Greenville CVB proposes $2.2 million budget, plans expanded marketing and visitor center

The Pitt Greenville Convention and Visitors Authority on May 8 presented a proposed $2.2 million operating budget for fiscal year 2025–26 to the Greenville City Council, with the authority forecasting a 3% increase in expenditures and plans to expand marketing, open a dedicated visitor center and hire a social media specialist.

The authority's president and CEO, Andrew Schmidt, told council members the CVB expects to use a mix of hotel-occupancy tax revenue, a final year of ARPA funding from Pitt County, capital-reserve transfers and modest fund-balance draws to balance the budget. “We are here to create experiences,” Schmidt said as he described the authority’s mission to draw conventions, sports events and leisure travelers to Greenville and Pitt County.

Schmidt said travel and tourism generated roughly $313 million in visitor spending in 2023 and supports nearly 2,100 jobs in Pitt County. The CVB’s proposed $2.2 million budget includes $1.662 million from occupancy taxes; by interlocal agreement the CVB gives 1% of its budgeted revenue to the Greenville Convention Center (about $554,000 under the proposal) for that facility’s marketing and operations.

Budget highlights include roughly $270,000 for advertising and marketing (up from about $250,000 last year), creation of a partner extranet to let hospitality partners update listings, increased advocacy on state tourism boards, expanded social media, visitor-center operations (moving a visitor center into a dedicated downstairs space at the CVB building) and modest merchandise sales at the visitor center. Schmidt said merchandise is a branding effort rather than a major revenue source.

Council members asked for detail on revenue assumptions and event-level tracking. Council member Les Robinson asked whether the CVB tracks sports-tourism revenue; Schmidt said the CVB does and estimated sports tourism generated “a little over $9,000,000” in the last fiscal year, using event-entry data and software to calculate return on investment. Council member Blackburn asked for clarification on the hotel-occupancy tax split and debt-service allocations; Schmidt described a multi-cent split where part of the occupancy tax funds convention-center debt service and one cent of the remaining three cents is allocated to the convention center’s marketing as described above.

Schmidt said the CVB budgets conservatively while anticipating stronger actual revenues, and that any receipts above the 3% forecast would reduce the need to use fund balance or would be available to the convention center via future budget amendment. He invited council members to request the CVB’s program-of-work for additional detail.

The presentation was for council information; no formal council vote or appropriation occurred at the meeting. Questions from councilors focused on methodology for attributing dollars to specific events and the CVB’s revenue assumptions going into the budget process.