By V. Hugh Lewis, publisher
Tuesday night’s Tourism Board meeting provided an update from Tony Jones on trademarking the City’s Logo as well as a round of standard updates on the status of the City’s tourism promotions.
Jones indicated trademark can be done without an attorney, thus saving the City money, but did indicate the key is having an email address which can receive notifications and respond to requests quickly.
“Make sure you have a good email address. If you don’t respond to their questions quickly, they {trademark office} will consider it abandoned and you’ll have to start the process over,” Jones said.
Colleen Taylor, interim president of the board, said before the meeting the logo was a consolidation of various artworks so obtaining the right to trademark had one less step.
“The logo is fairly simple,” said Jones. “There’s not a lot of common words so it should process quickly.”
Taylor said either she or the Mayor {Bubba Haggard} would complete the application on line and get the process started.
Board member Ana Bode clarified that the City of Jefferson would actually own the trademark on the logo and not the City Tourism Board.
HOT Collection and Budget
In other action, Taylor indicated the Hotel Occupancy Tax {HOT} was up so far this year with the City collecting around $20,000 in September and October. October had an increase of $10 over last year’s revenue. November had a collection of about $12,000. November saw an increase of about $2,000 over 2018.
A total of $32,416 has been collected so far this fiscal year. That’s an increase of almost 12.4% over the same time period last year, per Taylor, yet Thomas indicated the increase was “20 something percent over last year.” The Herald will look at City budget reports to determine the actual number.
Taylor also said she is following up with delinquent reporters and they were paying quickly. She said she’s also been talking with the State Comptroller’s office over delinquent establishments. If all the delinquency collections were made would put approximately an additional $10,000 in the revenue budget.
Expenses to date are 21% into the overall budget. November expenses included payroll, insurance ($1.27 which is thought to be Workers Compensation), MuniServices (who collects the HOT funds), phone and internet, advertising ($9,010.90 for October and November).
Visitor Center Rental Agreement Update
The Board is also working on updating the rental agreement for the Visitor and Convention Center. The sub-committee, headed by Board member Robin Howard, indicated the new agreement would be shorter that previous versions, but would still cover both the City and the renters.
Taylor indicated she did not want to discuss specifics to the new agreement until the Board was ready to vote to adopt it.
“I don’t want to have that in the public,” Taylor said, “but y’all look at it and we’ll discuss it when we’re ready to vote on it.” Taylor went on to say the Board members would need to meet in twos and threes and then all get back together on the final version.
Howard then provided a draft of the agreement to the Board and indicated there are some adjustments which have just come to her attention which will need to be integrated into the document.
Pam Thomas, Board Member, reminded the Board the Jefferson City Council will also have to approve the final agreement.
The Board had originally indicated they wanted to have a new rental agreement in place by January 1, 2020.
Anderson Group
The marketing team Anderson Group, which has been hired by the Board to evaluate the City and it’s offerings and make a proposal for a direction and types of ads to create and place, held a meeting last week with Taylor,
“One of the ladies and her husband said they’d come back between Christmas and New Years and just be tourists,” Taylor said.
Taylor said she had received an email from Anderson stating they were working on reviewing their notes from meetings and their visit and would be completing phase 1 in the next couple of weeks.
The Anderson group is being paid out of HOT funds. Taylor said the Board is using the funds marked for signage in the budget. Taylor hopes signage money will eventually come from other sources within the City and not the Tourism Budget.
Advertising
IHeartJefferson, a downtown business group, has a new commercial running per Taylor and the Board’s commercial is in place and running as well which she credits with some of the increase in revenue.
Thomas said print ads had run and are scheduled in Ride Texas and Bus Tours magazines but she was holding off on other print advertising until the Anderson Group recommendations are in and felt the Board needed to focus more on digital advertising.
Thomas asked about bringing the Community Caravan (Rick Rowe and KTBS) to town in early March instead of April to help draw people to town for Spring Break. She said it would also allow the show to talk about events in April.
“People plan to go on trips,” Thomas said, “so if they see the show in March, they may not come to town until June or July.”
Taylor asked Thomas to look at the calendar and get them scheduled sooner than later.
“We really need to target the condensed markets like Dallas and Houston,” said Thomas, “but advertising there is really expensive. So I just decided we need to wait and see what they {Anderson} comes back with.”
Next Meeting
The next meeting of the Tourism Board was set for January 13, 2020.