Community Promotion & Tourism

Village Hall Village of Lombard 255 East Wilson Ave. Lombard, IL 60148 villageoflombard.org Minutes Community Promotion & Tourism Trustee Bernie Dudek, Chairperson, Trustee Andrew Honig, Alternate Chairperson, Marguerite Micken, Joe Orsolini, Nancy Schukat, Phil Dahm, Nicholas Piron, Jim Grilllo, Gayle Kankovsky and Amy LeBeau Ex-Officio Members: Melissa Infusino - Lombard Chamber of Commerce; Beth Marchetti - DuPage Convention & Visitors' Bureau; Yorktown Centre - Josh Dean; Embassy Suites - Mike Hansen; Sure Stay Plus - Randy Cline; Sonesta ES Suites - Alan Gagnon; Extended Stay America (22nd) - Iverliss Hernandez; Comfort Suites - Frank Balisteri; Extended Stay America (Technology) - Adriana DeHoyos; Fairfield Inn & Suites - Tamara Rodgers; Hyatt Place - Arvyda Mikalainis; Towne Place Suites - Ashley Libbe; The Westin - Kym Myers Tuesday, August 2, 2022 7:00 PM Lorraine G. Gerhardt Community Room 1.0 Call to Order and Pledge of Allegiance The meeting was called to order by Chairperson, Bernie Dudek, at 7:00 p.m. The Pledge of Allegiance was led by Nicole Aranas. 2.0 Roll Call Present 5 - Bernie Dudek, Joe Orsolini, Jim Grillo, Gayle Kankovsky, and Amy LeBeau Absent 4 - Marguerite Micken, Nancy Schukat, Phil Dahm, and Nicholas Piron Also Present: Beth Marchetti, DuPage Convention and Visitors Bureau, and Nicole Aranas, Staff Liaison. 3.0 Public Participation None. Village of Lombard Page 1 Community Promotion & Tourism Minutes August 2, 2022 4.0 Approval of Minutes A motion was made by Gayle Kankovsky, seconded by Joe Orsolini, to approve the minutes of the June 7, 2022 committee meeting. The motion passed by unanimous vote. 5.0 New Business 220255 DuPage County Hotel Relief Program Beth Marchetti of the Dupage Convention and Visitors Bureau will give a presentation on the DuPage County Hotel Relief Program. Beth Marchetti of the DuPage Convention and Visitors Bureau stated that after 18 months, the DuPage County Board approved the proposal to allocate $2M to DuPage County Hotels on July 12, 2022. The allocation will not be on a first come first serve basis, but instead allocated for every hotel to get up to $112 for each hotel room. The intention of the program was not to duplicate Illinois Hotel Lodging in an attempt to restore business, but to incentivize rebooking business that was lost. The program kicked off today with Zoom training for hotels and everyone was asked to participate. The program mimicked others that have been offered nationally. An application is available on the website and there is also a dedicated email. The IHLA passed a bill to disburse $75M for hotel relief of which 80% will be used for payroll. The County will reach out to hotels to ensure that they will be applying for the available funds. Committee member Amy LeBeau suggessted that all hotels should apply for the grant program as it is only a two-page application and hotels would be able to receive quite a bit of funding between State, County, and Lombard grant programs. Chairperson Bernie Dudek stated that there should be a post-grant survey. Committee member Joe Orsolini indicated that maybe hotels don’t want to apply for the program due to the amount of record keeping requirements, effort, and time needed to obtain the grant. The DCVB would review the applications and DuPage County would handle the payouts to the hotels in batches. Hotels would not have to wait for everyone to apply to get the funds. Beth stated that this is the first time in a while we have seen compression from Lollapalooza where Chicago overflow has improved the suburban market. Committee member Gayle Kankovsky questioned what would happen with leftover funds from the grant program as there may be leftover funds since there are at least a few hotels that have closed. Beth explained that the Village of Lombard Page 2 Community Promotion & Tourism Minutes August 2, 2022 county was asked whether there can be grant support for attractions if there were funds leftover from the initial round. 6.0 Old Business 210177 American Rescue Plan Funding Continued discussion regarding hotel and hospitality sector relief funding for industry recovery within the Village of Lombard. Nicole, Staff Liaison, gave a presentation on the three programs (state, county and local) and highlighted options for a local grant program. There is no timeline for the application. Gayle asked if any hotels have indicated that they would apply for subsequent grants after the program was offered. Beth said that it is not guaranteed that there would be any additional rounds of funding. Joe suggested that our program mirrored the county program so that it is less complicated for a business owner who has to learn about three different programs. Amy suggested that If the county application is completed, we can upload and add one supplemental page to the DuPage application. This way, a duplicate application would not have to be completed directly through the committee. Beth stated that it needs to be clear that the money is coming from the Village and agreed that the process should be less complicated. Joe stated that we should not dedicate a large amount of staff time. Amy indicated that she has been in a lot of hotels over the past few years and they are in need of many improvements. She suggested capital improvements as an option. Bernie was interested in why hotels haven’t come to any meetings and stated that the application process should still be clear and applications should be vetted thoroughly. The consensus was to make the Lombard program reimbursable and not just provide a check in return for filling out an application. Gayle said that the receipts should be provided so that there is proof of where the money is being spent. Beth said that cash flow will be lower in the fall and the funds need to be available in a timely fashion. Jim stated that the grants need to be address specific. Direction should be provided to staff to prepare a supplement to the DCVB grant. The committee agreed to use a per room method of allocation to the hotels. Jim agreed that this is the fairest way to allocate the funds and to ensure Village of Lombard Page 3 Community Promotion & Tourism Minutes August 2, 2022 that all hotels have access to proportional funding. The committee discussed the funding for the DCVB program and the consensus of the group was to add additional funding to the hotel grant program of $25,000. Joe stated that there was no need for hotels to come in and present to the committee. Gayle asked about the applicants for local tourism grants which started a discussion on whether it was fair to make the applicants for local tourism grants come in to apply. The consensus was that local tourism grants should be applied for through the committee, but the applicants would not be required to attend to present their grant request. There was continued discussion regarding the hotel grant. Would hotels be able to come up with the capital upfront and be able to do it? There is a cash flow issue so they would need the funds right away. Jim suggested to ask the hotels to show us a quote and they could be reimbursed off the quote in order to receive the funds immediately. The hotels can be asked submit the quote along with their application and we can pay off the quote if they don’t have the money to cover it. There could be a request for reimbursement, but also a provision for an advance if they can present a quote to show the actual costs. Gayle added that the advance should not be advertised. All government funded programs take time and that having the programs together would simplify things. A motion was made by Joe Orsolini, seconded by Amy LeBeau, to approve a grant program and to make a presentation to the board at the next meeting. The motion was passed by unanimous approval. 7.0 Other Business None. 8.0 Information Only Beth provided a recap of the Lombard Cycling Classic event. The tournament ended on Sunday and according to the economic impact calculator, staff accounted for 197 hotel rooms at the Fairfield inn. Sonesta had 7 hotel rooms and Fairfield had 21 hotel rooms. Riders Village of Lombard Page 4 Community Promotion & Tourism Minutes August 2, 2022 accounted for 123 rooms throughout the area overall. Rebel served 187 covers, which was the best Tuesday ever. Babcock’s Grove did better than last year. Beth stated that the economic impact report will be forthcoming. The rooming list shows how many people stayed and who came. Some riders may have stayed on their own elsewhere or with homes. Amy indicated that another community came to observe the bike race. Northbrook was new in Lombard this year. There was a lot of excitement and energy having it in the downtown area, and the bicycle riders really enjoyed the course and location. The event was well placed for families. 9.0 Adjournment A motion was made by Amy LeBeau, seconded by Joe Orsolini, to adjourn the meeting at 9:08 p.m. The motion passed unanimously. Village of Lombard Page 5