum call the meeting to order and so um we have some minutes to approve from February 26
is there a motion to approve the moment the minutes we have a motion by uh Mr hermanson is there a second i'll second we have a second by Mr johns uh someone call the role on that
julie Braa hi mayor Connor yes yes yes alison yes mayor Medina present yes yes ma'am i I
Yes i know i guess down in Palm Bay it's only it's only I right it is I okay all right it's a Marine Corps term Mr chair yeah okay my dad would know that okay uh Peter thank you Mr chair uh couple of things
the uh magazine in front of you I think it might you might have gotten them last month just in case you didn't there's uh it's the Tourism Journal we publish that once a year it's got a lot of what I would call more technical information and look uh at um
tourism from a from a research and analytics perspective but there's also other articles in there there's a actually a pretty lengthy article on beach nourishment um that's that's pretty good and then there's a couple of um stories that Laura wrote about uh marketing analytics and things we do
both on the PR side and the um and the branding side of things so enjoy that um nothing really uh super outstanding in STR i did want to point out on page
11 TDC we had a really good month in January uh actually uh record month so that was a little surprising because we have been hearing um some uh sort of I wouldn't say you know negative but just
kind of tempered input from the hotel uh community on January and maybe that was because vacation rental really stepped up and kind of took a a pretty big share um they were at I think 37% of TDT
usually they're down around 33 34% so um for whatever reason it may be it could be seasonal thing uh where you get snowbirds coming in wanting to stay a little bit longer uh during that month but um I will say you know our marketing in the fall highlighted the winter
travel season we were really kind of pushing for that um so it was kind of nice to see the results from a TDT perspective kind of paid paid off by by that marketing um other than that our you know budgetarily were good our our big you know we're right now you know in the
our biggest season so uh in February we kicked off the spring uh campaigns spring marketing campaign that'll be a pretty heavy spend and then of course as we get into summer our summer spend will start in May and that'll run through August and that'll be a another big
number so that's really where our big budgetary numbers get spent um other you know nothing really significant in any of our other budgets other than we did get a little bit of the FEMA reimbursement that we were expecting on the beach projects that we had been
doing um particularly the south beaches um we got almost 4 million from FEMA uh we're expecting another trunch of that coming uh in the next few months um that'll be another big big amount of
money and we'll we'll alert you to that what that was when we get it um other than that Mr chair I think that's that's all I really had unless there's any questions on any of our reports are there questions for Peter
any questions for Peter no okay so um I guess we're ready to go on to is the marketing yes sir so the uh marketing support program criteria for 2526 so this is for the next fiscal year
um I'm going to ask Deborah who who's really been working on this program pretty heavily from the very inception of it and kind of the beginning of it um but I just just to set it up um you'll see in you know anything in black was basically what was there previously in
blue are suggested changes i'm going to ask Deborah to go section by section for changes if there are no changes we'll just keep going through if there is something that you want to stop and discuss and maybe make changes to our changes uh suggested changes that's fine
that we can do that and we'll take a vote at that time um in general you know I think we felt it was a it's a good program we just as as we've gotten into contracting as we've begun to do some of the marketing for some of these groups
we've just had some I think things that came to light that are um you know kind of insight and that kind of gave uh staff uh thoughts about different things that we would change in the program for next year uh and I'm going to highlight when we get to the budget piece I want
to talk a little bit about budget for next year because it's not going to be quite what it was this year uh and I'll get into that discussion but uh Deborah if you want to start in section 1.0 which is on page 16 um she'll just kind of highlight what the changes are and
we'll just keep going like I said section by section if you want to stop and have a discussion please jump in and let us know and we'll stop and pause and let uh the TDC members discuss and then if there's if a vote's needed we'll go ahead and take a vote at that time for
that you know for whatever those changes are otherwise we'll we'll go keep going through it until uh until you stop us okay page 16 please 1.0 so you'll see obviously things that were updated are
fiscal year dates so there's a lot of 24 25 25 26 so we went ahead and did that on section 1.0 um paragraph 2 you'll notice we added um a couple lines right there this is um to
better clarify uh the option for the district offices to allocate funding um section 2.0 uh we changed the word from questionnaire
to application so you'll see that in a couple different places down into the middle of that paragraph again just uh doing a little bit more clarifying than what we had in there so the sports um funding amount will be um just
clarifying per room night calculation up at the top i have a I have a quick question i just want to make sure I'm clarifying because it's the first time I've seen this um on the reimbursement portion of that in paragraph one yep that that clarifies
that they don't have to have T so marketing they can market themselves and then get a reimbursement is that what that's saying so there's basically Sorry she's behind me i know sorry so there's basically three buckets
there's it's being called the marketing support program so bucket number one is saying you know I want money allocated and they can do all or a portion of to marketing support and that's the marketing team is handling
that and that's been seemingly very valuable and then bucket number two is they can spend the money on expenses that are directly uh impacting their organization or their event and get a reimbursement so they spend it receipts
send it to me do all that and then uh bucket number three is some money being set aside for the district offices to allocate as they see fit and go from there and I just have a question operationally is this an extensive
amount of work for the TDO or is this manageable is there any concerns about that yeah I mean this is a learning year for us and I think you know Laura can maybe speak to the marketing side i mean I think it seems to be manageable on from her perspective not everyone is opting
to get marketing support i think if we if we had gone the rout the route where 100% of everybody had to have marketing support that would have been a would have been a lift and we would have had to kind of work through that uh from a timing perspective but we had our ad agency at the ready to help uh so we
have you know we have a way to flex up and down if we need to but uh from the other side of it you know going back to the old reimbursement side of things you know Deborah's quite adept at that that part of the program so that that part's not a not an issue i like this options i
I do i think it's a really great way to set it up so I'm I'm all for it i just wanted to make sure it was Yeah i think we heard when we had the workshop there was a lot of people that were sort of asking for that option because they just needed that flexibility because there's expenses that they incur that they just are really looking to just they just
want to you know whatever it is build the stage pay for you know um police help or you know security or whatever they need and just get reimbured they don't really need the marketing piece okay and we're finding a lot of the mark people who want the marketing support
don't have the expertise there okay so the reimbursement side they seem to have that under control um so we're able to help some of those smaller organizations with the marketing great thank you that answers my question and um back to what Peter was saying so you know three steps
backward basically what happens is when the funding is awarded after the board approval then you know I prioritized you know events that were happening right away and I had personal conversations with everyone and I explained to them these options and then you know kind of
said why don't you think about it and they came back to me with what they think the allocation should be so you know I really think that they appreciated having the flexibility and and you know letting this funding work for them i agree
i have a I have a quick uh technical question um did we get it in here um Peter where even though the district offices will um allocate you know to two events that the board right with with
board approval yeah so if you look uh at in section one if you look about three lines up it says this is to be approved by the Bvard County Board of County Commissioners right after that section and there's I think there's two other places where it appears in the um
criteria and it says the same thing so each time Okay I guess I didn't see it in the 4.0 process and key dates i see I see the red in there but did not meet the minimum attendance each commissioner office must grant at least two
organizations so oh you might have had Sorry sir you probably have the version that I gave you the other day before we corrected it so it's Let's see i'll just throw that in the uh It's in the packet throw that in the file 13 there okay blue
okay sorry we've changed the text to beautiful blue so it's not hurting your eyes too well you see the I have the colorful glasses today cuz I uh I left my reading glasses in the car these are carols that she lent me so I'll I'll blame it on
that the truth is there was a spider in the car and I got out of there as fast as I could and uh left my reading glasses in there for being honest okay smart move very very good um approved by the board thank you okay that was something we added the other day i just
wanted to make sure yep yes sir so uh 3.0 was untouched that's on the top of page 17 4.0 again some dates and then that same exact paragraph that was in 1.0 has carried over and it's in that place
right there uh along with the schedule some updating of where the schedule um will land for the application process and um come back to the TDC and then to the board for approval i'm going to page 18
now so 5.0 eligibility this is also another place where that paragraph describing uh the district office funding is with that last line some more dates uh top of page 19 lots of date
changes uh focus on number seven this is a new um this is new and we again it was sort of a a little softer and we were trying to
clarify that information one error that I found another questionnaire needs to change to application at uh right after number seven yeah I just sorry i'm just going to comment on seven really quickly you know
there's uh there were two events particularly that we were concerned about or two groups uh one is a museum that may move out of Bvard there was some talk about um the Wizard of Oz museum moving obviously we don't want to
award somebody funding if they're not going to be here um so this would allow us to sort of restrict that or claw it back if we had to potentially um and then there was another group where we you know we weren't sure if they were going to actually hold the event
obviously if there was marketing spent it's a little tough to claw that money back but we we just want we wanted that language in there so we gave us some flexibility there okay I'm going do you have a question no no ma'am uh page 20
6.0 some dates and then Peter's going to talk about the funding yeah so um just what I did was I did a I'm just we're still working through the budget obviously for next fiscal but I started looking at the cultural budget for next year and um last year we had 600,000
available we've spent down some of that carry forward that we had kind of logged in the in the cultural fund um so uh so we reduced that to 500,000 and then we'll pair that with 240,000 from the
marketing so that gives you gives us 740,000 to work with um when we started looking at last year's awards you know all the awards that we gave out um in order to kind of get to that 740 uh we we made some adjust adjustments to the
funding level so um you know what used to be 15,000 is now 125 what was 20,000 is 175 what was 25 is now 225 and what was 50 is now 45 the other thing that we changed um well the other thing is we're
going to uh hold uh Mr chair we're going to hold that 100,000 that we had for you know 20,000 per district office we're going to hold that the same so there that number is the same is the same for the district offices so we didn't want
to change that but we did put um up to 10,000 so the thought would be if you know if somebody if an if an event didn't hit the 5,000 mark in terms of attendees but was still a good good event um you could award up to 10,000 if
that's okay with if you're I wanted to get your thoughts on that one um and then the secondarily uh for sports you know we heard from the sports committee and Wayne can probably attest to this because he was chair of the sports committee a couple years ago um we had
started awarding based on room nights and doing it $15 per room night and so we started giving some thought to that why give just a round number to a sports event when they know exactly how many room nights or we know how many room
nights they actually earn so rather than say you know $20,000 we'll say okay it's if you're going to give us 1,200 room nights it's 1,200 room nights times 15 and that's your that's your award and then later on in you'll see that if they
don't for some reason if they don't hit that number then we'll reduce the award to whatever it is so if they don't hit the 1,200 let's say they get a thousand fine we'll give you 15 per per room night for the thousand so they'll still get an award but they may not get as
much as what they sought initially based on how many room nights they they actually deliver to us so I I think that was something that I don't know Wayne if you wanted to comment but that was something that the committee seemed to be you know pretty good with in in the past so I was on capital facilities that
time that's all right and sports we didn't even meet last year oh that's right we didn't meet last year i'm sorry i'm calling you out on So I have nothing to say okay trust me that's what it was so sorry say the part about the 10,000 uh okay so
the the thought was each com each commission office would get 20,000 but they'd have to award um no more than 10,000 per per event um to two events or they could or you
could award you know more you could do 5,000 per event to four events um up you know so up to whatever you want to spend up to the 20,000 but we were using the 10,000 as a cap only because the next tier which is the
5,1 attendees or more is 12,500 but if you wanted to change that sir we we're happy to adjust that well I you know I'm thinking of um some of the events this year and um I I don't
necessarily um I don't I don't know if if the if the 10,000 So let's just take um one of the examples that uh I did which was uh the Melbourne Art Show which is in Wickham Park they're you know they don't
necessarily need uh marketing support it's a it's a word of mouth thing so they're not looking for that from the TDC they're they're strictly you know comes down to paying you know offduty cops you know for for a detail to handle
the traffic and then you know there are park fees and such and so that's what they were looking to cover and I think that was 15,000 this year that's right and um so we were able to get them there so um I don't know i think I'd like to leave that flexibility so okay I'll
leave that to the to the boards u or open that for discussion here if you like but I I support the commission to have the flexibility to spend that 20 whatever they want up to the 20,000 i don't know how everybody feels but So Deborah we're going to change this i think Yeah I'm totally on board with
that as well Mr chair let me say one final thought on this if if uh you'll permit me here it it's not the commission offices i my my thought was just simply that we had a 100,000 available to us that hadn't been um distributed and there are some of those
events that just kind of fell through the cracks but they're good community events we you know I don't think anybody would argue that or um other good things you know uh Field Manor um and Green Gable you know stuff like that and so
it's not necessarily the commission uh offices that I'm interested in it was kind of uh you know I expect everybody to be an expert in um in their districts and the and the things that are good community events that they could just easily identify it was it was meant to
be more of just a an easy way to do it so I agree with you and the overlap is is that those things that are good for the community events are good for tourism so that's where having supporting them to make that decision for their district I think it's a really
it's a win-win yeah and and you know this year uh Commissioner Alman I I give him credit uh he allocated some dollars for Field Manor which is in district two in Merit Island not in District 5 which he's the commissioner so um anyways I it
actually worked out um okay so far this year okay so I mean based on that general feedback I think Deborah what we would do is just say up to 20,000 and don't take away the restriction about it having to be a minimum of two events so
if they wanted to do one event for 20 they could do that or they could do however many events as long as as long as I do like the no more than two events in my mind so it just doesn't I just so it doesn't get messy i think it I think uh when we get to the when we get to the board level and they've got a maximum of
10 events I think I think that just makes it uh easier okay well that that's easy then we'll just So we're on page 20 uh where under support amount tiers where it says district office awards we'll just say up to 20,000 and just
leave it at that and that's all we I think that's the only change we'll need is that right Deborah yes well one one teeny change we're just going to need to edit that paragraph that reoccurs in section 1.0 well it still it I don't see why because
it says award amounts must not exceed the minimum minimum award amounts in section 6.0 but if you change section 6.0 to up to 20 then you're then you're covered see what I'm saying there it says office must grant to at least must grant at
least two organizations yeah but I I think the commissioner said he was okay with the two with with saying two right is that right we're saying we're saying up to up to yeah it says at least two i see I see your point so you just want to strike you want you want to strike at least and just make up to
or put a maximum to two if you want to do that up to Got it okay everybody's amendable to that so far okay yes sir all right is this workshop the
commission workshop is that we had to be Yeah we had a commission workshop uh I don't know a couple months ago and we had a we had just about three4s of the groups that had applied from last year came and spoke
yeah so we got a lot of feedback from them on that it was uh it was we had uh very good participation from those groups i thought they did a a very good I don't you know we were only allowed or able to give them a couple minutes each um although people did go over um to to
say quickly you know what their challenges were and we heard in that workshop which I think was was very good for the board to hear that uh some people are good at marketing they they know what they're doing and others admittedly that's not their area of uh expertise and so they're willing to let
the TDC handle that for them some groups like I said just had the challenge of hey we got to pay for the park and we got to pay for cops and and that's uh that's a you know a hard thing for us to to come up with before the event and u so I thought it was very meaningful and
did you say we had 40 um different folks about 40 yesterday I think so I gave each one of them a plug too let them you know say when their when their event is and and all of that so it was it was a very good workshop good yeah
okay so other than that in that section um the other I'll just finish out that section and let Deborah take over from there but the other uh item was um related to groups that have multiple
events so there's a couple of event organizers like downtown uh Melbourne downtown Cocoa Beach um where they have multiple events and um because of the amount of work it might be potentially to
support all of their events we just limit are limiting it to three here um so that basically I think it works out pretty well because like for instance Melbourne had um a food and wine event and then they had some other event I think it was a a um uh a Christmas event or something
like that that they wanted us to support um and then there was one other later in the year and so they had about three events even though they might have 20 events throughout the year they just pick three for us to give them marketing support on so that's just stating that in there uh that limitation and then um
and then on the sports side of things you know uh we want to make sure our sports commissioner is the one that's doing the analysis on the room nights that's that that's a pretty thorough vetting process not only do we work with the hotels but we also work with the
event organizers on their um rosters and we look at the rosters and we look at how many people came from outside the area uh based on their address and then we were able to calculate a a number of room nights based on that so we want to be in control of that and that kind of
gives us that that statement so that's that's pretty much it in that section and then Deborah if you want to pick it up from 7.0 0 on you can 7.0 so we're at the bottom page 21 um nothing and then on to
22 just really dates and the word application changes not not anything of substance i'll do information meetings again I don't have the dates for those at this moment uh 9.0 just application the word
application being updated uh on to page 24 fiscal year and end of uh cycle reporting dates uh
12.0 starts into um CAO's area and just really the word application is being updated throughout and that is one tiny little change on page 31 for public
records and that is the end of the criteria any other questions on the in the whole marketing plan there questions comments okay
okay second okay okay we have a motion by Julia Brago to approve with the changes and then we have a second by Mayor Medina uh let's call the role
julie Braa i mayor Connor yes vice Chair Hermanson yes larry JS yes alex Litros yes mayor Mandina i wayne Sword yes chair Felner yes thank you that's great we'll show that
passes unanimously and so now we're not quite done but just a little bit more we've got the application which uh begins on page 32 um not a whole lot of substance has changed except for dates just updating a
few things there um in the application that you'll see on the last page of this packet is um there's an uh event income and expense report that they'll need to complete and upload into the application
this was a just so you know the addition of the expense and income report was a request from from a commissioner office um we'd had these in the past and I think some some people found it valuable
to have um that and um just requested that we make sure that we include that again on the application so that's in there now last year we also added um a checklist which you know there's a bunch of
documents that the applicant has to add into it and so they check it off and then they add that also into the application we found that handy so we're going to carry on with that too okay questions on that and sir before a motion is made if um
whoever makes the motion if they could also just add that um all of this will be subject to a final county attorney review i know they want to look take one final look at everything and then if there's any minor uh grammatical changes
we need to to fix and in as we get it ready for the board um so we don't have to bring it back if they could just mention that the language for that is on the the front of the agenda under number three okay so
I move to approve the application subject to final county attorney review and minor staff edits second okay we have a motion by Mayor Connors and we have a second by Mayor Medina call the role julie Braa I conor Mayor Connors
yes vice Chair Hermanson yes larry JS yes alex Litress yes mayor Mandina i wayne Sword yes chair Felner yes we'll show that approved thank you very much very good thank you okay i don't think we have public
comment i suppose I should open the door and see if there's anyone in the hall um yeah maybe the spider's out there um okay um board reports just go around the
um go around the table here julie I actually do have something okay i don't normally but um the Florida Restaurant Lodging Association is in Tallahassee right now advocating um for many bills that are impacting tourism in our state and um I'm surprised we're all here but
we should be there for tourism day um it's on my agenda of things to do eventually representing us oh okay great i'm glad um Mr braa is representing us um up there but um Ephro has announced their uh rose awards again this is a
award that recognizes frontline tourism professionals in our beautiful Space Coast and there is set for September 11th at the beautiful courtyard Cocoa Beach and I want to just ask everyone to please nominate somebody and save the date and really support this event we
have no other event like this in the county and it's really uplifting and it's a a really beautiful event so I think we need to make sure that all the tourism entities um entertainment restaurants and lodging recognize our great people um when you said front line
yeah I'm sorry front usually front of house like front of the house okay you know like guest facing associates housekeeping okay um front desk not managers or right leaders this is for our the people that are impacting hospitality no hotelers they're exempt
no okay no no from this one we get a greater reward every day okay very good um Mayor Connors uh thank you Commissioner uh I actually just got back from Tallahassee drove
back this morning um up there with League of Cities and pretty much every other uh group that is trying to get our legislators attention but uh um something I just want to let you guys know about is I'm in the process right now of bringing uh Titusville and the North Boulevard community together so
that we can really focus on uh one event that can really kind of bring in some tourism uh back in the day uh everybody knows the Indian Riverfest that you know kind of created the duck race and some of these things that then ended up moving uh in the southern part of the county uh so we're looking at bringing
that back in a big way and uh what we're hoping to do is uh call it the Indian River Oyster Fest and uh bring in the environmentalist as well and and uh make it a big deal so I'm meeting with a lot of these service organizations i'm bringing them all together it's amazing when you're the mayor you say "Hey I'm
having a meeting." People show up so um you know this is going to be outside of government and I think uh doing something that's not necessarily through uh council or the commission it can be more effective and more efficient so we're working on that and I know uh our playhouse is kicking off their uh big
capital campaign so any support we can provide to them will be appreciated because I think that's going to do some really big things uh in Titusville and North River so thank you very good uh Vice Chair Hermanson nothing to report thank you okay uh
Larry Jarns I do not have a report this month okay um Alex Litrus no reports sir okay and uh Mayor Medina well I'm glad everyone yielded their time to me first I'll start off with with the opportunity to to commend uh Mayor Connors on uh
that effort of creating a family event in the north part of the county congratulations sir uh that's exciting i again want to remind everyone that uh this Friday at 0900 hours or I should say at 9:00 in the morning
uh we will be having a ribbon cutting regarding Sacrifice Park and it is turning out to be a monument worthy of their sacrifice and I want to thank each and every one of you uh for being a part of this process uh this vision that's
coming to fruition and I'm truly excited about it um needless to say I walked the grounds during the evenings just to look at the progress leading up to uh and so please put it on your calendars it is something that we all of us in Bard
County should be proud of that we built a sacrifice park worthy of that sacrifice of our first responders thank you Mr chair very good let's see if I can get there uh Friday morning right yes sir 9:00 yes sir oh 900
uh Wayne Sword nothing to report uh anything else Peter uh just two quick things and uh by the way mayor we did send a notice to all the past TDC members about that so uh I think some of them actually are going to be coming as well so and I'll be there as well so
look forward to that um just as I mentioned John Gantonio our deputy director is up in Tallahassee for Tourism Day just representing our office and thanking legislators for all they do for us and um uh just uh making you know
make sure that we're represented um next meeting is April 23rd right here uh at 2 p.m also on that last page if you save that last page that's all our remaining dates um and also our marketing committee will start meeting next month
as as will the beach committee so those are those dates there uh for your uh folks that are that you've selected to be on those committees um and that's all I had sir okay um you already said the next
meeting date so that's great um I think I've said everything that I need to say i appreciate staff uh making these changes and and getting this together and we'll we'll have it for the when we'll go to the county commission would be yeah we'll look at um we'll
look at April if we can get it ready for it might be that second meeting second one in April but we'll try to bring it in April so we can get going on it uh and start opening up the applications over the summer and then start evaluating those and then bring that back to that those will all come back
here to the TDC um you know once uh once all those applications are And so okay all right sir quick question are you able to just give a verbal update on the various capital projects status just for
I'll tell you what I know yeah um so yeah we had talked I think right before the meeting we were talking about Air Command is um in construction uh of their uh convention uh hanger uh it's going to be under air hanger and uh
they're they're well they're on their way i don't say they're well under on their way but they're they're along uh having some progress there um if you've been by um Veterans Memorial Park in Merit Island you'll see there's a lot of dirt being moved for the amphitheater um
nothing coming out of the ground yet but they they're getting the site work and all of that uh has begun so that's a pretty big project um still waiting to hear um from Keith on a groundbreaking for the uh
aquarium that's was tenatively July he said but uh I don't have a date yet so as soon as I do I'll let everybody know about that obviously we uh should all be there and then um for Bright Line um station uh they are still in the process
of seeking that major grant from the from the federal government um we're working through contracting with them right now on the 5 million um that we um you know awarded with the with the board's approval but um but they're still waiting on the 45 or 47 million
whatever that larger amount is um I think those were the major ones was there one I forgot Tom that you think of or I'll bring certainly I'll bring back next month if I forgot some something but I think those Lighthouse oh the
lighthouse has Yeah they are still working through they were going to try to finish um their project this year i don't think that's going to happen um I need to get an update on where they are with that one but they're they're in construction but I don't think they're far enough along to say they'll be done
by the end of the fiscal so I'll get an update on that one for next month thank you thanks i have a quick question how's the season look you might have to use your mic uh there's Darra
Headwinds last minute weekend uh visitor which is a large part of our business at least on on the beach is uh a lot softer than last year and Doge's impact on government
employees ability to travel with a $1 limit on their government cards has had a significant effect on our bookings with a lot of government cancellations now that's interesting in his part of the county down south and you and I worked at um hotels down there
that defense is what pulled us through um when you know in the shoulder season so you're feeling that um down there yes um yeah there's there's concerns and we I haven't started seeing the direct
impact of it but there's lots of talk i mean every day the the guest is saying "Oh I don't know if I can I'll be here another day i forgot a major contingent i'll I I'd be happy to share letters but
we are actually getting letters uh from a large number of Canadians best Western's an international brand so we get a lot of Canadians that are Best Western on the beach come every year you'll stay weeks at a time we're getting handwritten letters and emails
saying "I will not come to the United States to spend Yeah my uh my loonies in the United States." And there's this was written up in the journal yesterday too i mean major impacts to border cities up in the north so and I have guess Canadian guest that said they were
cancelling because of fear of safety concerns i was like okay so between sort of consumer sentiment I think hit a 12-year low yesterday according to uh the reporting and limits on government spending and
Canadian visitorship to Florida last study I saw several years ago but there's about 15 million Canadians east of the center which is relatively unpopulated and they estimate between 1 and a half to two million Canadians come
to Florida every season so 10% of the Eastern Canadian population come to Florida in addition to all the other visitorship and uh and uh they're they're decreasing visitorship in huge numbers i think bridge crossings from
Canada I read yesterday in the journal into like the Buffalo area were down by 50% in the last couple weeks and for us we've heard reports not at my hotel directly but we've heard reports that government credit cards are not authorizing so literally government
employees leaving with balances on their rooms like this is what's starting this is just the beginning this has not impacted my hotel but this is what we're starting to hear so we're all waiting i mean our market is diversified in the government sector but um some other
areas have specific department you know generators only so I haven't seen it exactly but we're anticipating and waiting and for what could potentially be a huge loss I now I haven't talked PDM in uh a number of years but uh what
is PDM uh currently 183 for 10 months it's bifurcated 183 for 10 months and And then it's 16 166 is that correct it's Yeah in
season it was 20 20 or 206 208 for February and March and like 166 for the other 10 months of the year okay well that's a pretty big swing i remember what used to be like 7789 we fought hard for that that was Yeah that was back in the last century cocoa
Beach area has done an incredible job lobbying and and educating um the GSA as to you know our seasonality but yeah we don't want to lose that i mean we've fought so hard for that over the years and um you're not concerned you're going to lose the pdeium as much as just
government travel is happening this is temporary it's a formulaic calculation where they take a census of hotels used by government travelers on an annual basis look back year through March and then discount it and then established a
pdeium for the area and so if rates go down then the pdium formulaically will go down did now can I just ask do you find yourselves um adding a lot of other things in there to u along with pdeium pdeium comes with these other these
other things no pdeium government you don't get two drink tickets no no they don't pay for parking they don't get charged for parking and they don't get charged I mean nobody really charges resort fees in this town or or in Bard breakfast
included that kind of stuff if if it's required by the brand yes i see not doing as much as we but in the south county we did see this seasonality is a lot of hotels you know as we shop and watch the market did not get to the pdium rate so there's some great
concerns about what that impact will be right in the coming years and what how that you know affects the formulated GSA plan you know we we had some very peak days you know like normal kind of you know our our Monday Tuesday Wednesday
but we we saw some falloff outside of those peak days so outside the government if I could just ask one last question so how's how's your your summer weekend uh travel um or occupancy look the forecasting the
pacing is well off of last year but you know it all depends on the the pickup and pacing shifts so with uncertainty people don't plan further ahead right they they plan
you know more last minute and then you just have to wait and see if it makes you find this with big groups too is it uh your group rooms same similar situation well the mo the most of the group business in our market is government related and so we've had significant meaningful not catastrophic
but meaningful number of government group cancellations based on what's happening in Washington and a much shorter booking window than in years past so that that's where that uncertainty takes into play like you
know we can usually know a month from now or two months generally the pattern that's what I've been talking about for the last few meetings is that the unpredictability and the the standard pattern is not the same as it had been in previous seasons like you know we staff it you remember you staff it you
get ready for it you rock and roll and you get through season we've had some dips in the season that I was just like what what is this week like it didn't make any sense so there's just been some unpredictability and not as much stability as we had in the last few
years historically good times and bad we've sold out in Cocoa Beach in in March and we have not this season where we're down and rate is starting to soften a lot more inventory added too
right more some more inventory just you know the one now recently in Cocoa Beach but that opened in March cape Canaveral it's Yeah I was going to mention we're over 11,000 hotel rooms for the first time now 11,000 yeah we're
over 11 over 11 so the highest Yeah supply we've ever had what did you say Tom moratorium on new hotels larry might have something to say
all right one more yeah Larry that's it capitalism oh we'll see it's there's a lot of uncertainty and it's it's consumer sentiment well I mean even things like I remember having many discussions about uh you know the cost
of gas right that that even influences uh people driving across the state to go to go to the beach um for the weekend so okay well I appreciate uh all that information um anything else before we go thanks we'll see you at the next
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