Chamber details FY27 DMO budget; council insists contract pillars be honored

Ariana Pernese, vice president of the Hilton Head Island/Bluffton Chamber’s visitor and convention bureau, and Chase Odell, the DMO research manager, presented the DMO’s fiscal year 2027 marketing plan and showed how the town’s 30% ATAX allocation would be applied to seven contract categories: advertising, promotional materials, marketing support (creative/research), group sales, PR, events, and operations. Pernese said the DMO is using a new reporting form for 30% funds and that some activities previously charged to the 30% are now being funded from other revenue sources; that accounting change makes direct column‑to‑column comparisons difficult but said the DMO remains “on budget” for 30% funds overall.

The presentation emphasized a shift toward digital promotion and an expanded investment in photography and video assets to support multi‑platform campaigns, and outlined a $100,000 partnership allocation for golf marketing (micro‑site and paid digital) plus line items for support of local events through promotional assistance and on‑site research. Chase Odell explained the DMO’s research stack (Zartico, Placer, College of Charleston economic reporting, lodging dashboards) and said some invoicing timing explains apparent zeros in the current actuals column.

Several council members, led by Councilwoman Bryson, pressed the DMO on an apparent change in publicly framed “pillars.” Bryson said the marketing plan’s outward‑facing tactical categories (coastal outdoors, golf/racket/sports, culinary, culture/heritage, events/community) do not plainly show the contract’s required core values—eco‑tourism, arts and culture, local history, wellness and recreation—and said she could not approve a marketing plan that appeared to drop those core values. Pernese and DMO staff responded that the contract pillars remain tracked and that the tactical language is intended as an outward‑facing translation that will be reported against the core values; staff agreed to add clearer mapping and to provide the marketing plan pages that explicitly show the shared values and how tactics align to them.

Council members also requested clearer, line‑by‑line reconciliations showing which specific activities will be paid by 30% funds versus other revenue sources, and asked the DMO to provide the enlarged slides used at ATAX for committee review. The committee did not take formal action but directed staff and the DMO to return with clarified documentation and explicit mapping of tactics to the contract’s shared values.