ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – The St. Johns County marketing firm contract is set to expire Sept. 30 and it could impact local businesses.
At their meeting on Tuesday, the St. Johns County Board of Commissioners discussed what marketing services could look like in the future.
The county is looking for an interim marketing management firm to prevent a gap in services. The firm would be contracted for up to six months or $250,000 while they search for a management tourism firm.
Local business owners got the opportunity to share their thoughts along with commissioners.
“We talk about the tourism industry like it is one big business and we hear like tourism is a multi-billion-dollar industry and on and on and Karen made a good point or the point rallying in my head,” County Commissioner Christian Whitehurst said. “This is a collection of hundreds of small businesses and I’m not sure everybody can fully appreciate how difficult it is to be in some of these businesses.”
Business owners like St. Augustine Distillery Co-Founder Philip McDaniel feel advertising is vital for businesses in the area.
“If we have a pause or a break in the advertising, and that means people are going to go to Savannah, they’re going to go to Charleston, they’re going to go to Key West, and that would not help us right now,” McDaniel said.
McDaniel, along with other business owners, feels companies like the Visitors Convention Bureau have been a huge help.
“The VCB, effectively, is kind of the marketing agency for St. John’s County,” McDaniel said. And what they do is they will coordinate events to bring writers here as an example, to say, hey, if you’re considering writing a story for Ford’s or for, you know, gardening gun or whatever, come to St. Augustine and you can learn all the cool things.”
The county commission plans to revisit this discussion in six months.