DIGITAL ANALYTICS

For the reporting period of March, April, and May, there was a notable year-over-year increase of approximately 35% in users and sessions to the Visit Greater Palm Springs website. Top landing pages during this time include meetings, getaway offers, the What Will You Find campaign page, home page and things to do. There were also increases in sessions from organic search (~5%), organic social (~100%), and referral sessions (~20%). 

Highly engaged sessions during this period were at 406k+, a 22% increase YOY. 

In addition, the website achieved substantial success in terms of user engagement, with:

• 163,765 partner referrals
• 2,501 visitor guide downloads
• 1,140 e-newsletter sign-ups during these months

March–May 2024
Users and sessions saw increases by 47% and 39% when compared to 2023. Sessions spiked on March 9 and can be attributed to organic traffic to the events and BNP Paribas Open event along with the Things to Do and Hiking & Trails page. New this month, the California landing page (utilized in UK advertising) was in the top 10 landing pages, with ~6,400 sessions and a 41.3% engagement rate. Organic search saw a spike in traffic on April 27 and April 28, with users landing on the Stagecoach lineup and festival landing pages.

2024 Annual Goals
From January 1 through May 31, 2024, VGPS has reached 126.74% of the 2024 YTD users goal, 127.54% of the YTD sessions goal, 121.05% of the YTD highly engaged sessions goal, and 112.84% of the YTD qualified sessions goal. 

Time to Fly
From March to April, VGPS ran a Time to Fly campaign with 30 variations of geo-targeted dynamic landing pages promoting nonstop flights to PSP. The landing page was the sixth highest ranking page with 3,406 sessions during the time period.

Restaurant Week
The Restaurant Week page launched with the first sign ups in March and the traffic in May peeked on the first day of Restaurant Week with 3,900 sessions and a total of 101 restaurants signed up for viewers. 

Summer Travel
The Check in, Chill out campaign is supported by the Summer Travel landing page, which was relaunched on May 15. The dynamic page includes partner coupons, summer itinerary inspiration, events, and summer co-op videos. In May, the page has had 2,614 sessions.

See the Summer Travel landing page here.

Email Updates
For the months of March to May, the consumer and dineGPS newsletters exceeded the industry average for open rate (35.8%) and well as click to open rate (4.4%), driving higher than average traffic to the website.

In March, April and May, 10 new blogs were created (shown below) and 57 blogs were updated. A few of the new blogs to the site include: 

1. Dining Experiences at Golf Course Restaurants and Resorts
2. The Galleri Classic Preview
3. The Perfect Palm Springs Vacation Rentals with ACME House Company
4. The Best Guided 4x4 Tours in the California Desert
5. Dog-Friendly Vacation Rentals in Greater Palm Springs
6. The Best Places to Stay in and around Joshua Tree
7. Best Spots in Greater Palm Springs for Outdoor Live Music
8. A Journey through the Visual Arts in Greater Palm Springs
9. Everything You Need to Know about Memorial Day in Greater Palm Springs
10. Summer Travel Tips For Greater Palm Springs

LOOKING AHEAD
Looking forward to the upcoming summer months, the VGPS digital team will continue to support campaigns such as Summer Travel and Summer Eats Pass as well as monitor to optimize website traffic, engagement, and conversion metrics through relevant content and optimized campaigns. 

In June, Visit Greater Palm Springs will be launching a new cookie management option through vendor, OneTrust domestically and internationally on the website. The team will observe traffic from the acceptance or denial of cookies from users to the site. The team will also be relaunching the ArtsGPS app as a Visit Greater Palm Springs app later in June. 

Below are dashboards showing our year-to-date total website traffic, engagement, and conversion rates.