Pinellas County commissioners unanimously approved another round of tourism event funding Aug. 25, continuing a program that has grown from backing a handful of major attractions to its largest investment yet.
Visit St. Pete-Clearwater is putting about $3.37 million behind 47 events this year, both records for its Elite Event Funding Program. Their most recent editions collectively drew more than 1 million attendees, including more than 500,000 tourists.
The latest approval provides up to $125,000 for the Xinsurance Clearwater Offshore Nationals, a Sept. 25-27 powerboat race expected to draw 14,375 attendees, including 11,136 tourists. Commissioners approved the request without opposition.
The money comes from Pinellas County’s Tourist Development Tax, the 6% tax collected on short-term lodging such as hotels and vacation rentals. Visit St. Pete-Clearwater uses the Elite Event program to help attract and retain events that bring visitors into the county and market the destination elsewhere.
The basic idea is straightforward: spend tourism dollars on events that give people another reason to come to Pinellas, then measure whether they actually do.
The program began more than a decade ago with a small group of established attractions, including the Grand Prix and Valspar Championship. It has since expanded considerably, while tourism officials have repeatedly changed the criteria used to decide which events receive money.
Visit St. Pete-Clearwater President and CEO Brian Lowack said those changes are intended to steer money toward events that produce results.
“We have changed the program. We’ve improved the program and the criteria and the guidelines three times,” Lowack said. “So every year we continue to fine-tune this program to make sure we’re able to invest in the events with the highest ROI.”
Eligibility is based largely on attendance and the number of visitors an event attracts. Bigger events can also qualify based on national television or streaming audiences and the promotional value they provide Visit St. Pete-Clearwater. The program defines a tourist as someone who lives more than 20 miles from the event, and awards can reach $250,000.
A sizable part of the investment is intended to make the events themselves more visible outside Pinellas County. That can mean helping a smaller organizer afford advertising it otherwise could not, or giving a larger event additional money to expand an existing marketing campaign.
Lowack said that distinction is important when describing the public money going to event organizers.
“This is not just the grant,” Lowack said. “This is money to go towards advertising and marketing your event and growing it.”
Red Bull Cliff Diving’s stop at the St. Pete Pier earlier this year offered a visible example of the strategy. The competition brought spectators downtown while the Red Bull brand and its broadcast reach put St. Petersburg’s waterfront before a much larger audience.
Lowack said the county wants events that can deliver both visitors and exposure.
“We see ourselves as a premier brand, a premier destination,” Lowack said. “So we look for other premier brands.”
Bringing those events to Pinellas can involve several players. Visit St. Pete-Clearwater works with local governments, event organizers and its sports tourism operation. Sometimes a city brings an opportunity to the tourism agency; other times Visit St. Pete-Clearwater finds an event and brings local partners into the discussion.
The county is putting more money behind that work because officials say their visitor surveys show a change in what brings people here. Lowack said festivals and events have grown from roughly 5% of visitors’ reasons for coming to Pinellas to about 12% over the past two years.
Those visitors represent more than tickets sold or people through the gate. They can also book hotel rooms, eat at restaurants and spend money elsewhere in the county, generating additional tourist-development and sales-tax revenue.
Lowack said those broader effects are not reflected in the program’s attendance figures.
“When you look at this program, for example, and the investment of $3.3 million, you know that’s going to return over a million attendees, 500,000 tourists from outside the destination,” Lowack said. “That doesn’t even consider the hundreds of millions of dollars of economic impact that we’re going to get.”
The county has also gained more tools to check whether those expectations pan out. Visit St. Pete-Clearwater uses attendance data to evaluate funded events, and receiving money one year does not guarantee another award the following year.
Lowack said organizers that fail to deliver what they projected can lose access to the program.
“Every year we re-evaluate the most recent event that occurred,” Lowack said. “If your event was not successful as it was projected to be, it will be dropped from the program.”
The next test of the strategy includes events considerably larger than a weekend race. The Ocean Race will stop in St. Petersburg in 2027 for the first time, making the city the around-the-world sailing competition’s only North American stopover. Lowack said the Elite Event program was a major factor in bringing it to Pinellas County.
For tourism officials, landing an event once is only part of the goal. The larger question is whether a first visit can become a relationship that brings people back.
“We think we can grow that relationship,” Lowack said. “Who knows what the future has in hold after next year?”