Laura Young
ECB Publishing, Inc.
Local businesses recently heard about a number of ways to affordably reach visitors who pass through Jefferson County on the way to their ultimate destination in the Florida tourist industry. Brenna Dacks, regional manager of Visit Florida, was the guest speaker at the Monticello-Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Tuesday, Nov. 1.
Dacks began by saying how much she loves the job she has with Visit Florida, an organization where she's worked for 20 years. She enjoys being able to visit and work with the wide variety of businesses that tourists visit when they come to our region of Florida.
“I have a passion for rural counties and for helping small businesses,” began Dacks. “My role in our organization is to be an advocate for our industry and our partners, and help them understand how they can leverage their benefits that they receive through our organization. I think a big misconception with Visit Florida is that it costs a lot of money to be involved with us, but there's actually a lot of free things you can do with us throughout the year,” explained Dacks.
Visit Florida, the state's official tourism organization, was formerly a state agency and was privatized in 1996. They are responsible for bringing visitors from out-of-state into Florida. They receive some state and federal funding to promote tourism but must match those funds one to one with funds from private sources for their total budget. About 3,000 businesses pay an annual fee as low as $475 to be a partner with Visit Florida. Dacks pointed out, however, that a business does not have to be a partner to be involved with and benefit from Visit Florida programs.
Dacks shared lots of statistics. Did you know...
• Visitors account for 13 percent of Florida sales taxes collected.
• 1.5 million jobs in Florida are supported by tourism.
• The average Floridian household saves about $1,500 in taxes every year due to tourists paying various taxes while visiting; this is a reason Florida does not levy a state income tax on residents.
• In 2020, the state experienced a 40 percent decline in tourism due to the pandemic. Visit Florida's “rebound campaign” over the past two years was extremely successful, not only in recovering from pandemic-related losses but also in expanding Florida's brand and gaining market share in the tourism industry.
Visit Florida has a number of programs that offer affordable promotional opportunities for businesses.
One program, the Economic Development Administration (EDA) Coop, allows businesses to advertise through Visit Florida at a reduced rate. In this program, Visit Florida provides 80 percent of the advertising cost and the destination provides 20 percent. For example, Jefferson County's Tourist Development Council participated in this program, contributing $2,500 and receiving a $12,500 video campaign that resulted in about 359,000 video views.
Another opportunity that Dacks showcased is having a link on the Jefferson County page of the “Florida Off the Beaten Path” area of the Visit Florida website: www.visitflorida.com/ things-to-do/unexplored-florida/.
Visit Florida has a Hurricane Ian recovery campaign that is letting visitors know through brief, time-stamped videos about places that are open for business. This not only helps promote reopening businesses that had to close temporarily due to the storm but also can dispel misconceptions about the scope of a hurricane's impact on travel plans.
Regarding their Limitless Florida advertising campaign Dacks said, “One in four visitors actually travel with someone who has some sort of a disability, whether that is a physical disability, emotional or something like that. It is important that we recognize those visitors and cater to them.”
In addition to programs that partners can access through the low-cost annual fee, Visit Florida offers non-partners many free opportunities to advertise through their website. For example, any core tourism business – such as a place to stay, place to eat/drink, thing to do – can have a free listing on the Visit Florida website.
“We had 25 million visitors to our site last year,” said Dacks, “so there is no reason not to have a listing on our website if you are one of those kinds of businesses.”
Dacks showed examples of this type of listing that some local businesses already have, including Jefferson Arts Gallery and Tupelo's Bakery & Cafe.
Visit Florida also has a Vacation Guide in the form of a transportation map that goes out to about 300,000 consumers on a request basis and, adding to that the further distribution through visitor centers, has a total distribution of about 700,000. Jefferson County is featured on this map.
Dacks also explained how residents and businesses can use Visit Florida's social media following to promote local places of interest to tourists.
“You can use #LoveFL in your social posts,” said Dacks. “If you're out and about enjoying the beauty that is Jefferson County, I encourage you to take a picture of that amazing, delicious muffin at Tupelo's. You can post it to social media and use that #LoveFL. It's a super easy way to engage in our program. If you are a partner, you can actually submit social posts that we'll post about you.”
Another program businesses can join is the Adventure Travel campaign, which Jefferson County is involved in. This program offers webinars and involves putting together adventure experience itineraries that will begin to be promoted in the spring. To keep up to date with how this program is developing, you can join the Facebook group that Visit Florida has set up called Adventure Travel Network.
Dacks pointed out that Visit Florida operates four Welcome Centers across the North Florida border. The closest one to Jefferson County is on Interstate 75, and others along the Interstate 10 corridor can be important to our area as well, she added. Brochure distribution opportunities at these centers are available through Visit Florida. About two million people come through these welcome centers on a good year. Based on surveys, Visit Florida says that 34 percent of travelers change their plans based on information they get at these centers.
“That is crazy, y'all,” said Dacks. “A third of people don't know what they're doing... What an awesome opportunity to capture some of that audience of people who are driving over from Dallas or wherever, going to their destination, for them to stop in and spend some dollars in Monticello or some of those Jefferson County areas.”
Dacks had much more to share but ran out of time, prompting the thought that she might be invited back for a part two presentation.
In the meantime, tourism-related business owners can find information about more than 100 Visit Florida advertising opportunities at visitflorida.org. Consumers use the website visitflorida.com to plan their trips here, and business owners can view that site to see what the various advertising campaigns look like to potential customers.
For more information about the Monticello Jefferson-County Chamber of Commerce, contact Executive Director Katrina Richardson at (850) 997-5552 or info@monticellojeffersonfl.com.
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