Tourism: Campaign Aimed at California,
Other Western States
As local hotels, restaurants and other tourism-related businesses grapple with the troubled economy, the industry has begun looking with new eyes on the market closest to home: their own back yard.
On Oct. 28, an ad will appear in the San Diego Union-Tribune that launches the industry’s new campaign to residents, encouraging them to book hotel stays, patronize restaurants and visit attractions in San Diego.
The push will be a small part of “Rediscover San Diego,” a $643,000 campaign that involves radio and print ads in markets outside the city paid for by the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau and its members.
According to Sal Giametta, a spokesman for ConVis, 16 percent is being spent on the “Rediscover” campaign’s local element.
San Diego gets 72 percent of its visitors from the 11 Western states and roughly 50 percent from California and Arizona, Giametta noted.
The campaign will emphasize nearby markets, including Orange County, Los Angeles, Northern California, Arizona and Nevada, along with less significant efforts in the other parts of the Western states.
Local Figures
Last year, San Diegans’ role in local tourism, specifically hotel bookings, wasn’t large.
Six percent of the estimated 13.5 million local room-nights purchased last year, a total of 800,000 room-nights, were booked by residents, according to Skip Hull, vice president of locally based CIC Research, Inc.
Hull gets the figure from the close to 50,000 rooms in the market, the availability of the rooms 365 days a year, and San Diego hotels’ average occupancy of 73.8 percent in 2000, which comes from the American Hotel/Motel Association’s research.
CIC does research for ConVis, and has been looking into residents’ approach to leisure travel plans. They are trying to determine whether locals would be receptive to a San Diego-focused campaign, Hull said.
The company conducted a study of 300 San Diego County residents and 400 residents of Los Angeles County.
The research was done between Sept. 29 and Oct. 6 and asked how the events of Sept. 11 affected plans for overnight leisure travel.
At the time, 75 percent of those surveyed said it didn’t affect their plans, Hull said. The remaining percent of those said they now wanted to stay closer to home.
Two-thirds of those respondents preferred to travel within the state, and between one third and one half said they preferred to travel within Southern California.
Additional Study Planned
CIC is planning a follow-up study within the next month, to see how consumers’ perspectives are evolving, Hull said.
The previous survey took place just before the U.S. took military action against Afghanistan and the anthrax scares began, he noted.
“We’re not sure how that changes perceptions,” Hull said.
For restaurants and other businesses affected by the tourism industry’s slowdown, any plan to stimulate business is welcomed.
Bertrand Hug’s upscale restaurants, Mille Fleurs in Rancho Santa Fe and Bertrand’s at Mr. A’s in Downtown San Diego, are highly dependent on guests staying at local hotels.
Compared to last year, sales are off by 17 percent at Mille Fleurs and 20 percent in Bertrand’s, Hug said.
“When tourism is down, fine-dining establishments’ business goes way down,” he said.
Noting his target markets, he said, “We are the business traveler and we are the ultimate tourist, the people who have the money to afford our restaurants.”
Hug, who has created his own promotional packages to target local customers, said he doesn’t know how much impact can be made by a campaign asking residents to patronize San Diego’s hospitality. Still, he encourages the prospect.
At nightclub On Broadway, also located Downtown, sales have been strong as of late, said general manager Jamie Familo.
For a couple weeks after the terrorist attacks, the club saw smaller crowds, but business rebounded quickly, Familo said.
While one reason could be the service, another could be that the year-old club is relatively new to the local entertainment scene, he said.
