LIVE OAK, Fla. — As it tries to propel Suwannee County into the tourism business, the Tourist Development Council is looking for extra help.

At the TDC’s board meeting last month, it proposed a budget that would include the hiring of a marketing coordinator as well as the development of a new website.

Both are critical for the TDC and Suwannee County to become more of a tourist destination, according to Alvin Jackson, TDC director.

“The reality of it is that we really can not be in the tourist development business unless you have a destination marketing website,” Jackson said. “If we are going to be in the destination marketing business, there’s no use for me buying ads and marketing if we don’t have a state-of-the-art website. It has to be one that is dynamic.”

While the TDC needs that website, which Jackson said the board decided will be developed by Blackdog Advertising although no contracts have been signed, the first push for the TDC moving forward will be the hiring of the marketing coordinator position.

“The marketing needs to start when that person gets on board,” Jackson said, adding that the proposed budget allocates more than 70 percent of the TDC’s expenditures towards marketing purposes.

“They really need to be walking down the aisle together.”

Once that hire is made after budget is approved and the website developed, Jackson said he believes the TDC can really begin following the guidelines set forth in the council’s strategic plan that was also adopted at the June meeting.

That marketing plan was necessary, Jackson said, to help the TDC identify the direction it needs to head within the next few years while also satisfying a state statute.

“You have to have a strategic plan,” Jackson said. “This really becomes the TDC’s guiding policy.

“This really lays out how do we begin to promote Suwannee County and begin to grow Suwannee County as a destination for tourists and visitors.”

There were no real surprises from the analysis conducted by Gray Research Solutions in completing the strategic plan, according to Jackson.

The county’s strengths include the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park as well as many springs and nature areas.

But the key Jackson said will be convincing the visitors that are just passing through — which was identified as one of the leading purposes of visitors to the county — to stay.

That, again, is where he believes the website comes into play.

“We need to be capturing, catching those folks and that’s why it’s so important for us to really do the website,” Jackson said. “We need to really get that up and going. That destination marketing website.”

The TDC board also endorsed the TDC office moving into worknest in downtown Live Oak. Jackson, though, said there are still concerns with the lease that county attorney Jimmy Prevatt is working through to make that potential move a possibility.