June Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau Advisory Board

Meeting recap

What happened, drawn from the records published after the meeting. Minutes

Orange County set the bureau's 2026-2027 budget at $1,749,754, and the cuts shaped the meeting. The creative agency contract falls to $150,000, $83,000 less than the year before, while the media buying contract holds at $200,000. Research and data budgets were cut, including AirDNA, which staff said will limit what the bureau can produce for community partners on request. The bureau kept its $10,000 bid fee for the International Town and Gown Association conference, due at the Friday Center in June 2027 with about 400 attendees expected.

On the budget cuts, Sally Greene moved that staff bring the August meeting a recommendation to meet every other month instead of monthly. David Putnam seconded and the motion carried with all in favor. The May minutes were approved on a motion by Matt Hughes, seconded by Greene, with all in favor.

Media Two reported $300,000 of spending across paid search, Meta, LinkedIn, display and direct placements, 74 percent of it on leisure. The leisure campaign drew 72.3 million impressions and 122,000 clicks at $1.53 a click; the hotel campaign drew 12,700 clicks and 17 request-for-proposal form fills. Search click-through was 9.4 percent against a 4 percent industry benchmark. Asked how travelers using AI to plan trips affects this, the firm said what matters is that the bureau's website stays readable and crawlable, and that people tend to follow a broad AI recommendation with more targeted searches of their own.

Executive director Laurie Paolicelli's review of the year included closing the funding gap for the Savannah Bananas and outreach for MexTour, where the bureau hired a public relations consultant and approached local dioceses to reassure the community that the event would be safe from immigration enforcement.