2 0 24 S A L E S & M A R K E T I N G P L A N
INDUSTRY TRAVEL AND TOURISM ENVIRONMENT Destination marketers are constantly looking for ways to attract new travelers and retain visitors who make a pilgrimage to a destination on an annual or frequent basis. One of the main drivers for travelers who have visited before is what new offerings are in the destination. For a destination to remain relevant, attractive and competitive, it must reinvest in itself. These investments will provide a great return not only in visitor expenditures, but the attraction of new business, new talent, and a stronger tax base.
While new offerings are often created through public-private partnerships,staying well-informed of trends allows for accurate planning.The 2024 travel trends for this year’s plan come from several sources including,Destinations International,Destination Analytics,Only In Your State and the U.S.Travel Association (USTA). It appears that what is consistent across several sources is the surge of leisure travel as a post-pandemic comeback.According to top officials at the USTA,the surge from 2022-23 is beginning to moderate,but still anticipate resilience in the upcoming quarters. Both volume and spending is expected to grow in domestic business travel,but slowly due to economic conditions.Bleisure travel will also continue to increase.Destinations International stated that one study out of Anaheim,CA saw that out of 2000 business travelers surveyed,65% were combining business and leisure travel-Bleisure. According to USTA,Year-over-year,inbound travel volume was projected to grow 31% in 2023 and 18% in 2024,while inflation-adjusted spending is projected to grow 34% in 2023 and 19% in 2024. Only In Your State,which resonates with smaller destinations,is calling for more Wanderer travel in 2024 identifying travelers who are spontaneous and do not have set itineraries and like “spur-of-the-moment”activities.50% of their readers say they will plan two to three trips in the first part of the year,and 36% plan to take four or more trips. Our final U.S.domestic travel trend in 2024,OnlyInYourState readers are also interested in getting outdoors and enjoying the stunning natural beauty found across the United States: 63 percent of OnlyInYourState readers are interested in learning more about nature,including parks,hiking trails,beaches,lakes,and more –Source; OnlyInYourState One of our key advantages are the outdoor opportunities including hiking,cycling,kayaking,golf,and plenty of green space to enjoy nature.Americans have continued to take advantage of their own backyard.Road trips,staycations,RVing and visiting friends and relatives (VFR) are all aspects of confident travel where The Shoals is well positioned to capitalize on these market segments.
CAMPAIGNS AND PROGRAMMING Tourism Improvement District (TID ) Beginning in 2019, the idea of a TID was discussed with local hoteliers to find a way to supplement revenue for the destination for product development, marketing initiatives and other capital improvement projects. Almost 4 years later, we now have enabling legislation which has given the City of Florence the tools to form a district. The TID is a self-imposed assessment which is added to hotel folios which is then collected and remitted to a TID board. The TID must benefit the payers (hotels) who operate by a district plan that guides them on tourism projects. As of December 31, 2023, the TID is four months into the formation period with anticipation to begin collection by April 2024.
Good Grit In 2023, the Florence-Lauderdale CVB contracted with the Good Grit Agency (GGA) as an agency-of-record for work in content creation, design, and other project-based initiatives. GGA will help our brand evoke a connection with our audience base and further engage consumers on the promise of what The Shoals delivers as a destination of choice. Projects will range from social media development, reels, video production, photo shoots, publication production and ideation workshops for that next best idea. Projects will continue in 2024, but to a lesser degree with an emphasis on social media reels and creative projects.
Epsilon campaign The Florence-Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau contracted with Epsilon, the global leader in outcome-based marketing for a digital ad campaign in 2022. Destinations can use the power of machine learning to drive financial outcomes for their communities. Economic impact begins with inviting high value visitors through highly targeted digital media, seeing those people arrive, and then measuring the actual money they spend in destination. We can see where visitors spend, how much tax revenue the marketing campaigns directly create, and understand the characteristics of high-yielding visitors. We can also help message local markets to keep the destination product visitor ready by encouraging restaurant retail, attraction visitation. 2024 will be our fourth campaign with Epsilon.
Muscle Shoals Backstage Pass The Muscle Shoals Backstage Pass, a visitor-value program, is aimed at driving more business to our music studios and music attractions. Patrons of the program receive a free, large-size VIP concert type badge and lanyard to begin their tour. Visiting any 3 of the venues, patrons will receive a free Muscle Shoals Backstage Pass t-shirt from the Florence-Lauderdale CVB, and if they visit all 6, they will have the opportunity to enter and win the grand prize drawn at the end of the year. From the beginning of the program, launched on July 15, 2020, we have directed close to 2,000 patrons to the 6 venues. In 2021 alone, we saw the equivalent of 50 group tours purchase admission in our 6 music attractions.
Muscle Shoals to Main Street In 2022, we launched the Muscle Shoals to Main Street event as a targeted marketing initiative in the Franklin, TN/greater Nashville area. Since its inception, we have successfully co-hosted two 'Shoals takeovers' in downtown Franklin in collaboration with the local publisher YOUR Williamson. These events featured prominent Shoals hit songwriters, including Lenny LeBlanc, Gary Baker, Phillip White, Chris Tompkins, Walt Aldridge, and Mark Narmore. The initiative has been supported by various local sponsorships and is a direct response to industry predictions of increased Wanderer travel. Visitor data also indicates that individuals from these markets exhibit the highest average daily spend in our destination.
Tournaments The scenic Tennessee River flowing throughout Florence and the Shoals is divided by a series of dams into three different lakes: Pickwick, Wilson, and Wheeler. These lakes offer some of the best sport fishing in the country and in their blue waters can be found trophy Small and Largemouth Bass, Catfish, Crappie, Saltwater Stripe, Sauger and Bream. In 2024, the Florence-Lauderdale CVB will host 30 tournaments representing golf, disc golf, bowling, bass fishing, baseball and softball.
Singer/Songwriter Showcase The music scene is at the core of who we are as a destination. It’s in our DNA. Building upon the great history of music in our community is essential. Our first Shoals Singer/Songwriter Showcase at the WC Handy Music Festival was a huge success with standing-room crowds only. Expect to see this showcase again in the Summer of 2024.
Zartico Zartico, a complex destination operating system, is a platform which captures the highest frequency and highest resolution of geolocation, spending and event data for both residents and visitors of all event types. It’s geolocation technology tracks 2+ Billion data points refreshed every 24 hrs./1.6 B devices in 180 countries. The Spend Data monitors 90+ Million card holders, both Debit + Credit with 10B transactions annually. Event Data screens 40+ Million events worldwide from 300+ event sources. Zartico works on setting up defined boundaries in the destination with primary Points-of-Interest locations. This provides us data-led decision making and clearer insights on the visitor economy.
Mavis’s Movin’ & Groovin’ Bus Tours In 2023, our organization was successful in securing grant funding through the local Lauderdale legislature to purchase a 15-seat passenger bus. The intention was to begin a regularly scheduled tour where visitors could book a seat and buy tickets online or at the visitor center. Tours which operate from March through November run Tuesday through Friday, a Florence City History Tour on Tuesday and Thursday and the Shoals Music Tour and Studio Tour on Wednesday and Friday. The history tour is led by city historian, Billy Warren and the music tours are led by long-time music publisher, Kevin Lamb. In the first year of operation, we sold 31 tours with a total of 91 passengers.
The Shoals Mural at McFarland Park In 2023, we finalized The Shoals mural on the east wall of our visitor center. This project not only offered a platform to showcase the rich history of our area through visual storytelling but also allowed us to support a local artist. Additionally, it connected our region to existing mural trails and resulted in a lasting piece of public art accessible to all. Complementing the mural, we installed a signpost that directs visitors to a webpage. On this page, viewers can delve deeper into the art's narrative through audio recordings narrated by Jerry Phillips, Haley Phillips, and Rodney Hall.
LAUDERDALE COUNTY
2023
2023
THE VISITOR ECONOMY: LOCAL AND STATE Over 28.6 million people visited Alabama in 2022 spending over $22.4 billion. This represents a 13.8% increase over 2021 spending. More than $1.3 billion of State and Local tax revenues were generated in 2021.
2023
Without this revenue, each Alabama household would pay an additional $685 in taxes to maintain current service levels. At a local level, visitors spent a record $322 million in Lauderdale County in 2021 – a 15% increase over 2021 figures. Tourism employs 3,554 people in Lauderdale County and over 5,000 in the Shoals area in full-time, part-time, and seasonal positions.
2024 Sales and Marketing Plan
Florence/Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGIC OVERVIEW To develop and enhance the tourism sector through the positioning of The Shoals area as a year-round destination of choice for visitors, through leisure travel, sport tourism, conferences, or group travel, and to realize an increase in visitation and visitor-spending to strengthen the overall economy and quality of life.
The Florence/Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) undertakes tourism marketing and development initiatives because it is a key driver in our economy. Destination marketing can also serve to introduce businesses and potential residents to the city in both professional and leisure capacities. Marketing initiatives will be focused on showcasing the area’s competitive assets and leading with its unique value proposition for travel to differentiate us from competing destinations. We will achieve this by leveraging all tourism markets to maximize visitation and visitor spending.
CORE ORGANIZATIONAL OBJECTIVES: Market leisure activities that highlight Florence/Lauderdale County and The Shoals area’s unique music heritage, culture, culinary, fashion and natural resources and develop products, services, and activities to keep visitors continually coming back. Increase visitation in the Group Travel/FIT sectors and to act as a lead generator for the conference market. Attract regional, state, national and international sports events to build the shoulder season and strengthen our event resume. Ensure each guest to the city has access to visitor services, information and support. Increase the positive travel media coverage referencing Florence/Lauderdale County and Muscle Shoals. Build upon existing product clusters which need further enhancement and support as part of a tourism development initiative, including but not limited to, Music, Outdoor, Fashion, Art, and History.
TARGET MARKETS: Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi,
Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, including some international markets consisting of the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and Australia in the Travel Trade markets.
2024 KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS: The sales and marketing team have established targets for individual markets. The following list indicates where we will be focusing our efforts to influence growth in the visitor economy:
LEADS FAMILIARIZATION TOURS EARNED MEDIA SPORT BIDS SPORT MEDIA TOTAL ROOMS BOOKED ECONOMIC IMPACT FROM EVENTS NEW UNIQUE USERS TO WEBSITE FACEBOOK FOLLOWERS INSTAGRAM FOLLOWERS Further to the above KPI’s, our digital marketing campaign will have a set of campaign metrics that will track the campaign delivery, channel performance, new vs. returning visitors, time on site, top converting channels and path to conversion. This information helps us to focus our campaigns to capitalize on the highest concentration of activity in a particular channel. Additionally, the Zartico Destination Operating System (ZDOS) will provide a robust platform that will provide data which will answer questions from how much a visitor is spending to what is the ratio and composition of overnight vs. day trip visitors. The CEO will also receive a monthly Directors Report.
2024 Florence/Lauderdale CVB Operating Budget REVENUE
2024 OPERATING
Lodging Tax
$1,260,000.00
Other Public
$110,000.00
Private
$9,500.00
TOTAL REVENUE
$1,379,500.00*
EXPENDITURES
2024 OPERATING
Corporate
$507,200.00
Programming
$526,759.00
Administration
$274,502.00
TOTAL EXPENDITURES
$1,308,461.00
*SURPLUS BUDGET
LEISURE TRAVEL OBJECTIVE: To attract a visitor(s) through multiple consumer advertising channels for the purpose of a pleasure visit by showcasing the unique product offerings of The Shoals to increase length of stay.
MARKET OVERVIEW/STRATEGY: The consumer/leisure market is one which yields significant spending over the entire calendar year. Florence/Lauderdale County and the Shoals area has a unique and eclectic music history, natural resources, historical narratives, fashion icons and cultural gems which make this destination an attractive and appealing place to visit, live and work. Our leisure marketing efforts in 2024 will introduce a new destination operating system through Zartico. ZDOS (Zartico Destination Operating System) is a sophisticated platform which captures the highest frequency and highest resolution of geolocation, spending and event data for both residents and visitors of all event types. It’s Geolocation features tracks 2+ Billion data points and refreshed every 24 hrs. across 1.6 Billion devices in 180 countries.
The Spend Data module traces 90+ Million card holders both Debit + Credit and monitors 10 Billion transactions annually.
Social media, limited print advertising and newsletter efforts will round out the objectives in Leisure Travel.
And finally, the Event Data follows 40+ Million events worldwide from 300+ event sources.
Establish a benchmark on website visitation and inquiries of 220,000 unique users.
This system will provide more data-led decision making for our team and deliver clearer insights on the visitor economy. A key objective in our 2024 strategy will be to see a further incremental return on each dollar spent. While not all advertising channels produce a reported and demonstrated ROI, a digital campaign with Epsilon will provide a net economic impact report tracking every dollar and the return on that dollar in multiple travel segments. The intelligence of cross-device technology will deliver messages to high-yield, high-propensity visitors to The Shoals area.
2024 TARGETS:
Grow our Facebook follower audience by 2% to 36,400 likes on Facebook Grow our Instagram follower audience by 7.5% to 13,500 followers Lead: CEO/Director of Marketing & Communications Additionally, a Net Economic Impact (NEI) Report will follow 90 days after the campaign ends. A six-month check-in is provided to get a pulse on visitor traffic and spend. The NEI is a comprehensive report which outlines total message revenue, investment, return on ad spend, total transactions, averages per visitor, and average message spend per visitor.
TRAVEL TRADE OBJECTIVE: To attract motor coach and other visitor groups (FIT), fly n’ drive, escorted groups - both domestic and international, to Florence/Lauderdale County and The Shoals area.
MARKET OVERVIEW/STRATEGY: An aggressive and strategic effort will be made to capitalize on the Shoals advantage to attract group tours to the area.
Operators have indicated first-hand that there is an increased interest in the area because of the popular “Muscle Shoals” documentary and niche attractions that are attractive to group travelers, such as the Rosenbaum House, Indian Mound Museum, FAME Recording Studios, Muscle Shoals Sound, Helen Keller Home (Ivy Green) and Tom’s Wall. Approaching the four-year mark of when covid-19 rocked the world in an unprecedented fashion, we are now beginning to see pre-covid numbers surface, yet with planners and operators working harder to accommodate client needs. Some major factors include sustainability, immersion into local culture, creating experiences in the meeting venue and convenience centered technology.
New in 2024, the Visit The Shoals team will attend IPW (International Pow Wow) to build more engagement with international operators and leverage the music history which The Shoals is so recognized for. Visit the Shoals will attend both the International and Domestic marketplaces for Travel South and the Global Summit Week.
2024 TARGETS: Grow our qualified leads to 104 or 4% through marketplace and fam tour opportunities Increase our familiarization tours by 50% to 6 in 2024 Lead: Senior Sales Manager, Travel Trade + Sport
SPORT TOURISM OBJECTIVE: To lead and assist the local community by establishing Florence/Lauderdale County and the Shoals area as a sport tourism and recreation destination. The Florence/Lauderdale CVB serves as a vehicle to support the creation, promotion and delivery of sport events for visitors, participants, partners and residents.
MARKET OVERVIEW/STRATEGY: The 2023 season for elite bass tournaments proved to be a strong year. Our team hosted close to 30 tournaments including the addition of the North Alabama Catfish Trail, the BLF Wild Card Tournament and the return of the Toyota’s Owners Tournament.
Our priority will still be placed on the creation of new, non-traditional sporting events including pickle ball, disc golf, and more outdoor oriented events. The City of Florence has plans to create an 18-court covered pickleball complex in Veteran’s Park including additional soft and hard tennis courts. Long expectation for this will hopefully be granted in the completion of that venue in 2024. Additionally, work is beginning on the expansion of the Florence Sportsplex to add a new four-field pod and miracle field. An increased effort will be placed upon working with event rights holders to direct more stays to Lauderdale County to ensure that partners see a ROI. Tournament hosting fees average $200,000 to $250,000 annually.
According to the National Association of Sport Commission’s (NASC) annual study in 2017, sport tourism was responsible for $11.4 billion in direct spending nationwide.
2024 TARGETS: An increase of 7% to 59 new qualified leads Make five (5) bids on future sporting events. One being a non-traditional sporting event Establish an economic impact of $9,000,000.00 through tournaments Increase the total number of room nights booked by 5.5% to 8,500 through our sales efforts Lead: Senior Sales Manager, Sport + Travel Trade
MEDIA RELATIONS OBJECTIVE: To maximize public relations reach and “third party endorsement” from travel and outdoor writers, bloggers and other key influencers who provide content for travelers.
MARKET OVERVIEW: In the last 8 years, we have seen our tracked earned media grow from just over $2.2 million in 2016 to $85 million in 2023. This staggering climb is the result of multiple partnerships throughout the nation to curate the right media partners who will maximize our story.
Over the last 2 years, our team has attended Southern Travelers Explore (STE) which is a travel media marketplace focused heavily on blogging, but with other media representatives in attendance. We have also been the beneficiary of press tours from the State of Alabama and the UK/German partnership. In November 2023, we hosted 25 travel writers which was part of a pre-familiarization tour for Travel South International. Start community spotlight blogs, at least one blog or spotlight per quarter. Showcasing different municipalities, their leaders, and their favorite things in The Shoals to see and do. Engaging our local leaders and community residents engenders affinity for the area and the destination brand.
Look at contracting with one strong influencer with significant national and international audiences.
2024 TARGETS: Establish a goal of 32 qualified media leads Establish a benchmark of 12 press tours in 2024 Establish a benchmark of $90,000,000.00 in media value for the destination
Lead: Senior Sales Manager/CEO
VISITOR SERVICES OBJECTIVE: To provide visitor information and retail products to guests of the Visitor Center with outstanding customer service. Our Partnership Services team stays connected with our industry stakeholders through company visits and selling enhanced listings on the destination website.
MARKET OVERVIEW: Ensuring visitors to Florence/Lauderdale County and the Shoals area can access information and support during their travels is an essential component of the visitor experience – one which can translate into increased length of stay, repeat visitation and referrals for the city.
The Visitor Center was established as a multi-purpose venue to service the growing number of visitors to our city. Its primary purpose as an information and retail outlet provides visitors with useful resources and souvenirs for purchase, but further serves as a gathering-place for locals, artisans, musicians, and those representing the cultural and historical scene in the city.
Partnership Services was designed to support our industry stakeholders and ensure that communication and customer service was the core of the program. A variety of support services are offered. You can learn more at: www.visitflorenceal.com/p artnership-services.
Lead: Consistent programming and service standards are key in the visitor services space to retain and attract visitors to the center. Our annual Christmas Open House has been a successful initiative and continues to expand each year. The Shoals Songwriter Showcase remains a standing-room only event which converges with the WC Handy Music Festival. New merchandise is available with new products always considered for the gift shop.
Visitor Services Manager
THE TEAM
Director of Operations
Senior Sales Manager, Sport + Travel Trade
Sarah Kerr Director of Marketing & Communications
Data & Digital Media Manager
THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Secretary
Austin Delano
& MCFARLAND PARK
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