Tourism staff provided commissioners a midyear update on marketing, fund balance and operational planning, and asked the commission to consider multi-year contracting to support a permanent office.

Staff member Christine said the commission still has “little over 50,000 in our bank account, from the original, branch that you gave us,” and that roughly $15,000 of that amount is being held for office-space costs. Director Neil Houdegger earlier presented a spreadsheet that showed the commission’s available balance for the year as $57,600 and projected next year’s budget collection at about $400,000.

Christine reviewed active and planned marketing work: a year-round campaign promoting bike trails and lakes, targeted itineraries, drone footage for use in promotional materials, relationships with influencers and familiarization (“fam”) trips, and social-media advertising. She described a data trial that used high-level cell–phone location data (Placer AI) to see where event attendees came from and which hotels they visited; staff reported Country Inn and Suites and AmericInn among the top local lodging sites for festival attendees and said the data show many attendees still use hotels in nearby Madison.

Commissioners discussed content coordination and event calendars. Commissioner Colleen and other members urged better sharing of Parks & Recreation event details so Discover Monona’s promotions can include smaller community events; staff said they meet regularly with department heads and will work to automate calendar feeds and increase cross-department coordination.

On office space, staff said developers at the Bloom offered a small office that could be shared with a partner organization, subject to a 10‑year lease; Christine said her board is uncomfortable signing that long a lease under the current year‑to‑year commission contract and asked commissioners to consider a multi‑year contract (three to five years) so staff could pursue affordable, shared office space. Commissioners said they would discuss the contract term when finalizing the 2026 budget and priorities.

Staff also summarized conversations about event opportunities: they have been in talks with the U.S. ice-fishing organization about a qualifying round and said the city’s Destination Madison contact supported the idea; a bass-fishing tournament application was not successful. Staff asked commissioners to consider policies for future awards, such as limiting commission funding to a percentage of an event’s operational budget or requiring documentation of prior hotel-night impacts for repeat applicants.