GREEN COVE SPRINGS – The Clay County Tourism Board got a detailed report on the current state of tourism, and what it will take to expand during its six times a year meeting Monday night.

A representative from Black Dog Advertising said the immediate goals are to create bigger indoor and outdoor sporting arenas and connect the parks and recreation areas with tens of miles of paths.

The long-range goal, however, is to find greater access points to the St. Johns River, Doctors Lake and Black Creek, as well as build a vibrant waterfront entertainment complex of restaurants and clubs, Black Dog’s John Penney said.

“The outdoor assets, we have plenty of those and it’s becoming increasingly enjoyed by people who live here. And there are plenty of parks,” he said. “We have the river we have the lakes, but you kind of need to know the spots to get on the river and lakes to be able to enjoy them.”

According to the county, the Tourism Strategic Plan is a research-based intentional road map for the future of Clay County. The execution of the plan will be a collaborative effort among local business owners, passionate citizens, community organizations, local government entities and various stakeholders. The Tourist Development Council and Board of County Commissioners will be prioritizing the next steps for implementation. Implementation of this plan may result in more entertainment, outdoor adventure and arts and culture assets for county residents and visitors to enjoy.”

Penney said Clay County already attracts visitors. The goal is to get visitors to the area a few days before or a few days after an event. Tourism Director Kimberly Morgan told the committee the county recently had two record months of collecting bed taxes. She said $161,106 was collected in April and nearly $160,000 was garnered in July.

“We are experiencing amazing bed tax collections,” she said.

Morgan said one of the reasons for the increase in collections comes from increased vacation rentals.

Penney said Black Dog believes Clay County needs to improve its hotel industry – not just in the number of rooms, but with its “fulfilling potential” rating.

He said there are currently about 1,200 hotel rooms in the county with a fulfilling potential rating of 2.9. His group said Clay needs to be at 1,500 rooms with a rating of 4.9 by 2027 and at 2,000 rooms with a 5.5 rating by 2032.

Black Dog completed a comparative analysis of the Clay County area with six similar markets. The company then came up with seven plans that need to be phased in during the next two, three, five and 10 years. They include an expansion of amateur sports, outdoor adventures, arts and culture, responsible commercial development, long-term visioning, promoting tourism and re-branding the county as a destination.

“It is not uncommon to a lot of the destinations we work with, big and small, and then a lot of the small market destinations so they’ve found themselves and they’ve never really thought of themselves as a tourism industry for decades,” Penney said. “That’s Clay’s past, obviously. They’ve had that identity since the 1800s but kind of grew away from that as a rural community, a bedroom community and now here we are growing pretty rapidly.

“We’re starting to come up with a brand, we’re making movement with the events industry. All of our events are becoming more attended by a lot of leisure visitation room nights are going on. We know that it’s pretty impending.

“So how do we control that and steer some of the development investment that’s going to take place in the region and really use it as a catalyst to build out attractions, build out experiences? At the same time how do we make sure that we’re protecting the local, authentic character, the destination we don’t want to grow too fast?”