December 11, 2012 Minutes

Board of Directors Meeting December 11, 2012 - 11:00 a.m.

Bridgehouse Bed & Breakfast

The regular quarterly meeting of the Redding Tourism Marketing Group was held on Tuesday December 11, 2012, Bridgehouse Bed & Breakfast. The meeting was called to order at 11:08 a.m. by Chairman Chris Korologos with the following Board members and guests present: Chris Korologos – Chair - Red Lion Inn Dave Grabeal – Vice Chair - Hampton Inn & Suites Ryan Rydalch – Secretary - Oxford Inn & Suites Bert Meyer – Treasurer - Holiday Inn Allan Patel – Officer at Large – Value Inn & Suites Janelle Pierson – Officer At Large - Bridge House B&B Jay Patel – Annual Board Member - Thunderbird Lodge Bobby Patel – Annual Board Member - Baymont Inn Brady Stewart - Tiffany House B & B Ed Rullman - Best Western Plus Hilltop Greg Clark – Deputy City Manager – City of Redding (Arrived approx 11:45am) Dave Creager – TownePlace Suites Jenifer Zink – Redding Convention & Visitors Bureau Charissa Gilmer – Redding Convention & Visitors Bureau Chad New – Redding Convention & Visitors Bureau Laurie Baker- Redding Convention & Visitors Bureau Quorum  A Quorum was confirmed with 7 Board of Directors in attendance.

Additional Agenda Items  Advertising packages Approval of Minutes  Ed moves to approve minutes from September 11th meeting, Ryan seconds. o Vote: All in favor, 0 opposed, 0 abstained. o September 11th minutes approved.

Change of Meeting Date  Laurie presented a conflict regarding quarterly meeting dates. The board has requested representation by City of Redding in quarterly board meetings; however, Greg Clark, the city representative has a meeting scheduled at the same time as the board meetings.

Laurie asked for suggestions and proposed this group meets the third Tuesday instead of second Tuesday. o Discussions: Allan suggests meeting second Wednesday instead. o Vote: All in favor, 0 opposed, 0 abstained.  Third Tuesday of the quarter approved for regular meetings  Laurie says can we see how it works before making changes to bylaws.

Public Notice for Board Meeting  Following the Brown Act: Laurie shows Board of Directors a new link on the www.visitredding.com website, entitled “Board of Directors”. This link will direct the public to agendas, upcoming meetings, and meeting minutes to provide transparency.

City-Wide Banners  Ed discusses banners in Redding. He notices that event banners are being displayed too late. Suggesting that the Redding Tourism Marketing Group needs to be a watchdog, making sure the city is utilizing light poles and putting banners up in a timely manner. Ed noted posts downtown, Hilltop, and Market Street in discussion. Ed addresses no holders on miracle mile (North Market Street). Laurie talks about prices, city used to charge hotel group to put up and take down the banners. Streets division is in charge of installation. Ed feels the city is charging too much because we are buying banners and putting them up, so the group needs to help the city realize that the banners provide value to the city as well. Banners help with our tourism mission so it is time to look at a city wide strategy. Should we partner with Downtown Business Association? This helps everyone. Bobby suggests it is not fair that we are the only ones paying to promote the whole city. Laurie says that we could start to work together. Greg Clark goes to the downtown Business Association meetings. Ed suggests checking with Greg, and to have someone from our group and Laurie meet with the downtown group to see if we could put together a strategy. Bobby says we should combine funds. Bert mentioned the group started about ten years ago with city of Redding at breakfast and this did accomplish good things. Ed asks if anyone has the time to take on the project, maybe Laurie and someone with the downtown group. Maybe charge permit fee instead of hanging fee and make it more palpable for anyone involved. Dave Jackson was facilitator but not anymore, ball needs to be picked up by someone. Banners are stored at the city building. Ryan and Laurie will work together to coordinate a meeting to discuss this issue. Ed says we need to coordinate with calendars based around time, weather, we will need to work in advance. Costs for hanging is $1200 for Hilltop banners, we do not know if this includes permit. There is a need to get more posts and more banners. Dave Jackson knows more so maybe ask him about it. Laurie says if group feels it is necessary we can put this into the budget next year. Downtown association has money for their part. Everyone discusses different areas and who is in charge of each. Ryan: Everyone profits from this so get everyone involved. Are there any other items to discuss on banners? Laurie says we will do research and report back.

Billboard Update  Laurie presents billboard designs for two billboards due to change. Laurie suggests maintaining branding design, and changing out photos seasonally as needed, however, discusses the need to go to a simpler, more visually friendly version. Jay says this is good. Allan asks if we are promoting the website or Redding with VisitRedding.com, Jenny says it is a strategy to reduce words, VisitRedding.com needs to stick in their head because this is where they need to go to get all the information about Redding.

This brings up tourism. Ryan says blue Redding is not enough contrast to see in the dark. Jenny says designer will spread out lettering. Ed asks can we shadow in white around the edges to make the blue “Redding” more visible. Allan says maybe white background; Jenny says this setup on white background doesn’t pop. Allan asks about reflective paint? 5X more expensive to use reflective paint. Laurie asks for any other suggestions. Electronic billboards are a good idea when the bugs associated with the electronic banners are resolved. However, we do not create the billboards, we only display on what is available.

TOT Tracking Chart  It was suggested that we compare Redding TOT to Shasta County. A new chart was presented in the packet showing both Redding and the County. County decided they are going to report on calendar year; Jenny says there is a bit of overlapping due to this.

Laurie shows month by month, increases and decreases, 2010-2011 we started improving; the goal is to have all green, meaning constant increases.

Film Commission Report  Laurie would like to put more focus into filming. This will help with TOT and other businesses in town. Brings recognition/exposure to Redding. Film makers tend to hire local so this will create more jobs in Redding. Chad New gives an update: there are many models of growth and he is working with film commissioners around the state. Will Smith movie “After Earth” filmed partially in Humboldt County and brought in $5 million in 9 days of actual filming. Chad recently met with filming professionals about filming projects in Redding and Shasta County. He wants to be inviting and professional in the presentation to the film industry. The California Film Commission recently let Chad know there is missing paperwork at this point for Shasta County that should be filed with the state. Chad is working on this with Shasta County. The name, “Film Shasta.” is a typical name fashion for film friendly regions so it will be used. A local directory of filming professionals is very important so Chad is putting this together and it will be available on the website for the filming industry. There will be a December 17th event at the public library to sign up for the Shasta County Film Directory. The meeting will also offer a talk on what to expect when on a filming project. The permit process will be added to the website. Upcoming is a film industry tradeshow in Santa Barbara where our office will be present to promote Redding and Shasta County. Ed talks about reality shows, businesses take this on with a plan to be a star and don’t share the information with the city. Chris: what would be an example of a location? Sundial Bridge, any private residence with the right “look”, AT&T commercial used many different scenes, Toyota used Chappie-Shasta. One company said Whiskeytown is close enough to look like the Appalachian Mountains so they can film at Brandy Creek for that. Bobby: there was a film done at his pool area at his hotel and discussed how that brought money in from renting rooms and by paying for use of the pool area. Ed says we used to have a lot of

films done in Redding. Laurie says the industry spends money so we need to put time and effort into this. Many agree that this is a great direction in which to focus.

Visitors Guide Brochure  Laurie says this is the final version; comment from the group is a lot of green so we tamed it down a bit. Added scenic drives. Ed says really easy to read. Good combination of information and ways to find things online. Trip Advisor is working on ratings sorting abilities. Brand USA logo on map: Laurie mentions benefit to us and country. Important to tourism and marketing if we send them content, photos they are more likely to use ours because we have done our part to help them. Laurie says the brochure is now available. Jenny says this printing saved $6000. Jay caught Need 2 Speed on map. Also new hotel is on as #32, should be #38. Need to check on all numbers on map. Ed says we should do something to correct this because we will get a lot of complaints about it. .

Advertising Packages  Advertising with Sunset magazine. Laurie says we need to start tracking this, get together some packages. Somehow have packages that give a call to action because reader thinks: that sounds fun, I want to do that, let’s book it. Make package unique to track and have a call to action. Chris gives example: so hotel A offers golfing, hotel B offers fishing. Find a way to make it work where everyone is happy with it. How do we take it and use it for our digital marketing. Ed says we could go too far with promoting certain things down to that level. Hotels marketing efforts need to concentrate on package and create advertisement depending on where you are advertising. Fishing magazine manage fishing. Laurie says we have to come up with something and since the hotels already offer packages, this is just another medium to promote those packages already in use and use them to track the effectiveness of the Sunset Digital Advertising. Ed and Laurie talk about how to get people to want to do something. Jenny talks about how Sunset is for general population. Very important when they get to landing page, they can say: that is something I can see myself doing. How to convey that in our landing pages similar to hotel landing pages. Allan can’t get listed on Fly Shop websites because his hotel is too small. Laurie mentions that we can help with this.

Where do we get our packages? Allan says he tried to work with Big League Dreams and they didn’t want to. Need to get out there and make relationships to expand who businesses to work with. We are spending money advertising and it’s always been branding. Laurie says we need to find a way to get people to act now for Redding. Ed says because of expense, players have to be willing to help with funding (if promoting Fly Shop, they should contribute to cost). Ed says tell participators that if you want to participate it will cost. Ed says most packages don’t bring a lot of money to table. Water Works Park, Ed buys their tickets, has a landing page, and sold 400 packages over the summer. Turtle Bay is the next best package. Ed combined Water Works Park and Turtle Bay into same package and this is very successful. Laurie says we could probably pull their advertising into our system and this promotes everyone. Laurie suggests going back to brainstorming about the best advertising.

Questions:  Bert asks about Bob. Laurie says he is available when we need him. He is doing his own consulting. He gets to pick and choose who he gets to work with. He likes this new zone of slowing down a bit.

Adjournment  Motion to adjourn by Dave, seconded by Bert.