Tourism Development Commission - May 20, 2025

All right. Good morning. Thank you for
being here. We're at the Tourism
Development Commission uh meeting for
May 20th. And if I could get a roll
call, please. Uh I'm sorry. Chairperson
Mineer present. Vice Chair Montgomery
present. Commissioner Kleberg present.
Commissioner Marian. I'm here. Madam
Chair, we have a quorum. Wonderful.
Thank you. And next on the agenda is
approval of minutes. Do any
commissioners have any additions or
changes? I will uh take a motion to
approve the minutes. Move we approve the
minutes. Second. All those in favor? I.
All right. Moving on to agenda item
number three. This is a big one.
Experience Scottsdale strategic business
plan. presentation and commission
discussion and possible recommendations
regarding the proposed fiscal year 2526
experience Scottsdale strategic business
plan and contractual performance
measurements. We have Rachel Sacko and
the entire executive staff it looks like
welcome Rachel.
Thank you so much and good morning
chairman Vice Chair Montgomery and
commissioners. I'm Rachel Sacko,
president and CEO of Experience
Scottsdale. And first of all, I want to
thank you for the time that you're
giving us this morning as we share with
you our strategic business plan. This is
the plan for fiscal year 2526, which
begins July 1. So in the comprehensive
packet that you have received included
there is our budget which of course is
given to us by the city of Scottsdale
and represents 45% of the visitor
generated bed tax collections as well as
in the budget you will see investments
from the town of Paradise Valley and
some of our other funding partners. The
total budget of about $22 million is in
line with what our current budget for
this fiscal year is. So, the document
that you have in front of you also
outlines our overreaching strategy to
position Scottsdale as a high-end luxury
destination for leisure and for group
travel. And it's through our research
findings that allows us to focus on
those unique attributes that our luxury
target audience responds to. So in that
document you'll see us call out various
things like golf art and culture the the
scenic beauty of the desert also our
unique resort and wellness offerings as
well as the western culture and western
heritage and our family offerings as
well and our family focus. So also
included in the program of work, you
will see that detailed program of work
that outlines our um I guess our
commercial plan, our media schedule. It
also outlines our communication
strategy, our domestic and international
tourism tactics as well as our group
sales program of work. You'll also see
our performance standards and that is
something that is reviewed by city staff
and it's also included in this document.
This year we'll have 17 metrics that we
will report against and we report on
them quarterly not only to you but also
to our city staff as well as our city
council. There's also a section in this
program that is about leveraging some of
the key opportunities in the coming
year. Um what we're looking at are some
of the new opportunities that are coming
with some domestic but also some
international new air service. And
that's not just at Sky Harbor
International Airport. It's also what we
see happening within our own Scottsdale
airport and is so much a part of our
luxury clientele offerings. We're also
focused on driving needtime business to
achieve our goal of becoming a
Scottsdale yearround destination for
visitors and groups. So that will
include some summertime and some
needtime campaigns both for leisure and
group. As an example, we were really
really excited to see the success of our
summer campaign over the last several
years. And as a matter of fact, we've
been able to track that our summer hotel
revenue has actually increased since we
began the summer program by 47%.
So that is an example of one of those
metrics that we are going to take and
keep and develop that program even more.
So also you'll see an emphasis on some
additional activations and key target
markets. The reason that we've added
these is that it's such a successful
setting Scottsdale apart in a way that
uh really helps us leverage the rest of
the um touch points that we have through
our commercials, our social and even our
sales trips as well. And it sets us
apart from our competitors. It also
creates a deeper connection and a
relationship with our individuals and
our groups and even our media. And
frankly, those activations throughout
all of those markets bring our brand to
life in a way that really supports
everything that we do. So, we also have
a commitment to working with our city
staff, as you'll see in that program of
work, and that is to promote the event
venues like Westworld and Scott Stadium
and Scottsdale Airport and all of our
sports complexes as well as Oldtown. So,
here we are today and we're bringing all
of this to you now. But I want you to
know that we began working on this
particular plan back in January. We
started focusing on our trends, on our
research, the focus group results that
we have, our program ROI. We look at all
the recommendations that came out of our
um customer advisory board and we look
at so many of the things that we've done
to track what should be kept in our plan
and what might need to actually be
replaced. We only maintain the programs
in our plan that provide consistent
return on investment. So this program of
work in addition to having a lot of time
and investment also receives a lot of
outside input. As a membership or
organization, we meet with our members
to figure out what are their needs, what
are their opportunities, what are other
destinations that might that they might
have a foothold in doing that we should
also be looking at. So we also are
meeting with our city and our town
representatives, the staff of the city
as well. We also discuss all of these
findings not only within that 400 or so
member audience but also within our
executive committee of the board as well
as our full board. So both of those
executive committee and the board have
approved this document for your
consideration. And today we want to be
very respectful of your time. But we
also know that this is probably one of
the most important things that you give
your oversight and approve hopefully
potentially approval on and it's
something that we know is very important
not just to our residents but also to
the businesses who thrive on tourism
here. So today you're right I have
brought our entire executive team
because I figured it would be a great
way for them to bring to life for you
the programs in each one of their
particular departments. So now I'd like
to turn things over to my executive team
and I'll call them out and then they'll
one by one come on up. So our vice
president of marketing Michelle Meyers
will be presenting followed by our vice
president of communications Laura
Mcmmerchie then our vice president of
tourism Deian Boon Grup as well as vice
president of convention sales and
services Kelly Bluebomb. And they'll
share the areas of focus that we're
adding to or leaning into this year. and
then I'd be happy to come back up to the
podium and help field any questions that
you might have about our program of work
or our budget. So, thank you. And
Michelle, if I could ask you to come up.
Thank you.
Good morning, chair and commissioners.
Thank you for having me today. I'm
Michelle Myers, the vice president of
marketing at Experience Scottsdale. The
main focus of Experience Gossell's
marketing efforts are to generate brand
awareness of the destination to drive
overnight visitation. Before I cover
some of the highlights of next fiscal
year, I always like to give a highle
overview of how we approach our
marketing strategy. Tourism is a
fiercely competitive industry and in
order to stand out in a very crowded
marketplace, we have to differentiate
Scottsdale, we have to know our audience
and we have to know how to reach our
audience. The way we differentiate
ourselves from other destinations is by
showing prospective visitors how unique
Scottsdale is and all the unique
offerings that we have. As you can see
here, we have a list of them. Lucky for
us, Scottsdale does have a lot to hang
our hat on, so it makes our our job
fairly
easy. Um, the way that we know our
audience is that everything we do is
really rooted from a place of data and
research. All of our marketing efforts
start with research. And it really is
our powerful combination of data sources
and in-depth analysis that allows us to
make precise decisions with our
marketing efforts. These are the main
data sources we utilize on a daily basis
to ensure that we're making strategic
decisions. This data ranges from
everything from GPS location data
captured through mobile devices through
datafy to visitor spend data collected
through Visa destinations insights and
so much more.
All of this data has given us a very
clear understanding of who our audience
is. In order to reach the right
audience, we have targeting baselines
that apply to all of our marketing
efforts. We target people who are aged
35 plus and have a minimum household
income of
150k,000. The household income does
increase by geographic location and
personas. From a geoloccation
perspective, we have 17 primary target
markets. We have secondary markets that
show visitation and engagement on a
smaller scale than our primary markets.
And then we also do some nationwide
testing that excludes both our primary
and our secondary markets just to keep a
pulse on if there's any other locations
that we should be exploring. Tracking
ROI is vitally important to all of us.
So all of our media placements need to
produce metrics that allow us to measure
the success of the placement. And
finally, all of our marketing efforts
need to align with at least one of our
six dedicated
personas. Just knowing who our audience
is really is only part of the puzzle. We
also need to know how, where, and when
our target audiences are seeking travel
focused information to ensure that we're
providing an optimal user experience at
every stage of the travel process. While
we have robust marketing efforts that
cover the dreaming, planning, and
booking stages of travel for each of our
personas, today I'm going to cover some
of the new and exciting marketing
efforts that you're going to see next
fiscal
year. Starting next fiscal year, we will
be adding Portland, Oregon to our other
17 top leisure markets. This came to be
from multiple years of monitoring
visitation and testing marketing efforts
in Portland. Since 2022, we have seen a
50% increase in the number of trips and
83% increase in website traffic coming
from Portland. Due to these increases,
Portland will now join our other top
markets with dedicated dollars focused
on this
region. On an international front, as
all of you know, there have been some
shifts in travel sentiment over the last
few months. Some of my other colleagues
will touch on this as well, but we're
planning to stay the course while
actively monitoring the situation. In
Canada, we're going to be looking at
shifting the dates of our dedicated
campaign. Typically, it runs January
through April. We're going to be
shifting those dates to run October
through March to align better with
typical planning and booking windows. In
Mexico, we launched direct to consumer
marketing for the first time in
September. And due to the success of
those campaigns, we're going to expand
our efforts by bringing influencers and
content creators in market in
partnership with the communications
team. In France, we're working with an
agency partner on marketing efforts that
include high level and consistent
education opportunities to continue to
promote the AirF France direct flight.
And in the UK, we will continue our
year-round educational campaign. We'll
test some summer focused messaging in
October and we will have one of our
brand commercials running on all British
Airways long haul flights in the month
of August.
Other priorities in the coming fiscal
year will be increasing the curated
activations and events that we have been
developing over the last two years.
In-person experiences have become social
currency in our society and they provide
a one-of-a-kind opportunity for us to
connect our target audience with the
unique elements of Scottsdale in a
meaningful way. Whether we're de
developing a sonor and desert sensory
experience, creating a curated ta t
tasting experience featuring indigenous
ingredients, or highlighting
Scottsdale's western roots, our
activations are strategically developed
to tap into the core travel motivators
of our highv value visitors in key
target markets. Next fiscal year, our
activations will include partnerships
with the Colorado Rockies and San
Francisco Giants to promote spring
training, a culinary event in New York
focused on promoting Native American
chefs and indigenous ingredients of the
Sonor and Desert, and partnering with
JSX Airlines to host events in our
direct fly markets. To complement
complement our activation efforts and
amplify our reach, we will incorporate
high impact out ofome advertising in
tandem with these events and in some of
our top target markets. To ensure our
out ofome advertising is impactful, we
always focus on large-scale
opportunities that provide immersive
experiences like completely wrapping
subway stations with imagery of
Scottsdale or creating an interactive
staircase that plays the sounds of the
sar sonor and desert when stepped
on. We have seen great success with
connected TV, allowing us to
continuously create new commercials to
align with our target audiences and
personas. The reason connected TV is so
powerful is that it all starts with
interest based targeting. Depending on
the commercial we're promoting, we're
able to build an audience that interests
align with the commercial's content.
From there, we can layer on additional
targeting such as household income,
geoloccation, and age range. We also
have the ability to add exclusion. So if
there are certain programs or channels
we don't want our content to appear on,
we can remove those. Last year, our
suite of commercials played in 27
million households, generated 180
million impressions, and drove over half
a million visits to the website through
retargeting ads. Due to this success,
next fiscal year, we're going to expand
our advertising mix on connected TV to
include Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, ESPN,
and Disney Plus.
Similarly to connected TV, audio
streaming continues to be an effective
marketing channel due to its robust
targeting abilities. Over the last year,
we've developed partnerships with
specific podcasts that align with the
interests and demographics of our key
target audiences. We utilize host red
advertising to tap into these podcasters
trusted and engaged audience base,
essentially making them a spokesperson
for the destination. Next fiscal year,
we will expand our podcast advertising
to include giveaway opportunities, and
we'll utilize pre-recorded audio ads
that will stream on popular podcasts
that align with our target
demographic. Social media and video
content will continue to be a top
priority. In addition to maintaining an
active presence on the social media
channels Meta, Instagram, Pinterest, Tik
Tok, YouTube, and LinkedIn, we're
building out our YouTube short strategy
based on the uncertainty around Tik Tok.
And we will also be expanding our local
content creator program. This program
allows us to leverage influencers and
content creators in market to help us
create and amplify social content for
us. Golf continues to be a major pillar
of our marketing efforts. This fiscal
year, we will be filming a new golf
commercial and working with the Breaking
Par team. They are the fastest growing
golf show in television to develop a
second destination Scottsdale episode
that will cover all aspects of our
destination. The first Destination
Scotsdale episode was developed in 2022
that became the most watched episode,
generated 1.5 million impressions, and
aired 623 times across 21 sports
networks.
You will also see some shifts in our
seasonal campaigns. Our summer campaign
that runs May through September has
leveraged the theme of it's that hot for
nearly five years. This year we have
shifted the theme to take the plunge and
have developed all new creative assets
that align with this theme. This
campaign launched on May 1st and will
run through Labor Day. We will also be
shifting our holiday campaign to be more
of a fall and holiday campaign that will
lead very heavily into our luxury
persona. This campaign will launch in
late September and run through the
holidays. Lastly, I have two internal
updates to share. As I've shared,
tracking ROI is vitally important to all
the work that we do from a marketing
standpoint. In 2022, Longwords
International conducted an advertising
effectiveness effectiveness study at the
city's request and found that every
dollar we invest in advertising
generates $116 in direct visitor
spending and $4 in taxes. To ensure that
we maintain the ability to track ROI, we
are in the works of adding a new
software system that will allow for
attribution data. Ultimately, the way
that it will work is we'll be able to
put tracking pixels on most of the media
and advertising placements we put out in
the world. And then we'll be able to
track individuals who saw our marketing
efforts and then who actually appeared
in market in Scottsdale. This will give
us even deeper insights into the
performance of our marketing placements
and will help us regularly calculate a
more in-depth ROI.
Another change coming next fiscal year
is that we'll be bringing all of our
digital media buying in-house. This move
will allow us to develop a more robust
strategy, be more agile in our digital
efforts, and increase visibility into
our performance. Thank you for your
time. I will now hand it over to Laura
McMerry. Thank you,
Michelle. Good morning. Morning. I'm
Laura Mcerchie and I oversee the
communications efforts at Experience
Scottsdale and the goal of our team
really is to generate awareness for the
destination. If you don't know about
Scottsdale, whether you're planning a
vacation or planning a meeting, we're
not going to be in your consideration
set. We help complement the good work
that Michelle just outlined by layering
in editorial coverage and extending the
destination's message and reach. We like
to say you have to have a balanced
portfolio. need to have advertising,
strong marketing assets, social media,
and earn publicity, multiple touch
points to reach our
audience. Next fiscal year, we'll
continue to hit our primary domestic
markets through our triedand-true
tactics of media missions, trade shows,
individual and group familiarization
tours, and paid storytelling. We'll be
in New York, the media capital of the US
in September hosting media at the events
that Michelle outlined as well as
conducting media appointments. And we'll
be back in New York in January for the
International Media Marketplace or ImM
Trade Show where we'll meet with 44
journalists. And speaking of IMM, which
is an appointment-based show, will
attend Imm Luxury Show in Las Vegas for
the very first time this October. The
show will connect us with 22 luxury
oriented travel journalists. We'll also
take our message on the road and hit
some of our key markets like Chicago,
Dallas, Houston, and Denver. And I
should note that this fiscal year we
were in New York, LA, and San Diego. So,
we kind of rotate our markets, but we
always hit New York every year. But just
because we're not physically in a market
doesn't mean we're not touching it with
Scottsdale stories.
One of the ways we'll reach our target
markets is through Scottsdale Media
Showcase. As much as we love bringing
Scottsdale's message on the road, we
know there's nothing better than
bringing media to Scottsdale and
introducing them to the sights, sounds,
tastes of the destination. In fiscal
year 22 23, we hosted our first
Scottsdale media showcase, welcoming
vetted travel and lifestyle journalists
to an immersive and educational program
that allowed them to learn about the
depth and the breadth of the destination
and develop future story ideas. Last
April, we expanded showcase, hosting 40
journalists at four host hotels with 23
participating partners, all of whom had
one-on-one appointments with all 40
journalists. Outside of the
appointments, the journalists were
treated to a dinar around in Oldtown, a
long table dinner in the desert, and a
choice of destination experiences. To
date, the two programs have generated
154 positive media hits in outlets such
as Connie Nash Traveler, The Point Sky,
and USA Today. This December, we'll
orchestrate our third rendition of this
successful program.
In addition to working with traditional
media outlets, we'll continue to work
with content creators such as bloggers,
YouTubers, and influencers. Um, as
Michelle mentioned, we know these
outlets have become key sources for
travel inspiration. And since these
creators own their own channels, we have
more ability to work with them to shape
the stories. They can also turn their
content around much faster some of our
traditional media outlets. These outlets
also allow us to focus on niche story
ideas such as Scottsdale art, culinary,
wellness, golf, and outdoor adventure.
They're a great vehicle to promote
seasonal messaging and complement the
marketing department's
campaigns. And speaking of seasonal
campaigns, you'll see us tap into
satellite media tours to promote some of
Scottsdale's need periods. Satellite
media tours are a bit of a hybrid
between advertising and PR. their
pay-to-play opportunities where
broadcast travel experts book segment
segments on a variety of TV stations in
our key target markets and they're able
to tell Scottdale stories such as
Scottsdale is a great summer value
destination or why Scottsdale offers a
carefree holiday
getaway. We'll continue to lean into
hosting journalists on familiarization
tours. As we mentioned, we know that
these firsthand experiences result in
more in-depth coverage and build
relationships that generate coverage for
years to come. Just like our visitors,
when journalists come to Scottsdale,
they fall in love with
Scottsdale. And to keep a steady drum
bite of Scottsdale information, we'll
continue to use all the tools in our
toolbox to reach key media
outlets. While the US is our bread and
butter, the international markets are
extremely important. As we know, these
visitors tend to stay longer, spend
more, and often often travel during our
need periods. And as you'll hear from my
colleague Deianne, it's crucial that we
support our international air service.
We need to maintain a balanced portfolio
between our domestic and our
international efforts. While we use the
same tactics domestically and
internationally, we tailor them a little
bit to each international market. And to
help us to do help us do so, um, we work
with PR reps in the UK, Canada, France,
and the German speaking regions of
Germany, Switzerland, Switzerland, and
Austria. And we partner with the Arizona
Office of Tourism to promote in Mexico.
And while it's a bit of a challenging
international media landscape right now
with some publications holding off on US
coverage, we know it's a long game.
We've been here before, and we know it's
key for Scottsdale to stay the course.
So to tie it all together, the tried and
the true plus the new are key to
generating awareness for Scottsdale. And
to illustrate the results of our
programs, so far this fiscal year, we've
generated
3,296 pos positive articles seen by more
than 10 billion people equating to
millions of dollars worth of publicity.
And with that, I'll turn it over to my
colleague Deian Boon Grub.
Chair, commissioners, good morning. My
name is Deian Boon Grup. I'm the vice
president of tourism for Experience
Scottsdale. And what our team does is um
we we're in charge of um working with
travel professionals who sell travel.
And so uh we e educate them both
domestically and internationally. And
that's what I'm going to talk a little
bit about today.
So once a customer sees our amazing ads
or reads a great article about
Scottsdale, they often will go to a
travel professional to book their travel
and that's where we come in. So we work
with travel advisors, tour operators,
receptive operators, the airline
vacations and online travel agencies.
And like my colleague said, our main
purpose is to differentiate Scottsdale
to make sure that we stand out from
other cities in the valley and other
luxury destinations as
well. So you probably know what a travel
advisor does. Um they sell retail
travel. Um but we also work with the
other layers like um tour operators who
package travel, receptive operators who
receive customers in from international
markets and airline vacations um
departments who work on um packaging the
airline tickets with our hotel
partners. All of this is research
driven. We could not do what we do well
uh without research. So, um, attending
trade shows, conducting sales missions,
familiarization tours, um, like Michelle
said, it's really important for us to
tap into the markets where there are
potential travelers to come to SC,
excuse me, to come to Scottsdale. And
so, the way we do this is we look at our
geoloccation data and we determine which
markets we need to have a presence in.
And then we also work with Phoenix Sky
Harbor and looking at their passenger um
statistics and what markets our flights
are bringing customers into. So this
allows us to fish where the fish are, so
to speak. It also allows us to identify
new markets like Michelle mentioned with
Portland this year. There's a propensity
for more visitors to come from that
market. So it's important for us to have
a presence there.
our focus and our team is really um
delved a little deeper into the luxury
segment. So a few years back um we
decided that we needed to focus on this
market and there was a study done and
the US travel agency landscape and it
said people who use travel advisors tend
to be a little wealthier a little bit
older and about 744% of them will book
luxury travel using a travel advisor. So
we used that that data as our
inspiration and we created a partnership
with virtuoso travel consortium and
through that partnership we have been
able to participate in sales activities
both domestically and internationally
and frankly it's opened a lot of doors
for us in that luxury space and so we've
ventured a little bit deeper and we've
found some new partnerships which I'm
excited to announce we'll be um
experiencing and exploring this year um
in the coming year we will
also OSO, but we will also partner with
Global Travel Collection. In fact,
there's a a few of their luxury
promotions that are happening right now
in our city this week, uh, which we're
participating in, and then next year
they have some luxury focused activities
that we will also be able to participate
in. Um, we've also established a
partnership with a a group called
Serendipians. They're like the Virtuoso
of Europe, but they're a smaller
boutique organization. Um, they focus on
selling to affluent audiences in Europe.
And also in the year ahead we will be
participating in the ILTM flagship trade
show. Now this is the trade show where
luxury travel destinations from around
the world gather and luxury travel
providers as well hotels attractions and
this year we will um plan to have um a
highlevel visible visible um marketing
opportunity at this show. So where the
clients that go there typically will see
visuals from Maldes or Costa Simmeralda,
this year they will see the visions of
Scottsdale. So we're really excited
about that. Also next year for the first
time we have been invited to participate
in LE Miami. That's uh they like to call
it the art basil of travel. And so we
will have a presence there and we're
really excited to reach that audience
this
year. Destination education. This is
such a key part of what my team does.
Um, our affluent our fluent audiences
typically will use travel advisors
because their time is so much more
valuable to them. And so they really
don't have time to be sifting through
offerings or or online opinions. And so
what they prefer to do is have someone
do the leg work for them. And that's
what we do. We go in and we train the
people that are doing the leg work. And
so travel adviserss really look to us to
teach them how to sell Scottsdale. And
it's so valuable to them that they often
ask us to come back year and year after
year because what they see when we leave
their office is an increase in sales.
And so that's good for everybody.
There's two ways to get a travel
professional to sell your destination.
The first way is through a
familiarization tour. Bring them to the
destination, let them experience the
destination firsthand. And in the last
year, we have hosted 182 travel
professionals here in Scottsdale. The
second way is to go to them in their
office and teach them all the ins and
outs of the destination. Give them the
details so that they can build
itineraries for their clients. This last
year we have reached over two 2,400
travel professionals in educating them.
So we place a huge emphasis on this. One
of the reasons that we do so is called
the multiplier effect. So if you think
about it, we're training them how to
sell Scottsdale. They then sell
Scottsdale to their hundreds of
customers. That results in tens of
thousands of clients coming to our
destination. In the past year, we have
reached I'm going to read this number
because it's pretty impressive for us.
It's
3,373 travel advisor clients. So, those
are additional people now promoting
Scottsdale out in the
world. Air service development. We
cannot emphasize this enough. the easier
it is to get to a destination, the more
people will choose to come here. And so,
in the past year, um, we've had some
great success with the three new
airlines that are flying into
Scottsdale. Um, last year we had Air
France announced that they'll be flying
direct in from Paris. We have Aero
Mexico flying from Mexico City and we
have Porter Airlines flying from
Toronto. So, we work with Phoenix Sky
Harbor Airport to make sure that these
flights are sustained. it's our job to
make sure they're full when they're
coming in to the airport. And so we
continue to to focus on them. Even
though the international markets are
struggling a little bit, we know that
pent up demand is real. Once you see an
amazing destination, an ad or you read a
an article or you talk to a travel
professional, you don't forget about
that destination. And when time passes,
you will go there and you will choose
that destination for your vacation. So
that's why we say we like to stay the
course. In fact, Scottsdale has really
experienced a lot of success in shining
in this area. We've gained market share
from staying the course in our
international destinations. And so
that's our plan for the year
ahead. We also have an amazing amenity
right here in our own backyard, the
Scottsdale airport. Many of our affluent
visitors tend to like to to fly private,
and our airport is one of the only
worldclass airports that have three
worldclass FBOs. And so we're really
proud of that. The amenities at
Scottsdale Airport are like no other. Um
they do have the ability to take long
range jets, receive long-range jets from
international markets. We have 247
customs and immigration service, which
is also a really nice amenity for a
general aviation airport. And the best
part is our over the fence service. So,
I don't know if you realize this, but
you can literally have your car parked
at the end of that jetway, walk off the
jet and into your car and be whisked off
to all the exciting things there are to
do in Scottsdale. So, our partnership
with them will be very important in the
year ahead will help them pro um to
promote all of the amenities of
Scottsdale airport. So, with that, I
would like to turn it over to Kelly
Bluebomb. She's our vice president of
convention sales and services.
Thank you, Dean. Good morning. My name
is Kelly Bluebomb. I am vice president
of convention sales and services at
Experience Scottsdale. Um, my department
is responsible for working with meeting
and event professionals throughout the
United States and Canada to educate them
on everything this great destination has
to offer, build relationships with them,
and bring their hotel bring their events
into our hotels and resorts. So, I
thought this morning I would start with
just a quick snapshot of who the
Scottsdale Group customer is. Um, give
you an idea of what markets they
represent and where they're coming from.
Um, you'll see that primarily we are
working with corporate groups that
represents about 70% of the destination
definite business that we see. That is
followed by our association customer at
18% and rounded out by what we refer to
as our niche segment. This includes
things like youth sports, fraternal
groups, social groups. We love these
groups because they usually fill some of
those softer demand times in the
destination. Um I also wanted to provide
a little bit more um insight into that
corporate customer and what some of the
high value segments are that we see
perform in Scottsdale on an annual
basis. About 20% of our definite
business is from that pharma, medical,
healthcare market. Um financial and
insurance are also really important to
the destination. high-tech, retail and
manufacturing as well. Um on the left
you get an idea of where our customers
are coming from. Um this is defined by
where the meeting planner is based on an
annual basis. Arizona, California, New
York, New Jersey, and Minnesota tend to
be our top. They kind of jockey
positions throughout the year, but they
tend to be our top performing states. Um
I know Rachel mentioned um performance
metrics. As a sales organization, we are
very metric driven. um really uh
measuring all of the efforts of our team
from leads generated to how many groups
are booking in the destination, how many
room nights does that represent, new
business, which I'll talk about in just
a little bit, but also really looking at
our conversion rate to really make sure
that we're identifying the right
customer and going after the right
customer for the destination. And I'm
happy to share with you this year
year-to- date 30% of the leads that our
team has generated have turned into
definite bookings for Scottsdale.
Um so in the coming year we are going to
continue with um our kind of
triedand-rue customer focus programs,
sales missions, uh client events,
familiarization trips like you heard my
colleagues talk about, but also with our
customer advisory board. So as Rachel
mentioned, this is a really key group
for um from a sales perspective. This is
nearly 20 high-value, highc caliber
meeting professionals that represent a
lot of those segments that I talked
about that really are um in our back
pocket and a group that we can have very
candid conversation with to understand
what our destination is doing well, what
our competition might be doing better.
We convene this group annually. We just
had them here actually in early April.
They're just a tremendous resource for
us. Their feedback helps shape our
program and strategies. And while we'll
continue to meet with them annually and
bring them to the destination, this
coming year we're going to actually look
at engaging them more throughout the
year. Um while they were just here in
early April, we've already tapped right
back into them. We barely gave them any
time to rest. Um and Michelle and the
marketing team are looking at making
some adjustments to um some of our
materials. And so getting that customer
feedback from the actual user and really
just making sure we're tapping into all
that they can do to help us really move
the destination forward from a meetings
perspective.
some of the priorities for our team. Um,
you probably have heard our team talk
about being very new business focused.
This is something we really put a strong
emphasis on. Um, we're very blessed as a
destination to enjoy repeat business,
but it's really important that we are
out mining, digging, and finding that
new customer that hasn't experienced
Scottsdale before, that hasn't booked us
before, and is maybe looking at our um
competitors. 21% of the leads that our
team has generated this year are new
business for the destination. So again,
just continuing to create that new loyal
group customer for Scottsdale. But our
new business focus extends beyond even
lead generation. Um I my colleagues
mentioned familiarization trips. It's
also a criteria when we're looking at
meeting professionals to bring out to
the destination, finding ones that have
not been here before, have not booked
before. And just two weeks ago, we had
our sensational familiarization trip and
37% of the planners that were out here
had not been to the destination before.
And I always say they are not easy to
find, let me tell you. Um we also are um
a team that's very focused on filling
our need periods. As an organization
overall, we are um and while we do put
an emphasis on that summer time frame,
we also look at that holiday time frame
as an opportunity where um group
business tends to be a little softer.
So, sort of that mid- November through
the new year. Um, and fiscal year to
date, um, 37% of the room nights that
our team has generated are going to fill
that summer and that holiday um, time
frame. And you might ask, how do we do
that? So, one of the ways that we focus
on filling that summer need period is
through a promotion that we call summer
meeting summer savings. And this is a
program that allows us to financially
incentivize meeting professionals to
book in that Memorial Day to Labor Day
time frame. Um, planners can earn up to
$5,000 in a rebate that is funded by
Experience Scottsdale to again really
influence them into that time period.
And I can tell you it can sometimes be
the difference of a program moving three
four weeks and clients are very
motivated by this program um because
that is such a value um time that
they're looking at us. So, um, year to
date, this program has influenced 20,000
room nights that will fill the
Scottsdale need period. Um, but what
we'll look at in this coming year is,
um, continuing with this program, but
also working with our hotel community to
identify some just need dates overall
for the destination. There are some
weeks, um, that are just not as
attractive for groups. Could be when
Valentine's Day falls on a Tuesday or
the week of Halloween, those Mondays
coming out of Easter, Mother's Day. So
really looking at some of those softer
demand times and building a promotion
around those to try and influence groups
to fill um those need times for our
destination. Um and the last thing that
I want to mention um Rachel mentioned
activations. Um I love talking about
this because this really is the work of
our customer advisory board really
coming to life. A couple of years ago we
talked with our board about how
Scottsdale could really stand out
against our competition. We go to
industry trade shows with every domestic
destination, many international, larger
than us, much larger budgets than us.
And so really, we talked with them of
how can we really stand out, cut through
the clutter and make sure that
Scottsdale has um a strong presence. And
these these high impact sponsorships and
activations were an idea that they
brought to us and uh we took it, we ran
with it, we implemented this last year
and we'll continue with this in the
coming fiscal year. And I think the
thing most important to note about these
is, you know, not only the brand
awareness, we take these activations,
they are off the trade show floor. So,
we're still having um, you know, that
B2B component on the trade show floor,
but the buzz about Scottsdale off the
floor is so strong. And it allows us to
interact with a whole set of customers
that we would not have the ability to if
we were just on that trade show floor.
So, you know, really bringing in the
flavors of the destination um and the
brand and just keeping Scottsdale top of
mind and really the buzz at trade shows.
With that, I'm going to turn it over to
Rachel. Thank you so much to my team. I
think they're amazing and they love
Scottsdale and do great work. We also
have here in case you have any questions
about our budget, our CFO Jania Kihase
or about our outreach through uh
legislative issues and opportunities,
Rachel Pearson, who is our VP of
community and government affairs. So,
I'd love to entertain any questions you
might have or bring the experts up to
talk about them. Thank you again for all
of your support of our efforts and our
ability to bring business to Scottsdale
that helps not only our industry but
helps our residents as well.
Wonderful. Thank you, Rachel and team.
You guys are absolutely amazing. Um, all
of that is just unbelievable and we're
so lucky to have you uh promoting our
destination. I mean, it's it's really
incredible. One thing you guys didn't
mention and I meant to bring it today
and it's sitting on my kitchen table is
the flyer I got in the mail. Um, so if
anybody wants to hit on a little bit
about how we're reaching the local
market because I loved it. I wanted to
bring it. I'm really mad I didn't. So
can you talk to that a little bit? I can
talk a little bit about that. Sure. One
of the things that we like to do
particularly this time of year is to
make sure that stations which are so
important to us during this need time
period of the summertime in particular.
A lot of the stations that are
frequenting our own resorts are from our
own residents of course. And so it's
always great to make sure that we are
top of mind. we as our destination,
Scottsdale, because they're starting to
be frequented, if you will, in many ways
through messaging from our surrounding
states and other areas as well because
this is very affluent market. And so,
this is a target market for many of our
competitors. So, we sent out something
to remind our residents that they too
can be a visitor. It's something that we
think is really important to our
industry, important to help us maintain
that yearround presence with the bed tax
going through and keeping our businesses
um definitely doing well, if you will.
Um so it's very important for us. We
also thought it would be helpful for
them to avail themselves of some of the
the tools that we have on our website,
our brochures, and if they have people
that are coming to visit them, that they
can also use our resources as well.
Perfect. Thank you. Do commissioners
have questions, comments?
Good. Um, I agree that that uh Rachel
and your team, that was a great
presentation. You do a great job. I got
to see it firsthand with the summer
experience event. Um, and I appreciate
all of that that you do. I have a couple
questions, one easy and one maybe a
little bit more thoughtprovoking. When
you talk about the lift, the airlift
obviously being very critical to for a
lot of reasons. Do you get occupancy
numbers from like 24 to 25 of Air France
or American Airlines or Air Mexico that
shares and shows what that success is
either 24 how that's impacted the 25?
I'm going to ask Dean Boon Grup to come
up and talk to that because Deianne is
very involved with Sky Harbor Airport as
well as we both are involved with
Scottsdale airport and we have some data
that I think we could share.
Thank you, Commissioner. Yes, we do
receive pass passenger statistics per
airline into Phoenix Sky Harbor. We do
have to consider that some of those are
through traffic, so they're stopping in
Phoenix as a major hub and continuing
on, but we can tell through our hotels
and through our other attractions our
geoloccation data um some of the the
visitors that are coming here. But we do
get those on a monthly basis. They're
also on Phoenix Sky Harbor's website so
it's accessible to the public and I can
I'm happy to share that with you.
Great. Thank you. The my other question
is as you went through your strategy
planning as we all do and you're you're
limited by certain budgets and certain
requirements and have core programs. um
when you went through this, were there
were there things that you had to drop
off the table or were there different
approaches you mentioned or somebody
mentioned it in the challenges to the
our partners to the north and the south
um and how you would approach them
differently based on on the the recent
rhetoric of of those. Did that come into
play or have you got new strategies that
you're excited about coming into 25 and
26 and beyond that if if there was a
limitless budget that you would have
done or could have done differently for
the for future considerations? Thank
you, Commissioner. That's a very
thoughtprovoking question. So yes,
that's why we start our program of work
as early as January because we start
looking at the program ROI to see what
really is moving the needle and then we
go out to the community and ask we can
see this research is it really working
for you or is there something that would
be better serving your needs and new
opportunities. Um so we look at all of
that we have so much research it's just
so important. I will show you. I wish I
had the slide to show you here, but of
all of our competitive set that we're
competing with, our budget is well,
thank goodness for Tucson. It is the
only competitive set that we compete
against that has a lower budget than
ours because we're competing against
destinations that have been able to
avail themselves not only of bed tax,
but also lots of augmented programs for
their budgets, like tourism improvement
districts or areas. And so in some cases
like in Palm Springs or San Diego, we
may be dealing with an organization or a
community that has maybe a 40 or 50 or
maybe $80 million budget. And so it
allows them to have a lot more feet on
the ground, a lot more programs, and a
lot more reach. So how we combat that is
we go back to research. And what I'll
say just in a in a quick soundbite is
that we know exactly who our customer is
from our research. We also research how
is our message delivered to them and is
it respond? Are they responding? So we
know where they are. we know what the
message should be and we test it and if
it doesn't work and we don't see lift
coming here meaning or traffic coming
here or that particular consumer
particularly with this new attribution
uh data that we'll be having if they
don't come we will change our messaging
and even look at new markets so we
really maximize every bit of our dollars
the last thing I'll say is that our
board of directors and frankly our
executive committee and our finance and
investment committee has been really
adamant that in addition to making sure
that we have a reserve that we also have
opportunity funds. So we have been able
to increase our opportunity fund so that
when we do see things that might occur,
it might be a particular event that
could be bid on, it might be a
particular remnant um commercial space
or advertising or some sort of
opportunity that we can take advantage
of because we have the funds to do that.
it has to be um approved by our
executive committee and finance
committee, but it's definitely something
that can be done very quickly and that's
something that we did not have um until
just recent years.
Thank you. Any other commissioners have
questions, comments?
Chris. All right. So, we are Steve, are
we looking for a recommendation today?
Correct. Uh recommendation on the
strategic plan as well as performance
measurements that were in your packet.
Okay.
So, can I get a commissioner to possibly
recommend the strategic plan?
I'll recommend the strategic plan moving
forward. Do we have a second? I'll
second. All those in favor? I. Fantastic
job, ladies. Thank you so much.
All right, Madam Chair, commissioners,
just a couple items mentioned here. Item
number four, we are moving to a later
date as well as item number seven, the
canal convergence update. We'll we'll
have that updated at a upcoming meeting.
Okay. Thank you, Steve. So, skipping
forward over to number five. Scottsdale
4th of July celebration funding request.
Presentation commission discussion and
possible recommendation to city council
for bed tax fund expenditure up to
$39,000 to Mc Culinary to support the
Scottsdale 4th of July celebration.
Presenting we have Brandon Maxwell of M
Culinary Concepts and Carrie Dunn of our
Entertainment. Welcome gentlemen.
Madam Chair, commissioners playing the
part of Brandon Maxwell is the president
of M Culinary, Michael Chulie. Brandon
decided elected for his 35th 38th
anniversary to go to the Mald for three
weeks instead of being here with us. I
suspect that's why he's so happily
married. He makes the right decisions.
But we are so glad to be here with you
all. Um it's always great following
Rachel and her team. I hope you uh we
have like three ounces of of research
versus 10 million pages. But we're going
to get there. We're going to show you.
This is our 12th year coming up. And
I'll just set you set this story a
little bit. 13 years ago, uh Brandon and
I, we do the Phoenix Open together.
We've done it together for over 20
years. and we were standing on 16 and we
were chat chatting about Scottsdale, the
city of Scottsdale. And one of the
things that we said, you know, there's
no fireworks show for the for the
people. Um, and then the light bulb went
off and we said, "Let's do one." And it
was kind of like the Hardy Boys do a
fireworks show. And uh uh we got
Westworld involved, we got the city
involved, we got uh lots of folks
involved. and it has grown into
something so special um where thousands
and thousands and thousands of families
come out and enjoy a monster fireworks
show. Uh this is our 12th year and
um we have built even a better mousetrap
that Michael's going to tell you about.
Uh but give you a quick media some media
highlights. Uh I'm sure there's a way to
work this arrow key. arrow key.
Oh,
sure. Assistant, Steve. Thank you, sir.
Uh
uh. Oh, double arrow key. Sorry. Um
these are some of the media highlights
from last year. We have a great media
team. Uh uh between M Culinary and our
entertainment, we have uh our marketing
people, our social media people, uh also
our agency uh Dave Red uh led by Dave
Pratt. uh we have been able to leverage
a lot of media uh to come to this event.
I think our secret is that we're indoors
and at 78 degrees versus standing in the
middle of a dusty street in Mesa
watching fireworks go up at 114 degrees.
So uh as great as we think we are, we
have a lot of uh interesting uh things
to do. Uh last year we drove over 38
million uh consumer impressions. Um
again, uh every news station came out.
Uh channel 12 was our our sponsor of it,
but everybody became part of this
because it was a great story being
indoors. Uh about uh 15 million combined
impressions from advertising, Fox
Sports, 910, I iHeart Media TV, uh
targeted digital, social ads. We do
everything. We throw the kitchen sink at
it. Uh also the city with Kelly uh
Corset, he he helps us. Uh we we buy a
uh over Scottsdale Road the banner.
We've got every kind of media that you
can think of to push this uh for not
only the cities of our people, but also
for uh the newest people that have
arrived and don't really know about it.
Here's what's new.
Yes. Thank you, chair, and and
commissioners here. I know that uh you
were expecting Brandon Maxwell, but you
know, I I'll do my best to replace him
here. Some of the new things we're
offering this year, we've partnered up
with Western Spirit, the Scottsdale
Museum of of the West to create an
exhibit in the North Hall. Uh paired
with that, um we've also got uh
Scottsdale Community Historian Joan
Fidoula and uh citizen adviser Bruce
Wall who've curated the history of
Scottsdale walking tour. Uh these will
uh create opportunities for all of our
guests to get a little bit of peak of uh
Scottsdale's history. So, we're excited
about that. Uh we'll also be hosting the
Celebrate 2026, the kickoff to the 75th
year anniversary of Scottsdale. So um
everyone involved will get a chance to
be a part of that. Um what would a
Fourth of July event in the desert be
without snow? Uh of course we're going
to have a kids snow zone uh front and
center. We'll be having a mountain of
snow. We'll have an area where kids can
play, throw snowballs. I'm sure I'll
target a few of my children while I'm
there. Uh, and it'll be a great time.
Um, as Carrie mentioned, we've got an
increased media presence, uh, partnering
with Fox 10, iHeart Radio, uh, local and
national influencers as well, um, to
create a presence out in the media. So,
we're very excited about that. Uh, lot
of new stuff and we're going to continue
with some of the Oh, thank you. I did
the same thing you did. The arrow key.
We're going to continue with the
classics. The 4th of July uh is is a
classic event. So, we want to bring back
a lot of the things that worked. So, let
me
go one more here. There we go. Uh the
406 rodeo where kids can uh have their
parents watch them as they jump on the
back of sheep and some mutton busting
will be followed up by a bull riding uh
competition there. Uh that'll take place
in the um Ecuadome. So, we're very
excited to bring the rodeo back. Um,
well, being the M Culinary Concepts here
in this partnership, we love a backyard
barbecue where we'll be hosting some of
the Fourth of July classics, salads,
barbecue brisket, hamburgers, and of
course, all-American hot dogs. Can't
have a Fourth of July without that. Um,
every year we've um celebrated first
responders, fire, police, and and other,
you know, notable heroes in our parade
of heroes. Um, and currently I think
we're still accepting nominees for that.
So, if there's anyone that you'd like to
nominate for our parade of heroes, we'd
love to love to bring them up there.
This year, we're bringing back our cold
beer and cheeseburgers summer slider
eating contest. Uh this year, we're
excited to uh announce that um the Cold
Bear and Cheeseburgers in Texas is
having a competition there. We're going
to bring them out here to Scottsdale uh
for the championship. So there'll be
semi and quarterfinal events uh in Texas
as well as the 17 restaurants here.
There'll be two champions and uh of
those regions and we'll bring them here
for the to crown one of them the summer
slider champion. The kids corners coming
back with water balloons and the classic
musical chairs. So we're excited about
those things. You know, all the kids
love those. We've also got face
painters. We've got balloon artists um
roaming around. It's a it's a really
great event for the kids and families
all alike. And of course, um you have to
cap off the event with one of Arizona's
largest fireworks displays, which this
year, I think every year we want to just
go a little bit better and I don't know
about longer, but bigger uh than the
previous year. So, we're extremely
excited to cap the night off with uh one
of Arizona's largest fireworks displays.
I'll turn it back over to Carrie. Thank
you. Uh hang on that for one second so
we get the arrow business. All right.
Um, we are asking this year for 39,000,
basically $2,000 more than last year.
Uh, as you may know, every firework in
the world is made in China. There's this
little tariff thing going on over there
right now and here. Uh, so they have the
prices have uh risen a little bit. Uh,
the good news is we signed our contract
last August. Um, and because we did, we
moved in front of many people. Uh, Tempe
Town Lakes is not going to have a
fireworks show this year because they
can't get fireworks. Uh, the city of
Phoenix, which is done usually a very,
very big fireworks show. They're
struggling to find fireworks. There's
just no fireworks because they're not
shipping anything over from China at
this moment. We are blessed. We've got a
great fireworks show. It's going to be
the biggest one we've ever had. Uh, and
so we're excited about that. Uh so some
of the benefits for you all is that the
Scottsdale name is in the event and the
millions and millions and millions of
impressions that will be there. We've
created a stay and play package uh uh
last couple of years um where we give
free tickets to anybody that stays uh in
the hotel third or fifth. Uh we had 18
hotels thanks to Scottsdale Experience
Scottsdale. Uh 18 hotels took us up. Uh
the the top ones were uh the Hyatt
Regency, Scottsdale Resort and Spa. Uh
they created a special offer, uh the
Royal Palms, uh Scottsdale Park Suites,
and Hampton Inn uh by Hilton. Many
others did this, but these folks took
our materials and use it in their
marketing to drive room nights. Uh and
that's what this is all
about. And so we're also going to
provide 10 VIP tickets, which means you
get to have the barbecue. uh 10 30
secondond commercials on our video
boards. We have a giant video board on
the stage. Um uh we will position in all
of our advertising as the premier place
to see the 4th of July. Um Scottdale
residents receive 50% off on the tickets
uh up until June 20th. Uh there's an
option if anybody wants a booth space,
we have it. Uh we are kicking off the
2026
uh Celebrate Scottsdale. As Michael
said, we are building an exhibit which
hopefully that will trail uh throughout
the entire year to all the different uh
programs that are being done for this.
Um, and then Scottsdale's in every bit
of media that we have, uh, from over the
Scottsdale Road, uh, social, digital,
print, TV, radio, influencers, uh, and,
uh, given the 12 year history of knowing
who our clients are, we are able to
market right back to them as well, uh,
to come out there. Um, and, um, that is
our Fourth of July ask. Appreciate uh,
any comments or thoughts.
Thank you, gentlemen, very much. And,
uh, Michael, you did great. Thanks. So,
I do have a couple questions. Um,
specifically, since this is up right
now, um, with the commercials, where are
the who's producing those? How are you
choosing them? What's the message on
those commercials that we're going to be
providing? Well, the commercials we're
giving, uh, you can be, but how whatever
commercial you want. Okay. Uh, our
agency will shoot it for you. Be part of
it. just let us know. Whoever wants to
create a script, uh, we'll take care of
that and shoot it for you. Okay. Thank
you. Um, what's the story with
sponsorships for this event? Are, you
know, outside of obviously asking the
city, are we working with other
sponsors? Oh, yes, definitely. Uh, the
Scottsdale Spirit Museum has come in as
the stage sponsor. Um, our friends from,
uh, we have the rodeo sponsored this
year. Uh we've got uh several different
folks. Uh Miller Kors, Molson Kors is is
sponsoring the slider eating contest uh
that we start in Texas and then we go
all the way through. Um jeez, why what
is the name of our rodeo sponsor? Uh uh
right Toyota. Is that No. No. But
anyways, we have uh we have the Toyota
folks uh coming back again. Um, my gosh,
they'll kill me if I can't remember
them. But, uh, we we go out very hard
for other sponsors. This is a really
expensive event. Uh, everybody's on
overtime. Uh, the police, the fire,
which we need, uh, the building. Um, so,
um, we're we're spending uh, a lot of
time trying to find people to sponsor
the rodeo, sponsor the different as
sponsor the kids, sponsor the snow. Uh,
so all the aspects we have. I'm sorry,
Brandon would have had that right away.
It's the learner and row. Oh my gosh,
learner and row. They're going to shoot
me that I can't remember. I guess I
guess they don't have enough commercials
on the air to for me to remember that.
Um, but yes, we have we're we're very
aggressive going after uh sponsors.
Okay. Is this a sponsorship you're
looking to have someone else end up
taking over eventually, or do you plan
on asking the city each year for this
money? Um, well, it's the biggest thing
that we have is the fireworks. uh and
it's the biggest thing that we can give
the city from attention and media. Um it
is our hope that the city will continue
being our partner uh on this event uh
where it
is a serious amount of money and
whatever whatever you guys can do we're
we're grateful for it. Okay. Thank you.
Um what type of give back are we doing
this year? I know you guys have done
various things for the community related
to this event. What does that look like?
Well, we're we're we're working with
Alikica, which is uh the K-9 uh police.
Uh we also honor policemen, firemen, uh
about six folks from Scottsdale that are
what we call unsung heroes. Uh people
every everyday people that are doing
something extraordinarily, but nobody
even knows about it. So, we try to shine
a big light on that uh to promote that.
Um we have many of any of the nonprofits
we give them booths whether it's the
police or the fire. Uh and so that's our
main what we try to give back to the
community is also a 50% ticket uh and
then also for the hotels uh is free
tickets uh for their guests so they can
use it in their marketing to to to sell
more hotel rooms. Yeah, I think that's
great. What is the cost of a ticket? It
depends on when you buy it, of course.
uh anywhere from $20 to uh uh $40 for
the backyard barbecue and it goes up as
we get closer to the event. Okay. Thank
you. Um I'm I'm sorry for Tempee's loss,
but I'm also happy for our gain. Um
because that was, you know, it's a
concern when there's a lot of other
options. Um so I think that would be
helpful to our our program. So any other
questions, comments from commissioners
on this event?
Just one. Um, typically is this do would
you consider this a a profitable event
in the sense of kind of what some along
some of the lines that that you're
talking about and usually we we kind of
see understand what percentage goes back
to the proceeds back to the city or back
to the the funding and just trying to
get an idea of what that budget looks
like. I agree we're having the same
challenges with fireworks. So I
understand and respect the cost of that.
But just in normally looking through a
typical budget process, um what would be
a percentage back to the the city? 5%
10% based on the proceeds or is it not a
bud? Is it not a profitable event? Uh
it's close every year. Um but the city
does we pay full rack rate at Westworld
which is 20ome,000.
Um, we pay all the fire and police
overtime, which is significant as well.
Uh, so I think that's really how our
money flows back to the city. Uh, we
don't just write a check for uh, and
give it back to the city. We use the
impressions, the marketing, the media,
and then of course all the different
folks at the city that we have to take
care of. Okay. Thank you.
I thought you wanted to say something,
Steve. Uh, more questions. I I just have
one. Lance, did you just say that you're
having problems with the fireworks?
We're going to have them, but it took a
while to get fireworks. Are you trying
to tell me you're paying extra to have
fireworks? Yes. Are you saying the same
thing? Yes. And why are you doing extra
to have them? Oh, does it cost more now?
Yes. How come? That little tariff thing.
Oh, sorry. So confused. Um, I'd like to
go ahead and move to go ahead and fund
this, but we got to be very cautious
about the continued on this process that
we have to figure out a a clean way to
do this. And hopefully with the uh
success that we feel like we've had that
we can go ahead and lead you to the path
of finding more sponsors at this level
for this because typically like Lance
said, we like to have a little bit more
metrics uh before we go ahead and give
this amount. So, but I'm going to move
to to fund it. Commissioner Montgomery,
can you clarify the amount you're
recommending? Oh, I'm going to recommend
39,000.
I second that. All right. All those
commissioners in favor. I gentlemen,
congratulations. Thank you all so much.
Appreciate all your faith in us and look
forward to seeing you on the fourth.
Thank you.
All right. Uh up next is item number
six.
Madam Chair, commissioners, due to my
association with development of this
event, I have to recuse myself from this
item. I'll hand it over to Rachel. Thank
you, Steve.
It is the Arizona Native Culinary
Experience event funding request,
presentation, commission discussion, and
possible recommendation to city council
for bed tax expenditure up to $21,000 to
support the one-year event funding
agreement with Tara Lazos Creative for
the Arizona Native Culinary Experience
event. Our presenter today is Jeffrey
Ferns from Tara Lazos Creative. Welcome.
Good morning, commissioners. Thank you
for your time. I'm Jeffrey Lassos Ferns.
the founder and producer for the Arizona
Indigenous Culinary Experience. Going to
tell you a little bit about this event
before we begin our presentation. So,
this event is in its uh 12th year, its
eighth year in Scottsdale, second year
asking for funding. Um the I'm heavily
involved in the Indigenous Native Food
Ways nationally. What's unique about
this event, it is the only uh event like
this in the country in Arizona and in
Scottsdale for the last eight years.
Um, show you a little video of the
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
event. Heat. Heat.
[Music]
So a little bit about this event also we
work with all 22 tribes or tourism
departments. Uh we do a call to native
chef or foodways people and we cur
curate about eight of them. Um in
addition to uh working with tribal
tourism departments, we also work with
all tribal tourism journalists. Uh this
is a hybrid event. So we may have 300
people at the event, but year round we
work and field calls from journalists
nationally and globally on native
foodways specifically um to
Arizona. Our um third year, fourth year
is Western Spirits Gossil Museum. they
come in as our vendor and because the
event is held in um November which is
Native American Heritages Month, we
partner with them on promoting this
event through all of their
platforms. So an introduction to
indigenous cuisine, the Arizona
Indigenous Culinary Experience in a
cocktail setting with contemporary
native arts and artists, including
exquisite native chefs tasting stations
featuring traditional fusion foods and
cocktails. In addition, the ACE Ford
Symposium brings together leading
regional and national tribal voices in
the indigenous food movement. These
curated events will reflect the rich
tapestry of native Arizona, including
its history, foods, music, people, and
cultures. The event brings together many
native communities, food writers, food
enthusiasts with traditional and
contemporary elements that highlight and
celebrate the beauty and important
contributions of Arizona's native people
in Arizona. So when I say it's a h a
hybrid event, so year round, two weeks
ago, there were 36 journalists that me
and one of the native chefs took on a
native foraging event at Papago Park,
specifically talking about the ACE event
coming up in November and Arizona's
native
foodways that goes on year round. So
what we do at the event is we take
traditional ingredients into
contemporary dishes. So, we ask the
chefs, whatever tribal uh community
they're from, and we represent northern,
central, and southern tribes in each
event, um taking some of their
traditional uh ingredients, ancestral
ingredients, and creating um new dishes
in a contemporary format.
modern innovations. Uh we talk a lot
about Arizona, its history, uh
especially its aggro uh culture and its
uh indigenous culture like the temporary
breeding which is a 6,000 year old bean
harvested here in the valley and grown
by the Autumn people which is the
ancestral of the huhug gum. We talk
about the prickly pair and we talk about
also the other proteins and stuff that
are indigenous specifically to this
Arizona. Our attendees, so who comes to
our event? Food plays an important
cultural role in bringing communities
together. Preparing traditional foods
and sharing meals help maintain
connections to history, ancestors, and
cultural identity. The spiritual
significance of food and ceremonies and
rituals reinforces those communal bonds.
A cultural traveler explores
destinations primarily focusing on
experiencing and understanding the local
culture. In addition to visiting tourist
attraction, cultural travelers seek
authentic interactions with the people,
traditions, history, art, cuisine,
language, and way of life of their
places. They often engage in activities
such as attending cultural events,
festivals, museums, and workshops, and
interacting with locals to gain a deeper
insight into the destination's cultural
heritage. So, who are our marketing
partners? So, Experience Scotsdale and
Arizona Office of Tourism, KJ Jazz and
NPR, Ganet, Edible Phoenix and Food
Wright, Food Writers, and then of course
Arizona Tribal Tourism. These are
multi-year partners with us. I want to
um expand on
a program that we did last year with
Experience Scotsdale. I'd like to thank
Experience Scotsdale because they took a
hyper local event and had the foresight
to work with a
small agency because it had value on a
global and national market. So this last
year I'll go through what we did at the
event. We did a tasting event with them
for cond NAS in their headquarters and
all their
brands. Experience Scottsdale partner
with KINAS to promote the 2024 Arizona
indigenous culinary experience. The
campaign included an article written by
a condas writer and that article went
global. A campaign promoting the article
that includes social display and email
advertising and a curated tasting event.
So the results of that event with
experienced Scottsdale over 300 editors,
staff writers, social media managers,
producers and videographers with
condona petite, condandy nass traveler,
the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Vogue
attended the event experience Scottdale.
Before I go on this, it's really funny
because we were working with the
producer from uh Kai Nass. And he said,
"We know people are going to come in,
they're going to say about 45 minutes
and they're going to go back to their
offices." They were there the entire
event for three hours. They were so
fascinated by the tasting, but also the
programming that we brought into their
event. So, Experience Scottsdale
partnered with Nsonian magazine to
highlight the vibrant indigenous culture
and art scene in Scottsdale. In addition
to being deemed the world's most
credible magazine, 69% of their audience
looked to the Smithsonian website as a
source for travel inspiration. The
campaign included flying a Smithsonian
writer to Scottsdale to attend the 2024
Arizona Indigenous Cold Experience and a
campaign promoting the article that
included social display and email
advertising. Other ways experience
Scottsdale promoted the 2024 indigenous
colony experience website event
calendar. Uh website event category
landing page. Uh experience Scottsdale
emails October resident email featured
in Scottsdale monthly events and
experience Scottsdale meeting and travel
planner
guide. Key takeaways. Hosting the
Arizona experience in Scottsdale can
bring several key benefits to the city.
cultural enrichment, tourism boost,
promoting of indigenous heritage,
economic impact, and community
engagement. Um, and just yesterday, uh,
we heard from, uh, Phoenix magazine that
this event, which will be, uh, come out
in their July August issue, won, um,
award for best of the valley, uh, for
under the radar event. And what I was
find interesting about that is if you
look up this event on the internet, just
Google it and stuff like that, it has
has had national and international
coverage, but locally it's an under
radar of the event and that's why I said
about it being a hybrid event. Uh in
addition, we've already started uh
promoting this event and are engaging
working with the journalists from the
New Yorker to come out to this uh next
event in November and stuff. So um that
is asking for 21,000. Most of that will
be for paid advertising as well as some
production elements of it. Our sponsors
uh we reach out to all tribal
communities to sponsor. We reach out to
the tourism departments. Last year the
tunnel and the desert diamond casinos
came in and this year we're hitting all
the tribal entities again for this
event. In addition to the chef element
of it, we produce um native performances
that are really only seen within native
communities like Apache Crown Dancers or
the Buffalo Dance from the Hopi. So, as
far as interest, it's a really um only
in Arizona and only in Scottdale event
that you can attend and that's the
attraction from the journalist element
of it. Thank you. Take any questions
now. Thank you very much, commissioners.
Any questions?
No, I just want to just say I think
there's great value to this. Um, working
and living close to some of the tribes.
I I think it's exciting and I think it's
of great value that we continue to um
showcase what this is for Arizona and
our region. I think it's great value for
us to continue support that. So, I would
like to um move that we uh go ahead and
approve the $21,000 for the event. Do I
have a second? I'll second. All right.
All commissioners in favor? I I And I do
before you step down, congratulations,
by the way. Um I've been to this event
and it is fabulous. Like, this is a
wonderful event. Um so, I encourage
anyone who hasn't been to to attend.
It's it's really unique and being kind
of a foodie, I tried stuff that I had
never even seen before and it's just
it's it's really great. Well, thank you.
This year, um I'm going to change the
format a little. We're working again
with Experience Scottsdale on a
September event. Um and we're going to
go deeper into storytelling within the
same format and stuff. Um and also
focusing highly on Scottsdale, the sonor
and desert and the canal systems that
allowed the waterways for Scottsdale to
build up. So thank you. Thank you very
much.
All right. Number seven again is being
moved to a later date. Uh number eight,
we have event program funding request
commission discussion and recommendation
on the following applications for event
funding. Uh Steve, do you want to talk
to this? Yes, ma'am. Chair. The uh
community event one in our CHA Kims
Ranch Derby is a horse event at
Westworld taking place May 28th through
June 7th. Uh the recommendation is
11,000 for the event. It's in our
community event funding program. Okay.
Thank you. Can I get a motion to approve
that? I will move to approve the
$11,000. Thank you. And a second. I'll
second that. All right. All in favor? I
I All right. Moving on. Number nine,
staff reports. Thank you. Uh just uh
next month we'll do a quarterly update.
So we'll have a more extensive dive into
the data or numbers. If you have any
particular questions, the only thing of
note, the tax collections indicated in
March business activity for the month
prior was down because of the number of
weeks associated with last year. So it
shows down from last year. That's the
only reason why. Only thing of note, the
other thing, the postevent report, all
the events are starting to come in. You
have all that data and information
there. Uh it's a good tool to use as you
evaluate the events that come forward in
the new fiscal year. So perfect. Thank
you. That's the update questions. Steve,
I have a question for you. Lance just
brought up something
pretty pretty poignant. The when we have
the groups come up and especially if
they had events last year, normally we
see some metrics. Do we require them to
bring the metrics or is that something
we get from you? It it depends on the
program. Uh generally with the event
development fund program, uh we present
that we have that information, they
present it, they provide that through
these programs here. It's it's a pretty
much a vetted process. The application
worksheets, you're all familiar with
that. We went through that. Uh they
identify the levels of funding based on
that. If there's something not right
with the objectives or criteria, staff
will jump in with the producer and let
them know about it. But generally when
they're brought, this is staff's
recommendation related to these three
programs, MEF, community, and event
venue.
Does that address your question? Well, I
think it's more about anything that's uh
we'll say $25,000 or more. you know when
we get into that number I can't recall
the the minimum requirements we ask of
the presenter and so something to sure
generally we provide information to the
producer who's coming up um to provide
that information to the commission so
you can make a decision also based on uh
any of the information we provided on
the event I think moving forward we're
having discussions for next year to
determine there's ways that staff can
frame it a little bit tighter especially
on these larger asks to the commission
so that's something we're discussing
Okay. Thank you. Any other questions?
No. Do you have anything? No. Okay. Um,
moving on to number 10, commissioners
reports. You guys have anything you
attended or to talk about? No. All
right. Moving right along. Any public
comment? None. We haven't received any.
All right. Identification of future
agenda items. Yeah. Madam Chair,
commissioners will bring forth the canal
convergence at a later upcoming meeting.
We have two events that'll be presenting
uh next month in June and we'll try to
add some additional detail for the
commission as part of the discussion
here today. Uh the final four funding,
women's final four should be presented
next month. That's our plan and that'll
be coming forward as
well. We also potentially have a
downtown tax regional traffic report.
We've heard that a few months ago. Uh
city staff will be bringing that forward
just as anformational item. Okay,
wonderful. Thank you. And uh we should
have a new commissioner joining us at
the next meeting. So we will find out
potentially I believe that date is the
24th. So it may be at a you know July or
August meeting that they join us. Okay.
Wonderful. All right. I would like to
entertain a motion to adjurnn.
I'll second.
I'll do I motion to I'll do both. I
motion to journ. I'll second. All right.
All those in favor I I thank you. Thank
you.