Caloosahatchee River, as seen from Caloosahatchee Regional Park, Alva

VISIT FLORIDA TV campaign partnership
promises greater audience reach

Happy New Year! I hope you enjoyed a wonderful holiday season with family and friends.

As we turn the corner into 2024, a year brimming with potential, I am thrilled to share new developments as we continue to execute a robust marketing effort for winter/spring that represents approximately 37% of our annual spend – more than twice the amount invested during the same timeframe last year.

One of the larger placements we want to highlight is a national broadcast TV package in partnership with VISIT FLORIDA. It launched the day after Christmas and runs through the third week of January on cable providers including Comcast, Cox, Spectrum and Effectv.

With precision targeting capabilities available through advanced TV, we haven’t run as many traditional broadcast campaigns in recent years. But this opportunity allowed us to leverage our budget with VISIT FLORIDA co-op matching dollars, which covered 40% of the cost. The program is designed to reach travel intenders across the country and yield an estimated 8.3 million impressions.

Here are the 30-second spots we’re running to influence our target audience personas:

Social sophisticates /
Timeless travelers

Family fun-seekers /
Savvy explorers

Next month, we’ll share details about a first-ever marketing “blitz” taking place during February-June in four of our domestic feeder markets.

Until then, wishing a happy and successful 2024 to you, our tourism partners, and thank you for all that you do to make this destination wonderful. Your dedication and support are the pillars that uphold this community. Thank you for sharing in this journey. 

Warm regards, 

Opening of Margaritaville Beach Resort at Fort Myers Beach

If you're an industry partner and would like to be considered for a VCB Partner Spotlight, please contact Ray Sarracino, VCB communications director, at rsarracino@leegov.com

Check out our new digital Visitor Guide

We are excited to announce the VCB's new 2024 Digital Visitor Guide is now available for you, our tourism partners, and visitors. This digital-only approach allows us to feature more engaging content as we inspire visitors with beautiful imagery, captivating video and peaceful sounds from our area.

With direct links throughout, we can further direct people to specific information they seek and help guide them in their planning journey.

We invite our tourism partners to help serve as ambassadors as we roll out this new tool. Share this link or QR code across your social channels and website, and together let's showcase the renewed spirit and beauty of our destination. 

Fort Myers 

• Lost Shot Bar and Grill opens on Winkler Avenue in Fort Myers
• Wine, dessert bar opens in downtown Fort Myers
• History Society members get free admission to Edison and Ford Winter Estates
• Norman Love Confections introduces Cooking with Love classes for 2024
• DoubleTree by Hilton opens new property in south Fort Myers

Fort Myers Beach

• Tunaskin reopens flagship Fort Myers Beach store
  
• Lovers Key State Park presents January programs

Captiva Island

• Sunshine Seafood Cafe & Wine Bar reopens

Sanibel Island

• Sundial Beach Resort & Spa to begin taking reservations for stays beginning Aug. 3
• The Dunes golf club on Sanibel is open again, minus a hot tub on the 18th green
• "Ding" Darling partners with SanCap Chamber on Learning Lavatories for chamber visitor center
• Shell Museum announces new name, identity ahead of 2024 reopening
• Sanibel Historical Museum and Village opens for season
• She Sells Sea Shells shop reopens on Sanibel

ConventionSouth Magazine picks Pigott as "Meeting Professional to Watch in 2024"

Tamara Pigott, VCB executive director, has been added to ConventionSouth Magazine's list of Meeting Professionals to Watch in 2024. 

This year's elite class of meeting pros is made up of innovators representing a broad spectrum of the meetings and events industry, including planners, destination representatives, F&B and well-being experts, DEI and safety consultants, and sustainability specialists.

Winners were selected by a process that included nominations, research, and the answers to the profile questionnaire nominees completed.

TDC welcomes Pendergrass as new chair

The Lee Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) recently appointed Commissioner Cecil Pendergrass as chair of the Tourist Development Council (TDC). He replaces Commissioner Brian Hamman, who received a plaque from Tamara Pigott, VCB executive director, in recognition of his service as chair. 

NEW! VCB's Performance Dashboard gives partners greater data insights

Explore the new Symphony dashboard developed by the VCB in partnership with Tourism Economics. The new dashboard combines all our destination data sources to make data insights more user-friendly and interactive.

Key insights: 

• The top out-of-state origin markets in October were Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Detroit and Minneapolis-St. Paul. This is largely consistent with the top origin markets observed before Hurricane Ian in October 2021. Source: Near 
   
• International visitor arrivals by air to Lee County was 6.3% of total visitor arrivals recorded between January and September 2023, up 1.9 percentage points from 2022 and closely aligning with 2019 levels. Source: OAG 
   
• Destination website sessions increased by 238% for October, when compared to October 2022, with 64% of all sessions being from mobile and 10% from tablet. Source: Google Analytics
  
  
• Countywide vacation rental booking volume from VRBO/Expedia for November has recovered to exceed 2019 levels, outperforming hotel booking volume on Expedia. Source: Expedia 
  
  

  VIEW THE PERFORMANCE DASHBOARD

January paid media placements

Our efforts in FY23/24 Q2 are largely to influence spring visitation, as well as to support the groups/meetings business. Here is a snapshot of our paid media placements launching in January. 

Consumer:

• Tripadvisor – horizon unit
• Vox – rich media
• Journea – social native ad
• Pandora – podcast audio
• Spotify – streaming audio
• Precise TV – YouTube preroll
• TravelDesk – spring training display, golf display
• Samsung via TravelDesk – CTV

Meetings, weddings, travel trade:

• Wellness Travel University – monthly eblast
• AGENTatHOME – native display
• TravelDesk (groups) – native and video meetings, display and native weddings
• Prevue Meetings – print advertorial
• Conde Nast/Vogue – social ad
• Honeyfund – custom content, display, sweepstakes, geofencing display (co-op)
• Insider Travel Report – dedicated email
• VAX - custom content
• Small Market Meetings – email
• Bridal Guide – display 
• eTarget – dedicated email - co-op weddings

International:

• Expedia UK – display and native VRBO, display co-op
• Expedia Germany – display, native
• Tripadvisor UK – display 

Sign up for the Cape Coral Quest 2.0 today

A new year calls for new adventures! Start exploring with the latest pass to earn discounts and rewards while also discovering new businesses and landmarks in Cape Coral. Solve riddles, uncover codes hidden on each property and earn points towards fantastic prizes. Click on the image above to sign up for your FREE pass today.

Be part of Guests First winter sessions

Hampton Inn & Suites Fort Myers-Estero/FGCU hosts the Guests First Customer Service Training Program. 

Domestic sales activities

Rotating photos include:

• (Photo 1) National Tour Association (NTA) Travel Exchange, Nov. 12-15: (From left) Candice Cocco, VCB, collaborating with Juan Suarez from Ottawa Tourism. There were about 850 tour operators who attended the trade show in Shreveport, Louisiana.
  
  
• (Photo 2-4) Destination Celebration Milwaukee, Nov. 14: Lauren Hyps, VCB, networked and met one-on-one with over 40 Milwaukee event planners. Stephanie Dernek, director of events for Association Management Strategies, won our destination basket.
  
  
• (Photo 5) Travel Weekly Florida Plus Destination Education, Nov. 21: Jennifer Walla, VCB, gave a live destination presentation to about 600 travel advisors on Travel Weekly’s live webinar. The recorded version of this webinar is accessible to all travel advisors for one year. 

International sales activities

Rotating photos include:

• (Photo 1) 2023 Knecht Reisen Reisewelten Consumer & Trade Show, Nov. 2-4: Nadia Bourgault, Germany VCB team, participated in this Swiss tour operator’s annual B2C and B2B show. There were over 80 travel agents and 300 registered consumers in attendance.
  
  
• (Photo 2) CRD North America Days, Nov. 10-11: Gabriele Kuminek, German VCB team, attended the two-day B2C event held by the specialized German tour operator CRD. Due to strong interest for the U.S., estimated attendance was over 8,000.
  
  
• (Photo 3) Porter Airlines Toronto Event, Nov. 15: (From left) Michael Pihach, managing editor, Pax News; Andrew Ricketts, PR manager and Jeanette Faria, account manager Canada VCB team, attended this Toronto event held by Porter Airlines to highlight their North America expansion, including the November launch from Toronto to Fort Myers which has seen a high volume of bookings.
  
  
• (Photo 4) FTI and Sonnneklar.tv B2C Event, Nov. 24-25: The German VCB team attended the event and provided a destination presentation. The event was hosted by the travel shopping channel Sonnenklar.tv in partnership with FTI Touristik over the Black Friday holiday weekend. 

January sales events

Communications team activities

Fort Myers on the Water, Dec. 4-7: Travel writers representing the Boston Globe, Cosmopolitan, Wine Spectator and Matador experienced the destination with Capt. Brian Holaway as their guide. 

German travel writers press trip, Dec. 9-14: This is the first group of travel writers the VCB has had in-destination since January 2020. We welcomed them back as the first travel writers to stay at Margaritaville Beach Resort on Fort Myers Beach. Among their experiences included a glass mosaic one-night-only class at the Center for the Arts Bonita Springs. 

Communications earned media results

Visitor Services activities

We got to spread joy and celebrate the spirit of volunteerism with our dedicated Tourism Ambassadors at Buckingham Farms on Dec. 6. What a treat it is to celebrate the holidays with these wonderful people that make Visit Fort Myers shine throughout the year.

Tourism Ambassadors provided destination information to Florida Jr. Blades College Showcase participants and families at Hertz Arena. 

Our volunteer Tourism Ambassadors enjoyed a fun and insightful tour with Everglades Day Safari.