PETER CRANIS: Space Coast Office of Tourism Marketing Plan Features Continued Focus on Beaches and Launches

Board of County Commissioners approves $13.385 million FY 2024-25 Tourism Marketing Plan

BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – This week the Board of County Commissioners approved our FY 2024-25 Marketing Plan in the amount of $13.385 million. This year’s plan features a number of new activities with a continued focus on beaches and launches.

From a research perspective, the plan includes many of the learnings we garnered from the 2023 Visitor Study. Due to the presidential elections, the fall marketing initiative will begin after the elections are held in November.

Then a robust Fall/Winter Campaign will begin and run into January with the goal of generating increased travel from December to February. We have seen steady growth in the January/February window and believe there is still room for this to expand.

Other seasonal campaigns will include the Spring Campaign running from February to April and the Summer campaign which starts in May and runs through September.

From a target market perspective, we are continuing to focus on key Florida markets, as well as Atlanta, Charlotte, Washington DC, Philadelphia, New York, Boston and Chicago, all of which show as top source markets according to our cellular device tracking software, Datafy.

Our Visitor Study also confirmed that a large percentage of people (over 50%) fly here so it continues to make sense to reach out to these markets. Additionally, research shows that the farther away people come from, the longer they stay and the more they spend, making them a higher ROI travel party.

There are also co-op dollars allocated to focus on new airline markets such as Cincinnati which was just announced by Allegiant and other markets as they get added.

In terms of individual targeting, the visitor study shows there is a fairly even mix between adults traveling without children and those traveling with children so the targeting of individuals will reflect that.

Other elements of the plan include a robust international marketing approach with the UK, Ireland, Germany, and Canada being the primary focus.

Wherever possible, international dollars are co-oped with tour operators and the state and national destination marketing organizations (ie Visit Florida, Brand USA) which allows our dollars to go farther.

There is also a heavy focus on public relations which has an excellent ROI for the spend, as well as a sports marketing program that focuses on getting event organizers to utilize the Space Coast’s many athletic fields and venues for either competitions or training. In the travel trade area, an increased focus on the meetings market will be seen with expanded information on our website, as well as partnerships with Cvent and MPI that target this audience.

Overall, this coming year will be a strong year for marketing with about 900 new hotel rooms slated for construction.

2025 Marketing Plan

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– Peter Cranis, Space Coast Office of Tourism Executive Director