The Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau is fueled for a big drive.
“We have to keep our foot on the gas,” BACVB executive director Elliott Falcione said Jan. 22, encouraging collaboration across Manatee County at a meeting of the tourist development council.
The advisory council, chaired by County Commissioner Ray Turner, meets periodically to consider projects funded with tourist development tax revenues and review BACVB efforts to promote the area.
Falcione and others at the meeting focused on the tourism boost expected with the opening of a hotel and the expansion of the county convention center in Palmetto and getting people from those sites to other locations in the county, especially Anna Maria Island.
A new mode of transportation for visitors is the Gulf Islands Ferry, which launched in January to carry passengers between the downtown Bradenton riverfront and the Anna Maria City Pier.
At the time of the TDC meeting, after multiple delays in the launch and then cancellations due to weather, the two-ferry service had operated one day out of the six scheduled.
Falcione, with an eye on the weather forecast, predicted positive ferrying 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Jan. 26-28 and the possible addition of a third stop at the Historic Bridge Street Pier in Bradenton Beach.
Adding the Bradenton Beach pier, he added, would allow the ferry — the service includes two 50-foot catamarans that can each carry 49 passengers — to skip the Anna Maria pier stop in choppy water.
“We’re hoping to add Bradenton Beach, maybe as early as this weekend,” Falcione said. “We’re just finalizing an asset to make sure we’re ADA compliant.”
The ferry did not make the Bradenton Beach run and runs were canceled Jan. 28 due to weather, according to an announcement on the service website.
Plans also involve:
- Adding a stop at Coquina Bayside in Bradenton Beach.
- Scouting for a stop on Longboat Key.
- Bringing the ferry service to the convention center-resort complex.
- Securing a federal grant to buy a ferry boat with protection from the elements.
- Expanding service hours.
“We’re already talking about running more than Friday, Saturday, Sunday in March and April because, you know what, that’s when the traffic is going to the island,” Falcione said. “Run maybe five days a week. … We’re real excited.”
Bradenton Mayor Gene Brown, a member of the TDC, also is excited. He and his wife rode the ferry on the chilly launch day from Bradenton to Anna Maria, walked on Pine Avenue to lunch at the Sandbar Restaurant and then returned by ferry to the riverfront.
“It was definitely worth the adventure that first day,” Brown said, noting he met other passengers who came from cold-weather locales such as Chicago and Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Falcione and Tony DeRusso, managing director of Improvement Network Development Partners, reviewed the construction progress at the Bradenton Area Convention Center, 1 Haben Blvd., Palmetto, and the nearby Marriott Palmetto Resort & Spa.
The $48-million convention center project is set to be completed in spring 2025 while the $100-million hotel, under construction since January 2020, is set to open in April.
DeRusso said the hotel will offer a rooftop restaurant, ground-floor restaurant and bar, pool, pickleball courts, fitness center and spa with views of the river, proximity to a preserve and commercial and cultural centers, easy access to major roads and maybe a ferry ride to “the sugar white sands of AMI.”
“Having that water taxi have a stop in there is a game-changer for the community,” he said.
Falcione said the expanded convention center will accommodate gatherings of 800 people.
In other business at the meeting:
- Anne Wittine of Research Data Services reviewed tourism trends and statistics, including numbers associated with visits, room and occupancy rates and economic impacts for October 2023 and November 2023.
Numbers generally were down when compared to the same months in 2022 but they showed growth compared to the same months in 2019.
In 2022, Hurricane Ian devastated parts of southwest Florida, causing people to shift reservations and seek temporary housing in Manatee County.
Wittine said the outlook for January appeared “good,” February and March are “really good” but there is a concern for “softness” in the summer.
- Falcione invited the council to attend his “State of Tourism” remarks to the Manatee Chamber of Commerce Wednesday, Feb. 14, at the Bradenton Country Club and join the BACVB at concerts at the Center of Anna Maria Island in Anna Maria.
- Brown and Palmetto Mayor Shirley Groover Bryant, also a TDC member, encouraged people to attend the Bradenton Area River Regatta, which will be Friday-Saturday, Feb. 16-17 on the river and along the riverfront.
The next TDC meeting will be at 9 a.m. Monday, April 15, at the county administration building, 1112 Manatee Ave. W., Bradenton.