Page 28 - South Mississippi Living - February, 2019

COASTNOTES 2019
story by Kelsey Sunderman-Foster photo courtesy of Visit Mississippi Gulf Coast
ith 2019 underway, Visit Mississippi
Gulf Coast (VMGC),
the region’s convention and visitors bureau,
is pleased to report that this year looks to be a promising one for tourism on the Gulf Coast,
with numbers predicted to surpass those of 2018.
Visit Mississippi Gulf Coast
228.896.6699 www.gulfcoast.org
website for information about all three coastal counties.
With a full rebranding in the works, VMGC saw a busy 2018, working with elected officials, stakeholders, multiple agencies, and industry professionals to evaluate the Mississippi Gulf Coast as a brand, with the overall goal of significantly increasing visitation and impacting the region’s economic development. The brand will be launched in March of 2019.
“Working together is the key
to bringing more visitors to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and we
look forward to an exciting future of increased visitation, deepened partnerships and broadened horizons,” Segarra said. “We will continue our endeavors to promote our beautiful Mississippi Gulf Coast and look forward to welcoming many more visitors looking to discover the #MSCoastLife in 2019.”
According to data from VMGC, occupancy tax revenue received in December for October room sales was strong, coming in at 27 percent above the revenue from October
the previous year. The sales team has been hard at work, increasing definite booking room nights in quarter one of fiscal year 2019 by 16 percent from last year’s first quarter. The sales pipeline is also looking strong heading into quarter two of this year as the number of tentative room nights has increased by 47 percent.
“We have spoken to several hotels across the region, and have received extremely positive forecasts for 2019,” said Milton Segarra, CEO of VMGC. “From what we have heard so far, 2018 seems to have been a positive year for the hotel industry, exceeding budgeted occupancy and revenue, and seeing an increase in results over 2017. We look forward
to seeing an ever greater increase in 2019.”
Traffic to the gulfcoast.org website in 2018 was over 1.7 million users, an increase of 18 percent over
Milton Segarra, CEO of Visit Mississippi Gulf Coast
2017. The VMGC team says this increase is thanks to the growing number of travel decisions made based on information found online paired with their advertising efforts directing potential visitors to the
28 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • February 2019
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