As our community recovered, we sought to spread awareness in a positive and uplifting way about our rebuilding efforts, volunteer opportunities and open destination experiences – all with the goal of increasing consideration of our area and driving visitation to the businesses that were ready to welcome back loyal visitors and newcomers.

Our messaging needed to convey that while our area did look different, the passion that residents and visitors feel for our islands, beaches and neighborhoods remains unchanged – even strengthened. Using real people with deep connections to our community, we gave them a platform to share, in their own words, what Fort Myers is to them. This authentic storytelling sought to tap into the deep emotions our loyal visitors feel about our area and show new audiences how special of a place we truly are.

Using a paid media budget of $7.6 million and a timeframe of January 2023 to March 31, 2024, we generated 82 impressions per dollar spent. Additionally, we surpassed our CPM goal of $13 by coming in at $12.16, indicating that our budget was efficiently and effectively spent. The total production cost for the December 2022 and April 2023 My Fort Myers ambassador photo and video shoots was $66,739. This combined with the paid media budget resulted in 81.5 impressions per dollar spent.

While 2023 saw a significant drop in tourism due to the impact of Hurricane Ian, we did directly influence our loyalist audience. Per the July–September 2023 Visitor Profile Report, the proportion of loyal visitors increased to 21% from 11% during the same time period in 2022. By the last quarter of 2023, the proportion of loyal visitors reached 24%. Our latest quarterly visitor report for early 2024 indicates a 41.7% increase in visitors, a 24.7% increase in total room nights and an increase of 26.5%  in total economic impact fiscal year-to-date.