Boat Show won’t get $1M

Extra county tax money requested for promotions

The mayor didn’t get the answers he wanted about the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, and the boat show’s operators didn’t get the $940,000 in tourism tax revenues they requested to promote next year’s show.

But everyone agreed to work together in the future.

That was the takeaway from an emergency meeting Wednesday of the Broward County Tourist Development Council to consider the $940,000 request by the boat show’s owner, Marine Industries Association of South Florida, and its promoter, Informa Exhibitions. Had it been endorsed by the council, the request would have been forwarded to the Broward County Commission for consideration as part of the overall county budget today.

The boat show had proposed spending $500,000 in tax revenue to reach prospective attendees at boat

shows in Germany, Dubai and Singapore; an exotic car show in Pebble Beach, Calif.; and a private jet show in Las Vegas. It also wanted $300,000 for media buys, and $140,000 to make cobranded promotional items.

Council chairman Chip LaMarca on Tuesday said he was open to an agreement to split the promotional cost with the city of Fort Lauderdale. However, Dean Trantalis — the city’s mayor and a Tourist Development Council member — said he first wanted the boat show to prove it needed the money by revealing terms of the 30-year lease it entered last year with the Bahia Mar ownership team that controls the city-owned property for the next 45 years.

Marine Industries President and CEO Phil Purcell quickly addressed the mayor’s demand at Wednesday’s meeting but did not reveal the lease terms.

“This [funding request] has nothing to do with Bahia Mar,” he said. “We made a good deal with Bahia Mar. We’re happy. We’re going to serve out the 30-year agreement.”

Trantalis later demanded to know why the boat show was suddenly asking for public money after 59 years of self-sufficiency. “What has changed so dramatically that all of a sudden they need more money?” he asked.

Purcell said public money to promote the boat show should have been requested earlier “as we grew.” He again deflected Trantalis’ demand to inspect the show’s lease terms, saying the boat show is “very happy.”

“We didn’t overpay, we didn’t underpay,” he said. “We paid to ensure the best event in the world stays in Broward County.”

Purcell pledged the promotional effort would spotlight the importance of the marine industry throughout the area, including marine-related programs offered by the area’s colleges and universities.

Lana Bernstein, Informa vice president of marketing for U.S. boat shows, said the money would target “high net worth individuals to come to the Greater Fort Lauderdale area.”

Council members voicing support for the marketing plan included LaMarca, pub owner Tim Schiavone and Hollywood Mayor Josh Levy.

Levy argued that potential visitors in places like Singapore and Dubai likely relate South Florida to yachting. “We don’t see it because we’re stuck in traffic,” he said. “But marine, yachting and boating ought to be a large part of how we brand the destination.”

But several of the council members questioned the need to spend nearly $1 million of the county’s convention and visitors bureau budget to promote an event that’s already a success.

Stacy Ritter, CEO of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau, which is funded from the 6 percent countywide tax levied on hotel stays, challenged the council to choose what spending should be cut from the bureau’s $23 million operating budget and given instead to the boat show.

Making a point that the boat show already benefits from the tourism development tax, Ritter asked Assistant County Administrator Alan Cohen to outline how much annual tourism tax revenue is being used to expand Broward’s convention center by 150,000 square feet to the west, largely in response to the boat show’s request for more exhibition space. Cohen’s answer: $7 million a year.

As a result, “there’s no wiggle room anymore [in the budget],” he said, “because this expansion project is sucking the air out of our budget.”

Ritter also rebutted the boat show organizers’ characterization of its proposed marketing plan as a partnership and collaboration with the visitors bureau.

Referring to the shows in Singapore, Germany, Dubai, Las Vegas and Pebble Beach that the organizers proposed spending $500,000 for, Ritter said: “You chose those places. Not us. You didn’t choose those in collaboration with us. This feels more like this is where you want to go, and you want to take our money to do that. Singapore, for example, is not [a market] we’ve pinpointed as one where we can achieve growth.”

Sensing that the council wasn’t prepared to support the boat show organizers’ request for the upcoming budget year, members instead voiced appreciation for the boat show’s contributions to the area’s tourism economy and pledged to work with its organizers to identify shared goals in the future.

Trantalis made a motion to “engage in a more significant partnership with Informa and Marine Industries to promote the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show.”

It passed unanimously.