- September 12, 2024
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The Volusia County Council wants the county's three advertising authorities to focus more on marketing the Daytona Beach International Airport.
On Tuesday, Aug. 20, the County Council unanimously voted to table the approval of the budgets for the Halifax Area Advertising Authority, Southeast Volusia Advertising Authority and the West Volusia Advertising Authority, wanting funds to be redistributed to favor airport promotion. This comes after the airport announced it will be adding Breeze Airways as a new carrier, beginning Nov. 14, as well as the addition of a new route to Hartford, Connecticut, starting Nov. 8 by Avelo Airlines, which began flying out of DAB to New Haven, Connecticut, last June. To attract Avelo, the County Council approved the creation of a $1 million fund to mitigate the financial risk of the airline's start-up costs.
"We need all hands on deck with real, serious commitments to this airport," County Councilman David Santiago said. "... We're making significant investments as a council and I want to make sure that our partners are doing the same thing."
The Halifax Area Advertising Authority has the largest planned budget for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, at over $20.2 million. Southeast Volusia's is planning for about $6.3 million and West Volusia's budget is about $1.8 million.
The Halifax Area Advertising Authority originally budgeted $150,000 toward airport marketing. Executive Director Lori Campbell Baker said the same amount was budgeted in the 2023-2024 fiscal year, but only $50,000 was used, which was spent on marketing Avelo.
"We don't want to have a big line item budget that doesn't get to get spent," Baker said.
But, she added, if the authority needed more funds for airport marketing, the board could approve dollars to be moved around in the budget.
Once the new routes start — including three Breeze Airways routes that will launch in February — DAB will service 20 markets, an increase of 1,000% since 2021, said Cyrus Callum, county director of aviation and economic resources. Avelo has used about $500,000 of county's risk fund after suspending its service between DAB and Wilmington Airport in Delaware, but the county has seen a $6.1 million economic development impact overall thanks to the airline.
With that in mind. Santiago said he believed $150,000 for airport promotions to be too low.
"I want to see some serious numbers behind these markets," he said.
County Councilman Troy Kent praised Santiago for bringing up the issue, which may be perceived as an uncomfortable topic.
"But you get one bite at this apple and it's tonight, and because of one's person's leadership on this issue, we are going to see, hopefully, a change that several of us up here have talked about, we would like to see, because we want that airport wildly successful," Kent said. "And there's money in their budgets to help with this."
Promoting the airport is a "win for the entire county," County Council Chair Jeff Brower said.
"The airport is such an attractive airport to bring people from all over the United States and outside of the United States," he said.
The Southeast Volusia and West Volusia Advertising Authorities had $50,000 and $7,500 budgeted for airport promotions, respectively.
County Councilman Don Dempsey — who was in favor of the Halifax Area and Southeast Volusia Advertising Authorities upping their budgeted funds for the airport, particularly to ensure Avelo continues to service DAB, in light of its departure from Melbourne Orlando International Airport — hoped that the council would support West Volusia's budget remaining as presented. It's the authority with the smallest budget.
"The airport's an east side thing," he said.
The budgets will come back to the council for review at its meeting on Sept. 17. They need to be approved prior to Oct. 1.
