OCEAN CITY – City officials voted this week to increase Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) membership costs over the next three years to go along with the town website’s enhanced business listings.
During last week’s Tourism Commission meeting, Tourism and Marketing Director Donna Abbott presented the option of enhanced CVB member listings on the town’s official website, OCocean.com.
The process started last summer when commission member Todd Ferrante, owner of Park Place Jewelers, brought to the commission’s attention the opportunity to enhance the website by expanding CVB member listings.
CVB members and their business are posted on the website and on average there are about two million visitors to the website a year. Currently, 335 members receive exposure on OCocean as well as the ability to put rack cards/brochures in the Visitors Center for the price of $200 a year. At this rate, it brings in $67,000 annually in revenue.
In August 2013, the town’s advertising agency, MGH, presented the commission with a tiered membership platform, offering a variety of options to enhance a business’s listing, and the price increased with the more options provided.
After concerns were expressed about fairness to different sized businesses, the commission was in consensus to have MGH create a generic survey over the proposed tiered membership to poll CVB members.
After reviewing the survey results, Abbott returned to the commission with a two tier option and a Property Spotlight option.
“We recently redesigned our website and the Tourism Commission has tasked me to come back with a mock-up of what we could possibly do to have a tiered level to increase revenue, as well as we recognize the value of the business community being on this website,” Abbott said.
Abbott explained Tier 2 is what is currently offered to CVB members. It includes the member name, member image, address, a brief description, the ability for a photo gallery, expanded amenity descriptions, a list of all deals that a particular member has, a link to their website, a “Map It” link, a “Book It” button if desired, and a “Read More” button, except the cost would be raised to $250.
The Tier 1 members would receive the same benefits as Tier 2, but they would get a yellow highlighted box and a star designating the listing as a featured property. This option would be offered at the price of $300.
A new category presented is the Property Spotlight, which members would receive the same benefits as Tier 1, but their information would be displayed in larger fixed placement at the top of the list. This premier placement would be offered to members on a weekly basis for $1,000.
“It is certainly prime real estate on the website for businesses to consider, and I recommended that we have this rotated on a weekly basis so not one business would dominate that area. One of the Tourism Commission members suggested multiple members could invest in that property and rotate them in and out on a weeks’ time so that more businesses could take that offer up,” Abbott said of the Property Spotlight option.
After a lengthy discussion over the different options, Councilman Joe Mitrecic made a motion to raise the standard CVB membership costs over the next three years to avoid sticker shock. The standard membership would raise to $250 for 2015, $300 in 2016 and $350 in 2017. The motion also included offering the Property Spotlight at $1,000 per week and having a lottery if necessary for the properties interested in the same week.
According to Abbott, with the current 335 CVB members, revenue would increase to $16,750 in the first year.
“It is still a competitive rate to be featured on OCocean. It is still lower than the chamber and HMRA websites. We have invested a lot in the website, so the business community and representatives of the Tourism Commission did not think that was too much of an increase to bring about given the investment we made and continued investments we will want to make so that the OCocean website is the best it can be,” Abbott said.
The commission voted 5-1 to forward a favorable recommendation to the Mayor and City Council for approval. Councilman Dennis Dare was in opposition.
“We spend $5 million a year to drive business to the website and I think $350 is ridiculously low. I don’t have a problem raising the rate over the next three years or the fixed placement at the top for $1,000. I just think there ought to be another tier with a larger ad or more features than the basic rate. It would give us more revenue to do more. I don’t think it goes far enough,” Dare said.
At Monday’s council meeting, Councilwoman Mary Knight, who chairs the tourism commission, made a motion to increase the cost for CVB members across the board as well as offer the Property Spotlight option.
“I don’t think it goes far enough. I think we could generate more income,” Councilman Brent Ashley said, agreeing with Dare.
Council President Lloyd Martin disagreed, stating, “you have to start somewhere.”
The council voted 6-1 with Ashley opposed to approve.