Tourist Development Council Still Targeting Spring Breakers
Kate Eckman


Despite some of the negative publicity that accompanies the spring break crowd, it's too important to the tourism industry to ignore.

Bay County Tourist Development Council and Panama City Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau board members decided once again this year to go after the business.

Jim Lawson, a TDC board member, said, "Spring break marketing is so important because many of our merchants on PCB, Bay County and surrounding communities make a huge part of their annual budget in those very few weeks known as spring break."

With that in mind, the board approved a $300,000 budget to marketing spring break to college students around the country. That's about the same amount spent the past seven years.

"For every dollar spent on spring break advertising, bed tax collections have been around $600,000 the past several years. It's almost a two to one ratio."

The board also chose Mr. Youth Marketing to advertise the local spring break for the second straight season.

"Mr. Youth stood out because their net amount of money from their budget that they proposed made more money for advertising for spring break."

The board also handled a few issues that have an effect on tourism year round. Members agreed to ask for Congressman Allen Boyd's help in securing $500,000 for a beach renourishment study on Carillon and Pinnacle Port beaches.

If those beaches need rebuilding, then the board wants another $2 million for that project.

Lisa Armbruster, TDC beach management director, said, "It's a very positive step in the right direction to study whether they can get back in and hopefully obtain construction monies to get a beach constructed down there."

Although the overall number of tourists this summer is down a bit, TDC staff members report the number of people coming here through the beach's website is up 26 percent in July.