Returning guest Oliver Kugler of Visit St. Pete Clearwater delivers an energetic rundown of a destination firing on all cylinders. Record bed tax collections are rolling in — January and February 2026 are in the books and March looks like the best ever — powered by short-term rentals and hotels coming back online after the fall 2024 storms (though he notes some south-county properties are still recovering). The event calendar is a headliner: Red Bull Cliff Diving arrives at the St. Pete Pier in June (a 90-foot scaffold over a dredged Vinoy Basin), and The Ocean Race makes St. Pete Clearwater its North American stop in May 2027 — a 12-day international sailing event promising major global exposure.

Oliver also unveils a new brand campaign, "Beach. Culture." — an evolution beyond "Home to America's Best Beaches" that leans into the destination's cultural depth: the Dalí Museum, an incoming 2026 Michelin guide, 600+ murals, food and beverage, music, and pro sports from spring training to the Tampa Bay Rowdies. He rounds it out with the community and economic case for tourism (Pinellas County's number-one economic driver, saving the average household roughly $1,730 a year), plus the ease of a car-free visit via the Grouper shuttle, Jolly Trolley, PSTA, and Sun Runner.

In This Episode:

• 00:06 - Introduction to Aqua Talks
• 01:10 - Exciting Developments at Visit St. Pete Clearwater
• 06:23 - Exploring the Cultural and Culinary Landscape of St. Pete Clearwater
• 12:23 - Exploring Local Events and Attractions
• 17:27 - Exploring the St. Pete Clearwater Area

Key Takeaways:

• Record bed tax, recovery complete. Jan/Feb 2026 set records and March is tracking as the best ever, driven by short-term rentals and hotels returning to inventory after the 2024 storms — though some south-county properties are still healing.
• Marquee events put the area on the international map. Red Bull Cliff Diving at the St. Pete Pier (June 5–6, 90-foot scaffold, Vinoy Basin dredged for safety) and The Ocean Race as the North American stop in May 2027 (12-day international sailing event).
• New campaign: "Beach. Culture." An evolution of "Home to America's Best Beaches" that adds the cultural layer — museums, food and beverage, music, and visual arts — as a reason to visit.
• Culture credentials. The Dalí Museum, a 2026 Michelin guide reveal, 600+ murals across St. Pete and beyond, and BayCare Sound (a top-rated open-air venue).
• New and renovated properties. Postcard Inn reopening as Luce ('80s California chic), plus major renovations at Serrata Beach Resort and TradeWinds on St. Pete Beach.
• Deep sports bench. Spring training (Blue Jays in Dunedin, Phillies in Clearwater), the Rays back at Tropicana Field, LPGA Annika and other championship golf, and the Tampa Bay Rowdies — the region's oldest pro team.
• Tourism as community benefit. Pinellas County's #1 economic driver, credited with the average household saving ~$1,730/year (no state income tax), with big events also serving locals (Clearwater Jazz Holiday, Country Thunder).
• Car-free and easy. Two international airports, the $8 "Grouper" airport-to-beach shuttle, Jolly Trolley, PSTA, and Sun Runner make exploring simple; Hubbard's Marina (Capt. Dylan Hubbard) is a five-time USA Today #1 charter operation.

Welcome to Aqua Talks where marketing meets bold game changing ideas.

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Whether you're a destination marketer, government contractor or simply passionate about the transformative power of marketing, Aqua Talks offers engaging discussions, fresh insights and actionable strategies designed to inspire and inform.

Welcome back to Aqua Talk, sponsored by Brennsys Technology LLC and Xeniq. We're here for the next few days at Destination Florida in Bradenton. We will be speaking with Quite a few DMOs.

Stay tuned for a lot of good conversations coming up. Thanks. We're back at Aqua Talks. Thanks for joining in. We are at Destination Florida. We have a returning guest, Oliver Kugler.

Oliver is with Visit St. Pete Clearwater. Thanks for joining us Oliver. We're just going to jump right into some of the hot topics going on at Visit St. Pete Clearwater.

Sounds great.

So some of the things that I've gotten that was have been going on there, record breaking bed tax collections, major new international events coming to destination in the next 12 months, new accommodations opening up in the market, new restaurants, adding in the dining scene. A lot of great exciting things going on at Visit St. Pete Clearwater. So let's just dive right in. Let's just start from the top. Tell us all about it.

So right now you're talking about some record bed tax collections.

So January of 26, February of 26, we're waiting for the March numbers to come out and indications are we're going to have the best March we've ever had. A lot of that is being carried by our short term rentals that a year ago at this time were not in service. They were not in inventory.

A lot of those properties have come back up online. So we've got our inventory back.

Not everybody and I know some of our properties in south county and some of our smaller businesses on south county are still a little bit hurting if you will. But they're coming around, which is great. It's exciting times right now. You mentioned some of our major events that are happening.

For instance next month, June 5 and 6, we've got the Red Bull cliff diving event. Now last I remembered, St. Pete Clearwater didn't have any cliffs that I had to ask you.

But what they're doing is they're going to go onto the pier in downtown St. Pete and they're going to go on the north side of the pier. They're going to build a beautiful 90 foot scaffold and we'll have the divers going off that 90 foot scaffolding.

It's an international sailboat race. You've got about eight teams and we are North American. Stop. Oh. And so we're really excited about that as well.

I saw it on TV.

Isn't that a great documentary, a great piece? The cool thing about that is it's a 12 day event.

They're coming, I think from Brazil and so they're going to arrive at different times, usually hopefully within 24 to 48 hours of each other. But then they hang out for about 12 full days. There's going to be like a corporate village tent area. Great, great opportunity.

We're going to see a lot of international exposure from that as well.

That should be a great event. I look forward to being there for that.

It's going to be exciting and it's really going to put the St. Pete Clearwater area truly on the international map because the other locations that they're going to are all over the world and some of the areas that they're going to are not traditional visitor destinations for us where visitors would come from origination.

So we're going to get a lot of exposure out of this and everybody in the Greater St. Pete Clearwater area is going to get some amazing exposure out of this. We've got some new properties coming online. We've got some properties that have renovated.

It's, it's one of our beautiful properties on St. Pete Beach.

And then of course, the Serrata Beach Resort is going through massive renovations and changes, new buildings as well as the trade winds on St. Pete Beach. So a lot of great things happening in and around the destination.

Well, right now, as we came out of season, so January, February, March, April, peak season for us again, we talked about record bed tax collections for that time frame. Now we're going to shift a little bit and we're going to. We just hired a brand new advertising agency back around the end of last year.

And so we're changing from home to America's best beaches and the and that we were having and so much more. Now we're going to shift to a new kind of a marketing campaign called beach period Culture period.

So we're still staying with our true core that everybody comes really to visit us. And that is home to America's best beaches. And that's great, but there's so much more. And it's the culture side.

And the culture side could be anything from the great museums. Think about the Dali rated one of the top two or three museums in the United States.

So we're really excited about seeing that information. You've got the mural culture in and around the downtown St. Pete area. It used to be we had like maybe 100, 200, 300 murals.

Now we're up to 600 murals. And you do these mural tours. And it's not just now St. Pete. I mean, I drive around the smaller communities like Seminole and Largo.

It's even going into Clearwater and Clearwater beach over by the Baycaire Sound, which by the way, I think is rated the number one open air outdoor entertainment venue in the United States. They've got some beautiful murals out there as well.

So combining what we're truly known for, which is home to America's best beaches and all this other amazing culture, whether it's the food and the beverage, the music, the arts, the visual arts and so many other great things, it's really, it's one of those well rounded destinations. And then you've got events where you go watch cliff diving, professional cliff diving, F1 racing, F1 racing.

And we've Got some of the best international golf tournaments with the Balance Bar Golf Championship we had in March over at the Innisbrook Resort, and then also in November at the Pelican Club, we have the LPGA Annika Golf tournament. And now we also have one of the senior tournaments here at Feathersound over in the Largo Clearwater area.

So the sporting events, our spring training, I mean, we've got the Toronto Blue Jays that train in Denver Eden, we've got the Philadelphia Phillies that train in Clearwater. All of our other sporting things. The Tropicana Field is back up and running and looking beautiful for our Tampa Bay Rays. So we're excited about that.

And then even, you know. Do you know what the oldest professional sports team is in the Tampa Bay region?

No.

Tampa Bay Rowdy Soccer.

Never even heard of them.

Oh, my God, they're right.

I should be. I'm just. I haven't been a soccer friend fan. My son played soccer, so I don't know soccer history. Yeah, I could tell you all the others.

Most other sports history.

I just don't know soccer, soccer.

Tampa Bay Rowdy started, I think a year or two before the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and they've been around longer as a professional sports team than anybody in the area. And they're packing their stadium over there at Al Lang Stadium in downtown St. Pete. Great excitement.

So, you know, as a visitor who comes to our area at the dependent upon what you're looking for, you're looking for that beach experience, whether you want the excitement of a Clearwater beach and.

And sunsets at Pier 60, or whether you want something more relaxed and casual like Indian Rocks beach, where it's nice and you can spread out a little bit and really chill and relax and a little bit of everything.

So there's a lot of great things in. In St. Pete, Clearwater. Just the whole area and I really love it. So as a newer visitor, not quite. Not quite a resident yet, but I'm here every month.

I still have a house that I have in Seoul because my son just graduated college. But what I. One of my favorite places up and down Central Avenue, I can go up and down and just more. Most recently, I'm starting to experience more.

I go into one location on the corner, actually a few blocks down from the Rays Stadium, and I go and I watch open mic night. Lot of comedians that are just. Just brave people going up there and getting there for 10, 15 minutes.

Yeah.

And wondering how they, how they're, how they do. And it's great, it's fun. Yeah, it's a fun environment. Then you come out of there and not even a block down, I go into watch live music.

They have one another location has a bunch of bands playing.

Yeah.

And then, you know, just another few steps outside seating, having a few drinks and you know, some, some tapas outside, just enjoying the people. There's always lots of people walking up and down.

There's always lots of people. And there's so much to do and it cannot be done in seven days. You can't experience the entire destination in seven days.

We talk about Tarpon Springs and the Greek heritage and history up there. That alone is at least a half a day experience up there. Then when you head south, you come through the Palm harbor area.

They've got some new microbreweries in the Palm harbor area. Then you come into Dunedin, which by the way has the oldest microbrewery in the state of Florida. I think it's called Dunedin Brewery.

And the Scottish heritage of downtown Dunedin, that walkable main street that they have there, they're rebuilding their marina. The marina unfortunately got a little bit damaged through the storms, but that's coming back. All the great things you can see in the Safety Harbor.

Safety harbor used to be a sleeper of a little town and now they've got a Michelin rated restaurant in Safety Harbor. Yeah. So there's so much to do. But you talk about downtown St. Pete. Well, first off, you talked. We talked about the Ray Stadium, Tropicana Field.

Right across the street from there is Fergs, the sports bar. Yeah. Rated the number one sports bar in the United States by the readers of USA Today.

Okay.

That was a great award they just recently won. And then from there you've got all these, like you were saying, these eclectic little places.

You know, I mean, I just, I love everything that we can do. I love going to. Good night, John Boy. Yeah, get my 70s in. Get my 70s disco in and stuff.

I, I was there for Halloween and right on Central again. You could have spent a lot of time on Central Avenue. They, they blocked off what, five or six blocks for a big Halloween event.

They brought in all the local vendors. A lot of small businesses came in and set up little kiosks.

Yes.

And sold all of their, you know, their services, their goods, their food, their drink. That was a great time.

You know, it's funny because we have so many different, you know, major events we talk about which get international and domestic exposure, but we also have these smaller events that are great for the locals.

Yes.

And it's imperative that we also, you know, remind the locals that we're here for them too.

You know, tourism is about bringing visitors into the destination because it's the number one economic driver in the state of Florida, and it's the number one economic driver in Pinellas County. It's the number one reason. Reason why we as residents do not have a state income tax. Yeah, we just ran some numbers.

Actually, we didn't run the numbers.

A third party ran the numbers for us and it said the average household in Pinellas county saves roughly $1,730 a year in taxes, not having to pay estate, income tax and other type of taxes. So these events that we bring in, not only are they great to bring in visitors, but it's great for our locals and our residents as well.

They get to take advantage of these wonderful events. I sit on the foundation board for the Clearwater Jazz Holiday that happens the third weekend in October every single year.

Some of the musicians and musical acts we bring in. Last weekend we just had at Coachman park in Clearwater Country Thunder, which was again, an amazing three day event. Did it bring visitors in?

Yeah, absolutely. Did the locals get to take advantage of it? Absolutely.

The water next to Coachman park, there were tons of boaters out there who got to anchor locals, listen to the music and take advantage of this particular event.

Since I've been coming to St. Pete over the last two years, every year I come down for a month and I'll bring my whole family.

My mom, my dad, my brothers, My sister and her husband will drive in from Texas and he's a big fisherman and he was asking me certain places to go fishing in the area. And I'm like, anywhere you see water and that's what I like.

We'll stay down on the beach and if you're crossing the little channel, you could see everyone. You can't fish off the bridge, but you'll see people lined up along the channel, fishing.

Sometimes you're going down as far as the piers, the skyway bridge fishing. So a lot of great fishing staying at. I find different verbos when I'm here for a month. On the beach.

Yeah.

In Panama or. Excuse me. And I went to the Air Force in Panama City. That's why that keeps coming up. But right there in St. Pete beach, find different verbos.

And I stay there for about a month, hang out on the beach. I go to a bunch of little restaurants like Rick's. Yeah, Rick's has really great food, great breakfast there.

And it's just, I'm experiencing different areas within the St. Pete Clearwater area. I haven't spent a lot of time in Clearwater yet, but there's just so much to do in the. The St. Pete.

We talked about this, trying to get away. You and I are going to jump on some bicycles and I'm going to take you on a tour of the entire area.

Yes, you.

You mentioned your brother in fishing. Okay.

So one of the bigger fishing charter captains and charter operations we have in the Greater St. Pete Clearwater area is right in the middle of the county. It's called Hubbard's Marina and Hubbard's Charter Fishing and Captain Dylan Hubbard and his team, they just won. I love these accolades.

I can keep going with these accolades. They just got rated the fifth time in the row the number one charter fishing charter company in the United States.

And I think it was either by USA Today. I think it was by USA Today. So five times in a row, him and Captain Dylan Hubbard and his team, they do an amazing job.

You go out in the Gulf of Mexico, you go a mile offshore, you go 10 miles offshore, 30 miles offshore, you come back with some reds, some snapper, you come back with some grouper. It's. It's a no lose. And then of course there's the inshore fishing as well.

So you can't beat some of the skinny water fishing that we have and some of the snook. Snook is not a type of fish that you can eat locally. You can only eat it if you catch it.

And I hear that the snook fillet is fantastic, just out of this world. So, yeah, we've got. There's just so much going on in this area when it comes to being able to experience different things.

We talk about the beach, which again, as I say, is our bread and butter.

But and especially for families too, when you think about things like the Clearwater Marine Aquarium just off of Clearwater beach, between Clearwater beach and downtown Clearwater on Island Estates. I mean, the events and things that are going on at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, where you get to see marine life really up close and personal.

And then museums like the Dali museum in downtown St. Pete. We also have off of downtown St. Pete in the Warehouse Arts district. There are so many different things happening in that area right now.

And then you talk about Gulfport.

So we've got a lot of these artists who have studios in downtown St. Pete, whether they're glass studios, like Zen glass and so on, but they reside in Gulfport. They live just right down there. And Gulfport is such a unique, eclectic destination. It's right on Boca Ciega Bay, overlooking the water there.

Pia's Trattoria, one of the great restaurants in our area, is right there, but also a great place to go explore, walk around, bicycle around.

So from sports, whether you're getting out there on a boat, fishing, golfing, to professional sports, to culture, to art, to cuisine, it's safe to say the St. Pete Clearwater area has pretty everything you're looking for.

The only thing we don't have and I love is I love to go snowboarding. But then again, we didn't have cliff diving. And we've got cliff diving. You know, there might be something coming down the pike here.

I'm not going to say anything, but I would agree with you. I mean, I think that first off, we've got two international airports.

Yes.

We've got the larger one, which is Tampa International airport, just about 30 minutes away from the beaches. And then we have our St. Pete Clearwater International Airport, which about 98% is Allegiant Airlines.

And I think Allegiant flies to 62 different destinations here. Domestically, from St. Pete Clearwater Airport, we now have a free.

Not a free, excuse me, a transportation service called the Grouper, great name that goes from St. Pete Clearwater Airport down to Clearwater Beach. So for those folks that are flying line into St. Pete Clearwater, they don't necessarily have to rent a car. They can jump on the Grouper.

I think it's ridiculous, like $8 a person one way. And then if you have a group, it even comes down lower. But talk about transportation getting from point A to point B.

And then once you're on Clearwater beach, you don't need a car, you don't need transportation.

You've got the Jolly Trolley service, you've got the psta, which is Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority, where you could go from Tarpon Springs at the very north end of the. Of the county, all the way through Dunedin down into Clearwater Beach.

The south county beaches, St. Pete Beach, Pasa Grill, and then there's the Sun Runner, that'll take you from St. Pete beach into downtown St. Pete. So we've got you covered if you don't want to rent a vehicle.

And then there's the things like the, the E bikes, you know, and all the other great stuff.

I haven't seen skateboards going down. Yeah. So, I mean, I've. In two years. I absolutely love the St. Pete area and I haven't even seen a quarter of what it offers.

So I'm definitely spending a lot more time getting out there and taking you up on your offer.

Yeah.

So thanks for being back with us, Larry.

It's always a pleasure. Thank you for having me back.

I look forward to more conversations and exploring more of the St. Pete visit clear Clearwater area.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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