Hillsborough County Tourist Development Council Quarterly Meeting - February 12, 2026
Hillsborough County Tourist Development Council Quarterly Meeting - February 12, 2026
This quarterly meeting of the Hillsborough County Tourist Development Council (TDC) featured updates on tourism finances, marketing performance, and sports events. The council unanimously approved the minutes and the administrative report, heard presentations from Visit Tampa Bay and the Tampa Bay Sports Commission, and discussed challenges in international leisure travel, group business pacing, and the need for convention center expansion. No public comments were made.
Consent Calendar
- Motion to approve the minutes of the previous meeting: passed unanimously.
- Motion to accept the administrative report (financial quarterly report): passed unanimously.
Public Comments & Testimony
- No members of the public spoke during the public comment period.
Discussion Items
- Administrative Report (Ron Barton): Presented the first quarter financials for the three-cent and six-cent tourist development tax. Noted that first-quarter outlays typically outpace collections, resulting in negative balances, but revenues catch up in the second quarter. Collections were 17% below the previous year, attributed to the absence of hurricane-related occupancy bumps that occurred in the prior year. The council accepted the report without further questions.
- Visit Tampa Bay Presentation (Santiago): Reviewed first-quarter performance metrics: occupancy, average daily rate (ADR), and revenue per available room (RevPAR) were slightly lower than the record year of fiscal year 2024 but better than 2024 in many categories. Domestic leisure remains strong, but international travel from Canada, Europe, and the UK is down significantly. Visit Tampa Bay is focusing on Mexico and other emerging markets, with Aero Mexico increasing to daily flights in March. Group business pacing is strong, with 126 groups booked for future years and 86 groups actualized in the first quarter. However, the convention center room night pace for 2027 is lagging due to the loss of a major convention (Advanced Placement Reading Summit). The council requested a future update on the convention center expansion project.
- Tampa Bay Sports Commission Presentation (Lannis Robinson): Highlighted major events in the previous quarter, including the Women's Final Four, WWE Memorial Day Takeover, and the NHL Stadium Series on February 1, 2026, which drew 65,000 attendees and was praised as one of the top three sporting events in Tampa Bay history. Upcoming events include March Madness first and second rounds, SEC Media Days in July, and the men's and women's basketball tournaments in March 2027 and 2028. Room nights generated in the previous fiscal year totaled 272,594, up 13% year-over-year. Youth and amateur events, including Varsity Cheer, remain a strong backbone. The Sportsplex has exceeded all projections. The commission also announced that the English Premier League morning show will be broadcast from Tampa on April 18-19, 2026.
- Council Member Comments: Council members praised the Sports Commission's work, particularly the NHL Stadium Series. Mayor Kilden highlighted the upcoming Florida Strawberry Festival in Plant City (February 26 – March 8, 2026), which attracts over 650,000 people over 11 days and relies on 2,000 volunteers.
Key Outcomes
- Unanimous approval of the meeting minutes and the administrative report.
- The council directed staff to arrange a presentation on the convention center expansion at a future meeting.
- No binding votes were taken on policy or funding matters; all actions were advisory and informational.
Meeting Transcript
Morning, welcome to the February 12th, 2026 uh quarterly meeting of the Hillsburg County Tourist Development Council. Uh this time I'll pass things over to Ron Barton for roll call. Thank you. Um Hagan here Castor Antonaccio Collier here Gonsmar Williams. She said she couldn't be here. Kilton? Here. Mackkinaugh. Here. Manthe. Who's that virtual? Yes, he's okay. I just wanted to make sure. Um Morrison. Placentia. Here. And Ross. Mayor Ross told me you couldn't make it. Okay, we have a quorum. Okay, great. If everyone's had an opportunity to review the minutes, can we have a motion to approve? So moved. Motion, Mr. Placentia. Second second, Mr. Antanasio. All in favor? Aye. Opposed likewise. Motion carries unanimously. This time, is anyone here want to speak during public comment. Seeing none, uh, Mr. Barton for the administrative report. If you turn to the tab with uh with the uh financial quarterly report, the first uh table is the three cent, three percent portion. Um really the only thing of note here is our uh outlay uh according to our contracts in the first quarter always outpaces collections. So you're gonna see a negative on the bottom, and uh that's very typical for our first quarter. We begin to catch up as we true up on the second quarter uh with revenues, uh catching up with our expenditures. So really that's the only thing of note I wanted to bring to your attention on the three cent. And the same thing happens on the um on the six cent, which is the next page, um, with the um expenses outpacing the revenues in that first quarter. Uh but we'll catch up on the revenue side, and we know we have a regular expenditure. Uh there are no surprises associated with the expenditures, so that uh will begin to true up. If you'll turn to the next page, it's the three cent uh collections uh in the of note here are the uh negatives associated with uh comparing to a year previous. Um at this point we're running it 17 percent uh below last year. I would uh before we get alarmed about that, uh two things. Uh what's really going on there, and I know uh Santiago and his team can talk about this, is we have the hurricane uh factor that we have. And so it's ironic and counterintuitive, but when we have hurricanes near us but don't really take us out, we actually have a favorable impact in our occupancy of our hotel, so we get a bump. We've actually graphed the last three years in the hurricane season. You can see the bumps that come with the hurricanes. So you're comparing in this case a non-hurricane season to a hurricane season. That's why these particular months uh seem negative.
openpublica.com