Welcome to our third installment of focused conversations with community personalities as we approach the third decade of the 21st century. These conversations are framed around the foundation question of: How will and should the City of Annapolis evolve, culturally and in all municipal facets? Here, we speak with Connie Del Signore, president and CEO of Visit Annapolis and Anne Arundel County (VAAAC). VAAAC is a nonprofit, membership-based Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) that generates revenues for the local economy by promoting Annapolis and the Chesapeake Bay to leisure and business travelers across the country and around the world.
We understand you wereliving in Reading, Pennsylvania, as president of theBerks County Conventionand Visitors Bureau before you came to Annapolis.What drew you here?
I thought I needed a change in my life, someplace where I wanted to live as well as work. I interviewed in California, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Florida. Nothing fit. The last day they were advertising this position, I thought, “I’ve never been to Annapolis, so why not check it out?” I assumed they would hire somebody from Maryland, so I had no pressure. I came down two weekends on my own, just to see if I loved it. I did, I’ve been here ever since, and I have no plans to leave.
In an interview you did in 2017 with Business Monthly, you listed history as third in a list of four priorities in attracting people to Annapolis. Is that the way you see it?
No. History actually would be first. Even if you aren’t a history buff, you come here because it’s the backdrop for everything you do, no matter what the strong incentives are in that list. I think that’s what captures people. This city is not a contained museum, but we have things that make us that classic “museum without walls” we’ve all heard of.
Let’s say I just received a $5,000 bonus and I have a week to spend visiting—somewhere. Why should I come to Annapolis?
I can’t tell you how often I run into people who say, “We stopped in Annapolis on our way to somewhere else, and we wish we had planned to stay two or three more days.” I think we have a wealth of potential experiences that you’ll remember when you go home. But to make people really think about that is difficult. We have a very small [tourism marketing] budget—$4 million. To put that in perspective, Baltimore has a $19 million budget, and Williamsburg, Virginia, has $20 million.
Since we’re so close to downtown Baltimore and Washington, D.C., we’re working very hard on that opposite “hub and spoke” so we become the place where people headquarter and plan day trips from here. It’s a challenge, but, once people do get here, they realize they’ve run out of time because there’s so much to do.
Are you resigned toAnnapolis being a short-term destination?
Absolutely not. Our push this year is to make it a multiple-night stay and use the city as a home base to visit other places. We used to promote weekend getaways, but we’re steering away from that in our marketing. We really want visitors to feel like they’ve done everything they want to do.
If I could talk to every person who came to this community, I’d get a lot of people staying longer. They just don’t know what’s here. The question you ask is right on the top of the list of how we want to position ourselves.
How do you get a bigger budget?
That’s going to be my legacy. When I got here, we had a $1.1 million budget. After a year or so, I said we really couldn’t do much with that. And we didn’t. At that point, we worked with Senator [John] Astle and the state legislature to get an increase in the hotel tax.
We first went to the county, and they said, “What do you need more money for? It’s already beautiful, and people come here.” We needed to educate public officials that Miami, Las Vegas, or Chicago know for a fact that people don’t just show up in each of these cities. They must know about it first.
In the span of two years, nothing happened [to our request], so Senator Astle said, “I’m going to take it to the [state] legislature.” The first year, we received 8 percent of the hotel tax, and by the third year it was 17 percent, which meant a $3.8 million budget. It’s been four years now, and we’ve plateaued.
One thing I am working on now is short-term rental.
Del Signore with Michelle Kownacki at Paws Pet Boutique during National Travel & Tourism Week.
What do you mean by short-term rental?
Things like Airbnb and VRBO [vacation rental by owner]. Senator Astle and I worked two years ago to try to get that [the tax on short-term rentals] through the legislature on a statewide basis. But each of the jurisdictions wanted to do their own [legislation]. Now, Baltimore City and Prince George’s and Montgomery counties all have short-term rental legislation. What we’re looking for are two things. Having the lodging tax collected is one. The other is to make sure there are some ways of protecting people who choose to stay in short-term rentals, something along the line of annual permitting and safety features in place to help people who are staying at those places instead of a hotel.
I recently commissioned a study that will tell us how many rentals are in Anne Arundel County and how much money is not being collected. That would be one source of revenue. Another could be something I’ve really not spoken to anyone about until now. It’s a dream of mine not to add any more taxes besides the lodging tax, but to look at something that Williamsburg and Charleston [South Carolina] have done. Those cities have pooled funds from their respective arts, restaurant, hotel/lodging, and historic communities for specific projects.
Under what umbrella would such an arrangement be?
Let me give you an example. This is what has been done in other places. In cities that have convention centers, they will many times take a portion of the hotel tax or some other funding source they find and put it in a separate account. Maybe that fund has a half-million dollars always in it. Let’s say you want to bring in an annual week-long conference and its 100,000 people, but you would really like to have some consideration on the rent at the convention center. Your proposal comes to the partner group and they say, “This is going to mean millions of dollars for the community. Let’s pay for the rental.” That’s one way of pooling funds so that you have a larger pot of money.
As we approach the thirddecade of the 21st century, what is your vision for the future of Annapolis?
We’re marketing so differently now. This community needs to, and I think it will, embrace the disrupters. We had a discussion in this city about murals and permitting. All you have to do is go to Paris and see the Eiffel Tower alongside a gorgeous modern fountain and murals, and it all blends together. We’ve been inviting people here for 300 years, and we need to maintain that integrity, but not without embracing others who will help us moving forward. It’s very difficult sifting through all the clutter of some of the things we see that are distractions and not disruptions. There’s a huge difference.
In terms of my personal vision, I like to tell the businesses and partners a little bit about my background. I never joined an association. I was a schoolteacher, but I was raised in a family restaurant business. I understand the struggles. I know what “mom-and-pop” is like. I understand all of that and what businesses go through.
We support the Marriotts and the Westins, but they don’t rely on us. Small organizations, the small businesses that don’t have any marketing money, really do need us. Everything we do in this community—whether it’s the city and the mayor or the county and the county executive—has to be about attracting visitors and realizing that it’s the second largest industry in Annapolis.
The first year I was here, every public official I met told me, “You are such a lucky person. You don’t have to do anything. It’s such a beautiful place.” I immediately stepped back and rethought everything, realizing I needed a new approach that made them see I was here because they were losing business. The truth is compelling. Every visitor brings money that wouldn’t otherwise be here.
Erin McNaboe, Lou Zagarino, and Del Signore at the Military Bowl.
Another part of the umbrella of this organization is obviously Anne Arundel County, not just Annapolis. How does that fit into the marketing plan?
I recently met a lobbyist who lives in Annapolis, and in her spare time she serves on the Odenton Town Center advisory committee. Odenton is really expanding now, and I had her meet with our partnership people. I don’t yet know how it will fit, but there is a niche for people who want to be in a place where people live, work, and play. To use a tired phrase, we’re going to find a way to “plug them in,” just as we’ve sold South County.
When we increased our budget, we finally said, “We think we have enough money to sell Annapolis and South County and its environs as one area, and sell BWI airport and Arundel Mills to a different audience.” So, we’ve separated the two. We have a BWI hotel website, and we try to convince people, through marketing, that if you’re going into Baltimore for a baseball game, we’re only 11 minutes from downtown Baltimore. Stay with us. It’s less expensive, and we have beautiful properties.
We have a campaign called “Experience the Fun.” We’ve found an audience. And the visits to our website and the work we’re doing with Maryland Live! Casino and places like the Guinness factory have been great. We now market that separately. We tried doing it all together—“Come to Anne Arundel County”—but that doesn’t really give the best sense of place.
Having said all this, Annapolis is still the gem.
