Tourism council to focus on development, sports

Clay County’s Tourism Development Council ranked guiding development and investing in amateur sports events as its top priorities over the next five years.

The two focus areas were among seven recommendations in a strategic plan the council commissioned earlier this year.

The other recommendations were creating outdoor attractions, cultivating arts and culture, developing a long-term vision for the county’s tourism industry, promoting tourism and developing the county’s tourism brand.

In its section on guiding development, the plan’s authors said that virtually all of the county’s hotel rooms are in the northeast corner. The report recommended that the county encourage more accommodations and attractions along the First Coast Expressway at key intersections with Blanding Boulevard, State Road 16 near Penney Farms and near the St. Johns River, U.S. 17 and the yet-to-be-built Cathedral Oak Parkway.

The report added that government officials should encourage family entertainment venues, dining establishments and hotels along the corridor.

It also suggested tools to encourage development along the highway, such as a revolving loan program, grant program, fee waivers, façade improvement program, educational and support programs for entrepreneurs, marketing support and staff assistance in navigating the permitting and licensing process.

The report also recommended that the county protect its small-town character by restricting development that violates it. One example of character protection cited in the report includes a Naples, Florida, ordinance that disallows chain restaurants, salons, office space and other types of entities from filling vacancies within a designated district.

Another example is a Palo Alto, California, prohibition of converting retail space into commercial offices in designated pedestrian areas and ordinances to prevent high-turnover tenants with low visitor appeal.

The report’s recommendations on amateur sports center around developing a regional sports park, a project the county has already started, purchasing property north of State Roads 21 and 16, near Camp Blanding.

It added that the county should enhance the park with nearby hotels and dining, create a sports tourism office and initiate a master plan for expanding the park.

In other news from the Nov. 7 Clay County Tourism Development Council meeting:

Earlier strategic plan

Tourism Director Kimberly Morgan told council members that before embarking on the 2022 five-year strategic plan, she wanted to review her department’s performance on the 2018 plan.

She said one goal of the 2018 report was to increase her department’s staffing levels, and she reported that the county’s tourism department has grown from one person to four.

She added that the 2018 report’s recommendation that the county improves tourism marketing was accomplished with a three-year contract with Evok Advertising, successful campaigns across many different platforms, the launch of a tourism-specific website and co-op partnerships with Visit Florida, Wander Media, Florida’s First Coast of Golf, Undiscovered Florida, Miles Media, Visit Jacksonville and Florida’s Northeast Coast.

She said the office also created branded and promotional products like a visitor’s guide, venue guide, tourism rack card, film development rack card, history passport program, coffeehouse passport program and coupon and sales passport program.

Keywords and new pages

Larry Meador of Evok Advertising gave the council a quarterly marketing update.

Meador said the county’s website saw a 67% increase in organic sessions in September compared to the previous September. He added that the top keywords bringing visitors to the website were Orange Park Mall; Clay County, Florida; Clay County Fairgrounds and Camp Chowenwaw.

“In an ideal world, those would not be your biggest keywords,” he said.  “The biggest keywords would be the activities and the offerings that you have. We have to work on that.”

Meador said the best-performing keywords for pay-per-click ads were for wedding and event venues, fishing, events, fairs and activities, outdoor activities and places to stay.

He added that Atlanta, Jacksonville and Orlando residents are making the most visits to the county’s website.

Meador also said his firm plans to create more pages for the county’s website, including a trail guide page, a sports tourism page, a kayak bass fishing page and a medical page.

Tourism Chair Mike Cella told Meador he was surprised golf did not perform as well as a keyword in September.

Meador said most people visiting the county’s website live between two and four hours away.

“They don’t drive that far to play golf,” he said, adding that golf is an addon activity people engage in after coming into the area for another reason.

“One of the things we found out during COVID and some of the tougher times is that when you’re looking at trying to get families to come in, they will still spend money for their kids’ activities,” he said. “So, if we can do add-ons for those days and include things like golf and other activities, then maybe we can extend a stay.”

Nontraditional sporting events

Alan Verlander of Airstream Ventures briefed the tourism council on upcoming sports events in the county.

He said that with the county’s limited field inventory, his firm is focusing on bringing non-traditional events to Clay rather than the typical bat-and-ball events.

Verlander said booked events include a kayak bass fishing tournament in 2023, two youth lacrosse events in 2023, and an InSpire dance competition to be held at the Trasher-Horne in 2023.

Verlander said his firm is in serious talks on behalf of the county with promoters of spike ball in 2023-2024, NXL paintball championships in 2023-2024, U.S. Strongman Competition in 2023, high school cross country in 2023, MotoSurf-MotoSkate in 2023, pro watercross in 2023-2024 and Super X in 2023.

“There’s not a great high school cross country meet in this area that is kind of branded well and marketed well,” Verlander said.  “So, we’re working with a company out of Jacksonville. They’re cross-country coaches, so we’re working with them to develop a map here in Clay County to do one.”

Verlander said if the county can land a high school cross country meet, then it can aim for a college-level NAIA or NCAA Division 3 meet.

The Airstream Ventures president said MotoSurf and MotoSkate are returning to Lake Geneva in Keystone Heights in 2023.

“It was a great success, a nationally televised event,” Verlander said of the 2022 competition.

He added that the success of the 2022 MotoSurf and MotoSkate event has attracted the attention of the Pro Watercross tour, which features jet skis.

Verlander said the Pro Watercross tour organizer will be visiting Clay County soon, and Verlander is confident he will book Keystone Heights for a tour stop.

Verlander said his firm is in conversations with the American Junior Golf Association for a Clay County tournament, U.S. Archery, the NAIA for a college lacrosse tournament, and the U.S. Chess Association.

Event grants

Tourism Marketing Manager Connor Mathews reviewed the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 events grants with the council. She added that no organizations have yet applied for 2022-2023 awards, so the 2023 numbers are a forecast of what events will likely receive in the coming year.

The grants include:

Military Museum Whistling Death 5K and 10K, 2022: $ 744, 2023: $677

Green Cove Springs Soul Food Festival, 2022: $3,500, 2023: $0

Orange Park Fall Festival, 2022: $17,000, 2023: $14,000

Moosehaven’s Chili Cookoff, 2022: $10,000, 2023: $10,000

Green Cove Springs Christmas on Walnut Street, 2022; $2,959, 2023: $3,000

Orange Park’s Hometown Holiday, 2022: $0, 2023: $3,500

Military Museum- Hellcat 10K,30K,50K, 2022: $2,184, 2023: $2,020

Scottish Highland Games and Festival, 2022: $20,000, 2023: $25,000

Military Vehicle Preservation Association Winter Rally and Swap Meet, 2022: $3,500, 2023: $3,500

Clay County Agricultural Fair, 2022: $45,000, 2023: $45,000

Town of Orange Park Kids Fest, 2022: $3,500, 2023: $3,500

Military Museum Armed Forces Day, 2022: $744, 2023: $0

Green Cove Springs Memorial Day River Fest, 2022: $3,000, 2023: $3,000

Keystone Heights Our Country Day, 2022: $3,500, 2023: $0

Moosehaven’s American Pride 4th of July Celebration, 2022: $10,000, 2023: $10,000

Rock The Box at the Thrasher-Horne Center, 2022: $3,000, 2023: $0

Art Guild of Orange Park’s Bella Notte, 2022: $1,881, 2023: $0

BASCA Cape’Abilities 5K, 2022: $3,500, 2023: $2,500

Black Creek Paddling Festival, 2022: $3,500, 2023: $3,500

Nitro Rallycross, 2022: $75,000, 2023: $0

MotoSurf World Cup, 2022: $40,000, 2023: $0

Girls Lacrosse Showcase, 2022: $12,000. 2023: $0

Cattle show lands sports grant

The council awarded a $4,000 sports grant to Cattle at the Cove after event organizers requested $10,000.

The competition is scheduled for the Clay County Fairgrounds on Jan. 27-28.

Previous sports grants awarded by the council have included the Nitro Rallycross, Black Creek Paddling Festival, Gobbler Grappler, Motosurf World Cup and Girls Lacrosse Showcase.

Council Chair Mike Cella asked Tourism Marketing Manager Connor Mathews about the sports connection to Cattle at the Cove.

“It’s a sports event,” Cella said. “I mean, do we make the cattle swim, or what do we do? What kind of a sport is that?”

“Our sports grant guidelines iron out a sports event as something that has a governing body,” Mathews responded, “so in Cattle at the Cove, the governing body actually is a cattleman’s association. “I could be completely wrong, but they grade and score cattle on weight and fat and size of the animal itself; how cute it is.”

Tourism Director Kimberly Morgan added that the event includes a showmanship competition component.

“That’s one of the big drives for youth leadership and competitiveness,” Morgan said, “very much like 4-H.”

“Sort of like the Westminster Kennel Show, except for cows,” Cella inquired.

“Exactly,” the two tourism officials responded.

Film subcommittee report

Council member Kim Evans gave the full council a report on the film subcommittee’s activities.

She said that Clay’s involvement in the film industry has been reactive instead of proactive, adding that the area saw a flurry of film activity in the 1990s, primarily because of state incentives.

She added that COVID-19 transformed the industry, resulting in more resources and platforms available to local filmmakers.

Evans said the county’s tourism office has been in contact with local filmmakers to see how Clay could enter the market and how to provide resources to enhance the county’s position with filmmakers, like a site location guide, studio space and clearer communication on the services available to the film industry in the county.

She said film leads usually come from the State of Florida Film Department and through a film industry database. On average, the tourism department gets one lead a month on a filmmaker’s interest in the county.

Evans, who is the regional director of sales at AON Hospitality, said the subcommittee’s next steps will be to research how smaller destinations are engaging the film industry, explore the advantages of requiring a permit to film in the county and evaluate the county’s website as it relates to the film industry.

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