Tourism, San Diego’s third-largest industry, continues to remain solid despite the weakening of the national economy and the pressures of rising electrical and gasoline prices in California.
The local visitor industry celebrated a banner year in 2000. Overnight visitors to San Diego last year climbed almost 4 percent compared to the previous year, to 15.2 million visitors. While they were here in town, these visitors spent a record-breaking $5.2 billion dollars, an additional 7.1 percent more than in 1999.
These are dollars that change hands again and again, wending their way through our regional economy while enriching countless numbers of local businesses and services along the way.
Why San Diego? Just what are tourists looking for when they select a destination in which they will spend their precious time and hard-earned money?
While it is obvious many visitors come to San Diego because of its scenic beauty and miles of sandy beaches, there are many more reasons why travelers across the globe are seeking out San Diego as a vacation destination.
San Diego’s growing popularity is linked to current national travel trends and niche travel markets.
“There’s no doubt about it, we have to constantly analyze which travel trends are ‘hot’ , and determine as well the travel habits of various demographic groups , to remain competitive with other popular destinations such as Anaheim, Orlando and San Francisco,” said Reint Reinders, chairman and CEO of the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau. “The more we have to offer travelers of all ages and tastes, the better position we are in to attract more, and repeat, tourism business to our region.”
What are these markets and how do they affect San Diego’s visitor industry?
– Family Travel A Growing Trend
Traveling together with families, including grandparents and extended family, is one of the fastest-growing vacation trends in the nation. The reason is due to what industry analysts term “time-poverty.”
With dual-income households now the norm, busy parents find they cannot spend quality time with their busy offspring. A family vacation is a welcome opportunity to enjoy a memorable experience together.
With its wide variety of family-oriented attractions and recreational opportunities, San Diego is a perfect destination for the vacationing family. In fact, Family Fun magazine, the nation’s leading magazine targeting families with children, recently named San Diego the most family friendly city in the Southwest.
– Quick Getaways & Weekend Travel
The stresses of daily life in our fast-paced society no longer allow for leisurely, long vacations of several weeks. Yet, stressed individuals are in need of the emotional and physical “re-charge” a vacation can provide now more than ever before. The resulting trend is weekend, spur-of-the-moment vacation travel.
In fact, weekend trips jumped 70 percent between 1988 and 1996 and now account for more than half of all U.S. travel, according to the Travel Industry Association.
With millions of potential vacationers located just a few hours north in the Los Angeles region, it’s no wonder that San Diego is one of the most popular weekend vacation destinations for stressed-out Los Angelinos. Our visitor statistics corroborate that fact: About 33 percent of all leisure overnight visitors to San Diego actually come from Southern California.
– Cultural Tourism And Fine Dining
Gone are the days when travelers selected a vacation destination solely for the sun and surf. Today’s savvy travelers are looking for a wide variety of activities to round out their overall vacation experience. They want to explore the arts and culture of a destination, looking for more “meaningful” tourism experiences with emphasis on education and people contact.
San Diego is truly unique in being able to offer these visitors a plethora of such experiences. The rich Hispanic heritage is evident throughout the region, and San Diego is one of the few cities in the United States offering a “two-nation vacation” by traveling a few minutes south to Baja California.
Our local arts and culture community is vibrant and diverse, inviting the visitor to experience everything from ethnic festivals to first-class museums to cutting-edge theatre during their stay in San Diego.
San Diego’s fine dining scene has also won national acclaim. This past year, chefs representing four local restaurants, Marine Room, Rancho Bernardo Inn, 150 Grand Caf & #233;, and Azzura Point at Loews Coronado Bay Resort, were invited to demonstrate their skills at the prestigious James Beard House in New York City. These four chefs and their respective restaurants were the focus of a feature segment on the “Best of Wine & Food,” a nationally televised series that reaches more than 60 million households.
To help spread the word about San Diego’s rich cultural offerings, the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau developed a first-of-its-kind cooperative marketing campaign, San Diego Art + Sol. The award-winning program, now in its second year, features a four-color brochure and a corresponding Web site, making it easy for potential visitors to add arts and cultural itineraries to their visit to San Diego.
The crowning achievement for this travel market came a few months ago when, for the first time ever, San Diego was named one of the 10 best U.S. cities to visit by readers of Conde Nast Traveler magazine. In a poll of 26,000 seasoned travelers, San Diego showed the sharpest gains in the arts/culture and cuisine categories.
– Ecotourism And Adventure Travel
Ecotourism is one of the fastest-growing segments of the travel industry, increasing at a rate of 30 percent per year. Adventure travel is soaring as well, with 98 million adults across the country having taken an adventure trip in the past five years and 31 million participating in hard sports such as whitewater rafting, mountain biking and scuba diving .
With its ocean, bays, estuaries, mountains, deserts, reservoirs, rivers and wildlife sanctuaries, San Diego County offers the visitor an amazingly wide palette of eco-activities from which to choose. San Diego is truly unique in this respect and has built its reputation on being able to offer the visitor a cosmopolitan experience in a setting of awe-inspiring natural beauty.
– Attracting The Golf Market
With 90 championship courses and a nearly-perfect year-round climate, San Diego continues to attract the burgeoning golf market, another of the nation’s fastest growing niche markets.
One in eight U.S. travelers (12 percent) played golf while on a trip of 100 miles or more away from home in the past year. This translates to 17.3 million U.S. adults.
Even more interesting is the fact that 16 percent of travelers who played golf said that golf was the main reason for taking the trip.
Aware of this trend, ConVis conducts an annual marketing campaign targeted at golfers nationwide, inviting them to enjoy “San Diego: The Sweet Spot for Golf” during the entire month of February.
As you can see, no matter what the current travel trend, San Diego fills the bill for so many visitors seeking exciting and different things to see and do.
And, as a San Diego County resident, you can feel lucky that all you have to do is step out your front door to enjoy one of the nation’s premiere vacation destinations.
DiBona is director of communications for the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau
