- April 22, 2024
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Flagler County’s tourism office wants to create a local visitor center that would offer ecotourism packages, a gift shop, events that would bolster local businesses, and educational presentations on the local environment and history.
"We want to increase their length of stay and overall spending by providing relevant, personalized information and a quality visitor experience."
— AMY LUKASIK, tourism director
"No matter where it is, you will walk in and be able to get a total feel of the entire county and everything that we offer," county Tourism Director Amy Lukasik said at a Feb. 21 County Commission meeting as she briefed commissioners on the proposed center. "We want to be able to offer ecotourism packages and experiences that are unlike any other. We want to be able to have food walking tours."
The visitor experience center would be funded by grants and tourism bed taxes and would most likely be sited in Flagler Beach.
County Commissioner Joe Mullins said he liked the idea of having non-residents fund the proposed center.
"I love the part where you're talking about the local residents don't pay for it," he said.
Flagler County has already set aside $1.1 million for a potential visitor center, and has an opportunity to pursue an 80-20 matching grant that could fund its development, Lukasik said.
Currently, she said, Flagler lacks the ability to coordinate tourist-focused services and events.
"There's a huge hole in our community for that," Lukasik said. "We will never have huge attractions — we don't want them; we don't want the boardwalk with all the carny rides and games — we want packages and experiences that match the DNA of our community."
The facility would provide information on the county's natural resources, agriculture and history, she said.
For instance, environmentally themed exhibits it might feature sea turtle nesting, the county's coastal dune system and rip current safety.
When locals bring visitors to town, she said, "You can come into the center and say, 'This is everything about Flagler County,' and you can experience things here for free, and then also you can purchase different packages and experiences that relate to ecotourism, culinary, agricultural — all those niches that we target."
Once the county finds an appropriate site for the center, the county would convene a community and industry task force to research best practices to determine what its interior would look like.
That would likely include interactive digital kiosks, meeting spaces, event hosting spaces, a place to showcase work by local artists, and an aquarium to promote ecotourism and marine preservation.
An outdoor exhibit area may include bee- and bird-attracting flowers, erosion-preventing herbs and wild edible plants.
Ideally, Lukasik said, the center would be in Flagler Beach south of State Road 100 and near a proposed hotel site on the south side of S.R. 100 at South Daytona Avenue.
"It makes no sense for us to be off I-95; people already know where they're going," she said. "They're likely going east. ... We want to be where they're already going. So it's very important that we keep it logistically easy for them."
The downtown Flagler Beach area's walkability also provides opportunities to lure in tourists, she said.
"There's also a lot of organic foot traffic that's happening throughout the business district down there, and we need to be able to capture as much of that as possible to be successful," she said.
The next step, she said, it to find an appropriate site.
"Land is quickly diminishing, and what is left, the prices are continuing to rise," she said. "So we are looking to move quickly on this, but not without all the proper due diligence, because we want to be successful."
When county staff find an appropriate parcel for potential purchase, she said, the Tourist Development Council will review it. If the TDC votes in favor of the site, the proposal would go to the County Commission for approval.
