TOURISM DEVELOPMENT

Despite the rise of the Delta variant, average hotel occupancy for May, June and July was down only 5% to those same months in 2019. Meanwhile, occupancy for our short-term vacation rentals increased 187% in the same time comparison. Palm Springs International Airport also started reaching pre-pandemic levels in May with passenger records broken in June and July. However, our most recent occupancy data from August may signal an alignment with most forecasts pointing to a jagged tourism recovery.

As border closures, travel restrictions and vaccine hesitancy continue, our travel trade resources remain focused on key regional and domestic direct flight markets as we have slowly begun efforts to meet in-person with our top clients. Since June, we have met with travel advisors at Travel Weekly’s Global Travel Market (GTM), ASTA's (American Society of Travel Agents) Global Conference, and our hosted events in Los Angeles and San Diego. We also attended several travel trade association events in Southern California. In the coming months we will be meeting with clients at U.S. Travel’s IPW, at GTM West and in San Francisco.

Virtual events are remaining relevant, and we have recently completed programs with ACTA (Association of Canadian Travel Agents), UK-based Travel Counsellors and with TravPro Media. In addition, our online training modules through Brand USA and Visit California continue touching thousands of travel professionals in almost 400 companies across 10 countries.

This period of uncertainty is stimulating very high levels of inspiration, research and trip planning from travelers in our overseas markets. Now is the time to maintain our presence and awareness as the question is not “if” they return, but “when” our international visitors return to Greater Palm Springs. Trade representation from our UK and German offices returned in August to begin the small strategic steps needed to capture important off-season business and we remain hopeful other international efforts can restart soon.

Finally, we are excited to welcome Joanne Ohanesian to our team as the Tourism Development Coordinator. Joanne has been with Visit Greater Palm Springs since 2001 and was most recently in the Marketing Coordinator position. She brings a wealth of destination and industry experience to our department, and we look forward to benefiting from Joanne’s support and guidance.  

If you have any questions about Tourism Development, please contact:
Gary Orfield, Director of Tourism Development​
gorfield@gpscvb.com | 760.969.1335