President Elect, Kristin Keller, filling in for President Lynn King, called the meeting to order.
Ray Warco offered the prayer and led the pledge to the flag.
Announcements:
Saturday May 25 - High School Campus Cleanup. Meet at the HHH Athletic building at 9:30 am. RSVP to Cory Maphrus - 8433840394
Steve Stauffer, past President, reminded all of Founders Night which is June 19. The club is hosting member and spouse/guest. It will be held at Spring Lake.
Sergeant at Arms, Suzi Oliver collected Happy $$$.
Speaker:
Steve Stauffer introduced the speaker, Charlie Clark, who is VP Communications at the Hilton Head Island Chamber of Commerce. She has been there 19 years.
The Chamber recently did a membership survey which asked what is the biggest benefit of Tourism to a resident of the Island. The number one answer was surprising, but it is the amenities. There will be another resident survey coming out soon. Keep a look out for it because your feedback is important.
Charlie gave an over view of the past year. 2020 was an interesting year and this time last year there were a lot of unknowns. Safety has been a major concern. New procedures and programs were put in place. Wednesday power calls have been a good success. They developed a Path Forward Readiness plan which encompassed nine segments of Island life and a task force worked on this. They took each segment and figured out what are the best practices for that industry to keep it safe. It was very successful and won an award and was recognized as an effective program for recovery.
Last year 2.56 million visited the Island and was only 70,000 less than came in 2019. Numbers were down in April and May, but in July 2020 occupancy was up
The Lodging performance chart shows the effect of the pandemic. Hotel occupancy was down, primarily because of loss of corporate travel.
She noted that visitors pay to bring more visitors to the island and it does not come out of taxes. Tourism pays for itself.
Visit HiltonHeadIsland.org to see more information. There were 2.5 million visitors and the are able to track that 1.2 million of the is conversion to partners. The website tracks inquiries, if they visit, where they stayed, etc. Hilton Head Island is an award winning destination and has been #1 Island in America based on polls.
The Chamber also does media tracking every day to see how often Hilton Head is in the media. Air travel is very important. Over half the people coming into the Savannah Airport are coming to South Carolina. The increased service to the Island airport and expansion of the terminal will also have a great effect. The HGTV Dream Home also has done great for real estate. Charlie shared some amusing things that tourists say: "Do you let sharks in your ocean" and "Does anyone actually live on the Island" are just two of the gems.