How the Hillsborough County Hotel & Lodging Association turned a strong market position into a three-year strategy with accountability built in.
Hillsborough County Hotel & Lodging Association
Hospitality & Tourism
Strategic Planning, Stakeholder Research, KPI Scorecard Design, Narrative Strategy, Governance Advisory
2025 to present
The Hillsborough County Hotel & Lodging Association has represented Tampa Bay’s lodging industry since 1937. Its membership includes the county’s leading hotels along with a broad network of allied businesses that serve the hospitality sector.
HCHLA is also a Florida pioneer. In 2020, it established the state’s first Tourism Marketing District, a hotel-led model for funding destination marketing that other Florida markets now study. When the association decided to chart its next chapter, it selected HCP Associates as its planning partner.
Tampa Bay is one of the strongest hotel markets in the country. Occupancy is high, new hotels are under construction, and national investors continue to place confident bets on the destination.
Strength of this kind draws attention. In recent sessions, the Florida Legislature weighed proposals that would have redirected Tourist Development Tax revenue away from destination marketing. One bill would have dissolved tourist development councils statewide. Another would have stripped funding from the state’s own tourism marketing organization. None of these measures passed in their strongest form, but the message was hard to miss. The funding tools that power Florida tourism will remain under debate in Tallahassee for years to come.
HCHLA’s board read the moment clearly. An association that speaks for an entire industry needs more than goodwill and strong relationships. It needs a documented strategy, a sharper public story, and a way to show its members measurable progress. The association engaged HCP Associates to deliver all three.
HCP begins every strategy engagement with research. Recommendations carry weight only when they rest on evidence, and the evidence here came from the industry itself:
The result was a strategy the board could see itself in. Every commitment in the final plan traces back to something members and stakeholders actually said.
HCP mapped hotel and lodging representation in every one of Florida’s 67 counties. Most counties are served by a chapter of the statewide restaurant and lodging association, or by no local lodging group at all. Only four counties are home to a live, single-county lodging association (Central Florida has one independent association spanning three counties). Hillsborough’s is the oldest, founded in 1937, nearly thirty years before the next. Several counties have lost their independent associations within the past decade. The conclusion was plain: an independent voice for Hillsborough hotels is rare, valuable, and worth protecting, and the plan treats it that way.
The HCHLA Strategic Plan 2026-2028 is organized around seven strategic imperatives:
Two threads run through all seven. The first is voice. The plan commits the association to a more assertive public narrative, captured in the campaign theme “We Built That,” which spotlights the community assets funded by visitor taxes: the arena, the convention center, roads, schools, and millions of dollars in hospitality scholarships.
The second is partnership. The plan formalizes HCHLA’s productive relationship with Visit Tampa Bay while preserving the association’s independent advocacy voice, a balance both organizations affirmed in a joint statement published in the plan itself.
Most strategic plans end at the printer. This one reports to the board.
HCP designed a Strategic KPI Scorecard that pairs every imperative with defined measures, 45 in all, each with an owner, a target, and a reporting cadence. A companion governance framework sets out who updates what and when, so the scorecard works as a standing management tool rather than a one-time exhibit. The board now reviews progress against the plan as a regular part of its meetings.
HCP also delivered the operating documents needed to put the plan to work, including position descriptions, a budget package, and a legislator engagement tracker that supports the association’s advocacy in Tallahassee.
The board adopted the strategic plan in February 2026, and the association presented it to the full membership at its February luncheon.
By June 2026, the full KPI register was in front of the board with Year 1 targets set, moving the plan from paper into practice.
The “We Built That” narrative now anchors the association's public communications, repositioning hotels as community builders.
HCHLA and Visit Tampa Bay published a joint statement defining their collaboration and affirming HCHLA's independent voice.
The independence of HCHLA’s voice is essential. There are conversations that a trade association must have, with legislators, regulators, and community leaders, that require the credibility of speaking solely on behalf of hotel owners and operators. This strategic plan preserves and strengthens that independent voice.”
The strongest associations plan from strength rather than react under pressure. HCHLA now enters every legislative session with research in hand, a story to tell, and a scorecard that shows members exactly what their association delivers. That is what a strategic plan should do.
