MANATEE COUNTY – The Manatee County Tourist Development Council (TDC) took the first step on Monday to reopen vacation rentals countywide, including on Anna Maria Island.
TDC Chair and Manatee County Commissioner Misty Servia persuaded fellow TDC members to recommend that Manatee County commissioners remove the COVID-19 prohibition on short-term vacation rentals.
Under Gov. Ron DeSantis’ plan effective Monday, county commissioners can submit a plan to the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation for approval to allow short-term vacation rental properties to reopen to guests. The plan would likely require working with owners and managers of vacation rentals to come up with strategies to meet the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) requirements for disinfecting and cleaning of units between guests.
Elliott Falcione, executive director of the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB), said that he’s been working with other west coast Florida county leaders to help develop a plan for vacation rentals that would provide some consistency for owners and visitors.
Servia added that coordination with the leaders of the three Anna Maria Island cities, where many of the county’s short-term rentals are located, would be a key component to success. Falcione said that no matter what plan is enacted, it will be up to the city leaders to oversee the operation of the vacation rental properties.
Local vacation rental owners who spoke during public comment said they are ready to reopen their units to visitors and are willing to abide by any necessary regulations to keep their properties safe for renters.
The recommendation passed in a unanimous vote. Members Ed Chiles, an Island restaurateur, and Wayne Poston, mayor of Bradenton, were absent from the meeting.
Marketing during COVID-19
The new short-term marketing recovery plan, debuted by Falcione and Dave DiMaggio, has two implementation phases. Phase one involves bringing visitors in from drivable markets, including Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, West Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward counties and Atlanta with plans to expand the advertising area up as far north as Memphis and Nashville and as far west as New Orleans.
Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward counties are the worst three counties in the state for COVID-19, with nearly 27,000 cases, according to the Florida Department of Health.
Manatee County has 867 cases as of Monday.
DiMaggio said that when deciding which markets to spend advertising dollars in, the overall health of the area and whether it’s a COVID-19 hotspot will be considered first along with how economically stable the target markets are.
The second phase involves bringing airline passengers back to the area. DiMaggio said that the success of phase two involves coordinating and sharing data with local airports, including Tampa International Airport and Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport. For some of this data, he said he would be looking closely at the information provided by Anne Wittine of Research Data Services, the county’s tourism consultant, to see how comfortable people feel about travel and flying to their vacation destinations.
Wittine presented the results of a travel sentiment pulse poll which showed numbers trending upward over the past two weeks toward people being more comfortable with travel and ready to take a vacation. While 52% of the people polled are concerned about reopening the state too quickly, Wittine said that 15.9% of people say that travel is essential to them and they’re ready to get back out there. Of the people who participated in the poll, Wittine said she’s seeing a trend toward people’s intent to travel increasing in the late summer months, specifically July. She added that of the people willing to travel, 78.2% of them feel most comfortable traveling by car, which lines up with the first phase of the TDC’s new marketing plan.
DiMaggio said the second phase includes continuing to target drivers and targeting fliers from the Midwest and northeast of the United States.
He said he expects that some segments of the market will be slower to recover, including people who travel for sporting events, work conferences and travelers from the United Kingdom and Central Europe.
Falcione said that he would be utilizing a month-to-month budget approach, periodically re-evaluating how and where the CVB’s limited advertising budget is spent to determine where those funds will have the most impact to help get the local tourism economy back up and running.
The TDC next meets June 15 at the Bradenton Area Convention Center in Palmetto.
Related coverage
DeSantis expands reopening plans, opens door for vacation rentals
DeSantis: Restaurants, retail can open; vacation rentals cannot
