Centr a l Pennsylva nia Convention & Visitors Bure au
Annual Report F IS C AL YEAR 2 0 1 5 - 2 0 1 6
2015-2016 CPCVB Annual Report Dear Members and Partners: On behalf of your Board of Directors, we are proud to share with you the Central PA Convention and Visitors Bureau (CPCVB) 2015-2016 Annual Report. This report highlights our activities and accomplishments over the past fiscal year as we work to grow travel spending in Centre County. The CPCVB is an economic and community development organization whose purpose is to enrich our area’s economy by attracting visitors, whether individuals or groups. After all, no business or company considers locating in a community without having visited it first! We are responsible for marketing our region as a desirable destination, and we take that responsibility very seriously. The goal of our marketing efforts is to maximize travel expenditures by promoting and encouraging overnight stays, which, in turn, plays a key role in providing economic stability for the area. According to the most recent report from the PA Tourism Office, travel spending in Centre County has experienced substantial growth over the past several years, infusing more than $720,000,000 into our local economy. That’s a 3.8% increase over the previous year. We also saw increases in the number of meetings booked, as well as overnight stays. A major objective this past fiscal year was to partner with the YMCA of Centre County to build an indoor sports facility as part of their proposed new YMCA project at Benner Commerce Park. The proposed rendering of the facility is completed and a joint committee is in the process of working out the final details. An upcoming step will be to meet with the County Commissioners to request an increase in the local hotel tax, which will be used towards construction and marketing of the indoor sports facility. It is important to remember that the CVB’s role in this project is strictly to advise in the development/usage of the proposed facility and to provide assistance in a fund raising capacity. When completed, this facility will provide relief for a significant unmet need in the Centre County community. We will keep you updated on our progress. We extend our sincere thanks to the Centre County Board of Commissioners, our Legislators, and our members/ partners who continue to support our efforts. We look forward to continuing to work with you to grow travel spending in our local economy and provide greater value and service to our visitor’s travel experience.
Best regards,
Mike Szczesny Board President 2015-2016
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Betsey Howell
Executive Director
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CPCVB CPCVB Mission Statement To develop, promote, and engage in travel related activities and coordinate visitor services designed to enhance the economic activity and quality of life within the county and thereby contribute to the commonwealth.
CPCVB Vision Statement Inspiring you to be as amazed by Happy Valley as we are.
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CPCVB 2015-2016 CPCVB Board of Directors • Mike Szczesny, President HFL Hotels • Bob Ricketts, Jr., Vice-President Fasta & Ravioli Company • Darlene Confer, Secretary/Treasurer Centre County Grange Fair
• Joe Thomas, Secretary/Treasurer Mountain View Country Club • Margaret Gray Office of Governmental Affairs at Penn State • Mark Higgins Centre County Commissioner
• Dottie Yukish, Past President Boalsburg Village Conservancy
• Gary Hoover Bellefonte Intervalley Area Chamber of Commerce
• Edward Tubbs, Days Inn Penn State
• Gail Jones Penn State Federal Credit Union
• Ken Martin American Philatelic Society • Bryan Rodgers University Park Airport • Mary Sorensen Centre Furnace Mansion Historic Site • Scott Walker State College Spikes • Aaron Weyman Tussey Mountain All Seasons • Betsey Howell CPCVB Executive Director
CPCVB Staff Betsey Howell, Executive Director Andy Rupert, Director of Marketing & PR Shirley Smith, Director of Sales Brenda Hall, Sales Manager Lori Miller, Director of Visitor and Member Services Kevin Breon, Finance / Housing Bureau Manager Kate Khoury, Creative Design & Technology Manager Judy Maurer, Receptionist / Fulfillment Coordinator
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Centre County / Penn State Visitors Center Staff Corena Breon
Kate Kawulich
Renee Brown
Ben Pelipesky
Tiffany Breon
Esther DelRosso
Joyce Peck
Bellefonte Satellite Visitor Center Staff Barb Bair
Renee Brown
Toni Patterino
Volunteer Patsy Cullen
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Marketing
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Marketing Marketing 2015-2016 FiscalYear Highlights:
52,000
Visitor Guide Requests Directly From Advertising Campaigns
350,000
Website Visitors
21,100
Facebook Followers
3,725
1,460
Email Subscribers in Consumer Opt-In list for local events
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896,000
Page Views on www.visitpennstate.org
Twitter Followers
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Editorial Stories Written With Assistance from the CPCVB
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Marketing www.visitpennstate.org
“CPCVB website scores 99/100 for user experience”
—Google PageSpeed* Insights
*PageSpeed is a tool offered by Google to analyze and optimize websites following the best web practices. With PageSpeed Insights you can identify ways to make your site faster and more mobile-friendly.”
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Marketing www.visitpennstate.org
We continually update and search for ways to improve our website in this digital age. PageSpeed, Google Analytics and Seach Engine Optimization are just a few of the tools we use to ensure the best user experience and high visibility with our online presence. With these tools we are able to monitor the demographics of our web visitors, the most popular pages (as well as least popular), the amount of time people spend on the site and where they click. By watching these patterns over time we are able to notice the trends and adjust our site accordingly. While it is common sense that Penn State Football is a popular topic on our website this time of year (during football season), we also find that information in our analytics and can make those pages extremely easy to find – right on the front page. These pages then link to other pages within our site, such as lodging options, room night availability and complimentary activities to go along with Penn State sporting. By pandering to our users and anticipating their needs we can encourage them to spend more time on site and explore more of the Central PA area, thus continually promoting our members and Centre County.
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Marketing Who Is Our Target Audience? Male 40%
Female 60%
gender age
9.10%
65+ 55-64
16.50%
45-54
18.20%
35-44
16.20%
25-34
19.80%
18-24 0.00%
20.20% 5.00%
10.00%
15.00%
20.00%
25.00%
The charts above indicate statistics gleaned from Google analytics and other marketing tools regarding website traffic to www.visitpennstate.org and requests for information from marketing campaigns online. 9
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Marketing Top 5 States Our
Website Visitors Come From
* Source: Shown on map (in order of web traffic): Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Maryland & Virginia 10
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Marketing 1.
FACEBOOK FANPAGE MAKEUP: 5 Facts about
79%
of our followers are home owners
2.
73% 3. 62% have some college or higher
4.
are married
67%
of followers have a house worth under $200K
Our Followers:
Source: Facebook Audience Insights
Note: Our Facebook fans tend to be slightly higher in age compared to the age of our website users (according to the information we are able to gather). Hence our Facebook insights indicate a different demographic than what Google analytics displays for our website. While the majority of visitpennstate.org users are 18 -44 years old, the majority of our Facebook fans are married, homeowners, and have an income between $40 and $100K. This is significant because it indicates that we are reaching multiple audiences through our different platforms and having success in our outreach marketing strategies.
5.
As we continue to pursue our marketing strategies, for instance, nurturing our Twitter and Instagram pages and exploring additional media options, we expect to see these audience numbers continue to grow while also reaching different audiences in the process.
66%
of followers have a household income between $40-$100K
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Marketing Device Used To Access Website The chart shows the types of devices people are using to access our www.visitpennstate.org website. This is significant as the demand for mobile-friendly sites continues to rise. Since we re-designed our site to be responsive in nature and work effectively while still looking attractive from a desktop PC to the smallest mobile phone, we’ve seen our web traffic increase and bounce rate decrease. Bounce Rate = the percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page.
Tablet 13%
Mobile 43%
Desktop 44%
Our goal is to keep viewers on our site for longer periods of time, and viewing multiple pages.
Google Maps
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We’ve also incorporated Google Maps for our member listings. Also recently added was TripAdvisor ratings for member listings. This is another huge trend in the digital world as younger generations, 18-24 years old, are relying more upon peer recommendations and ratings. So we are making our members attractive to our visitors by speaking to them in their own preferred language.
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Marketing JackRabbit/ Bookdirect We’ve also recently upgraded our booking engine – JackRabbit/Bookdirect. Our lodging members now have free access to this booking engine if they choose, while it automatically grabs the various information from other booking engines and aggregates them for easily searchable results, complete with a full list of amenities, pictures, peer
ratings from TrustYou and more. This new system pulls the booking info automatically, creating less work for our lodging members who used to have to enter their available room nights and rates by hand each week, and creating a fantastic resource for our website users that works and looks great on PC’s or mobile devices.
We’ve created an online environment where everything Central PA is just a quick click away – easy to use, attractive to view, and informative for the curious. All these positive attributes help to promote our members digitally.
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Tourism Grant recipients 2015-2016 Opposite is a list of the 2015-2016 Grant Recipients. Since the inception of the program in 2003-2004, we have invested over $2.8 million dollars in our local groups and organizations for their tourism projects.
Applicant
Type of ProjecT
Award
Arboretum at Penn State
Marketing and PR
$15,000.00
Art Alliance of Central PA
Marketing and PR
$2,500.00
Capital Improvement and Marketing
$2,500.00
Bellefonte Art Museum for Centre County
Marketing and PR
$2,500.00
Bellefonte Art Museum for Centre County
Marketing and PR
$5,000.00
Capital Improvement
$5,000.00
Boalsburg Village Conservancy
Marketing and PR
$1,000.00
Center For The Performing Arts
Marketing and PR
$8,000.00
Central PA July 4th, Inc.
Marketing and PR
$15,000.00
Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts
Marketing and PR
$40,000.00
Centre County Grange Fair
Capital Improvement
$15,000.00
Centre County Grange Fair
Marketing and PR
$10,000.00
Centre County Historical Society (Centre Furnace Mansion)
Marketing and PR
$10,000.00
Capital Improvement
$5,000.00
Marketing and PR
$2,000.00
Marketing and Programs
$7,000.00
Downtown State College Improvement District
Marketing and PR
$5,000.00
First Night State College
Marketing and PR
$2,500.00
Historic Bellefonte, Inc.
Marketing and PR
$25,000.00
JazzPA
Marketing and PR
$2,500.00
Lemont Village Association
Marketing and PR
$1,500.00
Nittany Valley Symphony
Marketing and PR
$5,000.00
PA Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA)
Marketing and PR
$15,000.00
PASTO Agricultural Museum
Marketing and PR
$5,000.00
Penn State Centre Stage
Marketing and PR
$5,000.00
Penn State School of Music
Marketing and PR
$1,500.00
Pennsylvania Centre Orchestra
Marketing and PR
$5,000.00
Philipsburg Revitalization Corp.
Marketing and PR
$5,000.00
Capital Improvement
$5,000.00
State College Choral Society
Marketing and PR
$2,500.00
State Theatre
Marketing and PR
$10,000.00
Bellefonte American Legion Baseball
Bellefonte Little League
Centre County Library & Historical Museum Centre County Youth Service Bureau Discovery Space of Central PA
Rowland Theatre, Inc.
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GRAND TOTAL OF GRANT AWARDS $241,000.00
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Sales The CPCVB Sales staff works hard attending trade shows and events throughout the country to promote the Central PA area to groups and meeting planners. By painting a picture of an area that has everything a meeting planner or group could want, they are well-versed in all the specialties of Central PA and can easily discuss lodging and events or put together itineraries for incoming groups. New activity with sales includes the recent creation of two blogs – one for meetings and one for the motorcoach market. These blogs are updated regularly and are used to promote members and advertise any upcoming trade shows being attended. Also highlighted are the special giveaways that sales puts together for their trade shows. These blogs can be found at: www.visitpennstate.weebly.com and www.visitpennstatemotorcoach.weebly.com
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Sales Bringing Meetings, Convention, Sports & Group Tours to Central PA meetings, convention, sports and group
leads
135
132
124
130 125 120 115 110
110
105 100 95
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2013-2014
2014-2015
2015-2016
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Sales meetings, convention, sports and group
contracted room nights
52,987
54000 52000 50000 48000
46,531
46000
44,785
44000 42000 40000
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2013-2014
2014-2015
2015-2016
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Sales meetings, convention, sports and group
room nights used 49,736
60000
50000
40000
29,820
29,679
2013-2014
2014-2015
30000
20000
10000
0
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2015-2016
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Sales meetings, convention, sports and group tour
bookings
105
120
100
112
76
80
60
40
20
0
19
2013-2014
2014-2015
2015-2016
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Sales Trade Shows – Marketplaces ** Co-op with Regional Partner
• Connect Sports • Maryland Bus Lancaster, PA Pittsburgh, PA
• Meeting Quest • US Olympics Sports Providence, RI Pittsburgh, PA • NASC** (Sports) • HSMAI Meet Grand Rapids, MI Wash. D.C.
• TEAMS ** (Sports) • PA Bus Sales Retreat Gettysburg, PA Las Vegas, NV • PASAE Trade Show ** • Heartland Travel Camp Hill, PA Grand Rapids, MI • USSSA** (Sports) • Destination Showcase Temecula, CA Washington, D.C. • ASA** (Sports) • PA Bus Louisville, KY Lancaster, PA
Sales Missions / Direct Sales / Client Events • Indianapolis, IN ** (Sports)
• Harrisburg, PA
• Colorado Springs, CO** (Sports)
• Hershey, PA
• Pittsburgh, PA** (Sports) Special Client Event-PNC Park
• Gettysburg, PA
• Camp Hill
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• York, PA
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Membership
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Membership Fiscal Year 2015/2016 Membership: 365 Membership highlights of 2015/2016 Leon Thomas, Choice Hotels, motivational speaker
, a addressed 115 members at our Annual Luncheon about customer service as it applies to all businesses. We even had a member request him to use for in-house training!
Central PA Tasting Trail • 17,000 page views (19% increase from last year) • Facebook promotion saw 20,410 reach, 372 engaged users and 982 clicks to the page • Ticket sales were up 30%.
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4th annual Happy Valley
Culinary Week
• 6,190 page views to Culinary Week pages from June 13-19 (20% increase from last year) • The Facebook promoted post for Culinary Week reached 16,341 people, 211 likes/comments/shares for 2,513 post clicks all focused within 50 miles of State College. • Had 44 commercials and giveaways on both the FREQ and B94.5 • Distributed 13,000 Culinary Week guides through Centre County Gazette
• Carol Bittner, our Intern from South Hills School of Business & Technology, assisted the membership department with Visitor Guide review.
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Membership Visitor Information Center
Our goal is to help create the most positive visitor experience possible so our visitors are inspired to return with their families and friends. We accomplish this by: • Assisting visitors with free information on food/lodging, arts/culture, tours, recreation, and more • Providing and updating a calendar of events on the www.visitpennstate.org website • By directing visitors to local businesses • Assembly of welcome bags, fun passes and visitor guides • Providing full and part-time staff and volunteers at the Centre County/Penn State Visitor Center and the Bellefonte Satellite Visitor Center
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Membership Visitor Center Amenities include: • Information Specialists
at the Visitor Center Front Desk on hand for visitor assistance • Gift Shop • Penn State Parking Permits
• Interactive
Exhibit Area
with complimentary Wi-Fi and TouchScreen Kiosks
• Conference room and Auditorium
Rentals
Hours of Operation*
• Local Business
Gift Certificates
and books available for purchase
• ATM • Maps & Brochures • Restrooms • Pet Friendly
• 7:30am - 6:00pm Monday through Friday • 9:00am - 6:00pm Saturday and Sunday Winter Hours (December 1 - March 31) 7:30am - 5:00pm Monday through Friday 9:00am - 5:00pm Saturday and Sunday
Satellite Visitor Center – Train Station, Bellefonte Hours of Operation* 8:00am - 5:00pm Monday through Friday 9:00am - 4:00pm Saturday 10:00am - 4:00pm Sunday * Both Visitor Centers are closed on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day and Easter Sunday.
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Membership Community Outreach
The Central PA CVB hosted numerous community groups/events. Below is a sample of a few of those partnerships: • Career/Job Fair at Penn State University • Air Force ROTC commissioning Ceremonies • Science LionPride THON Adventures for Four Diamonds families • Centre County Government – PA Farmland Preservation Assoc. – PSPA conference • YMCA – PA State Swimming Championships • Central PA Arts Fest race registration • 4th Fest race registration • Mount Nittany Marathon • PSU IT Extravaganza event • PSU Outreach Appreciation Dinner • PSU Baseball / TCU games • Toys for Tots • Boy Scouts of America • Leadership Centre County
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CPCVB
CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA CONVENTION & VISITORS BUREAU
AUDITED FINANCIAL STATEMENT
Fiscal Year: July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016 Agency: Centre County Lion Country Visitors and Convention Bureau, Inc.
dba Central Pennsylvania CVB REVENUES AND GAINS
County Hotel Room Tax Cooperative Advertising County Brochure Membership Dues Investment Income Event Revenue and Sponsorship Retail Space Web Marketing Photos Total Revenues: Unrealized Gain on Investments
$ 1,842,050 $ 155,684 $ 116,274 $ 73,151 $ 42,657 $ 21,416 $ 8,926 $ 560 $ 2,260,718 $ 60,510 Total Revenues and Gains: $ 2,321,228
EXPENSES AND LOSSES Promotional:
Advertising Grants to Other Organizations Promotion Salaries and Wages Postage Travel and Entertainment Employee Benefits Regional Printing
$ 568,529 $ 300,962 $ 262,912 $ 99,211 $ 45,888 $ 17,204 $ 12,994 $ 2,500 $ 2,155 Total Promotional: $ 1,312,355
General and Administrative:
Salaries and Wages Occupancy Employee Benefits Depreciation Grants to Other Organizations Office Supplies Special Events Professional Fees
$ 403,261 $ 233,870 $ 100,401 $ 43,075 $ 41,307 $ 16,344 $ 10,279 $ 8,613 Total General and Administrative: $ 857,150
Total Promotional & General and Administrative Expenses $ 2,169,505
Unrealized Loss on Investments
$ 0
Realized Loss on Sales of Investments
$ 115,960
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Total Losses $ 115,960
Total Expenses and Losses $ 2,285,465
INCREASE IN NET ASSETS $
35,763
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800 East Park Avenue State College, PA 16803 800.358.5466 www.visitpennstate.org
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