Destination Marketing

Visit Greater Palm Springs’ summer brand campaign “Check In. Chill Out.” which targeted leisure travelers, concluded in September, coinciding with the launch of the new “Escape Your Ordinary” campaign. This new campaign included a full refresh of all creative assets across television, digital, print, out-of-home, and social media.

Target markets included our year-round drive markets and seasonal fly markets (Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Atlanta, Chicago, Washington DC, Minneapolis, Dallas, Denver, Oakland, San Jose, Salt Lake City, New York, Houston, Boise, and Eugene) as well as one-stop markets including St. Louis, Omaha, Indianapolis, and Kansas City. Our Canada markets included Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto and Winnipeg.

For the months of September and October:

Digital advertising amounted to 26.7M impressions
Television advertising generated 4.3B impressions and 369K spots
Out-of-home advertising generated 137M impressions
The meetings campaign generated 5M impressions

The Escape Your Ordinary brand campaign successfully launched at the end of September. This included a full refresh of our assets across all advertising channels and platforms to include our newly produced video, digital, and social content.

Additionally, we completed another successful year of our popular summer television co-op, with a total of 15 partners and 10 newly produced spots, which concluded in September. In total, the summer season generated over 10B impressions across cable, KTLA, and connected TV for our participating partners, in addition to digital and social added value promotion.

Our international campaign generated 6.7M impressions and 1,609 conversions in September and October, promoting Greater Palm Springs in the UK and Ireland. Looking ahead to 2025, we plan to continue our dedicated international advertising efforts with Finn Partners, including additional efforts targeting the German market. Additional results are detailed in the drawer below.

Looking Ahead
We look forward to continuing to review results from the new Escape Your Ordinary campaign throughout the Winter/Spring 24-25 season, with strategic updates to campaign creative and imagery to optimize performance. The preliminary results have shown increased click through rates, engagements, and video completion rates.

Additionally, in Q4 we are excited to launch the second phase of our participation as a featured destination in Expedia’s national brand campaign. This second phase includes Greater Palm Springs as a “detour destination,” part of their “Unpacked ’25 Trends” Report which highlights travel trends for the upcoming year. This campaign includes PR efforts and advertising across digital, social, out-of-home, and across Expedia’s platform.

In late 2024 and early 2025, we plan to expand the reach of the Escape Your Ordinary campaign across new and returning advertising partners like AdTheorent, Lonely Planet, Afar, Undertone, Clicktivated, and Sunset Magazine.

In the fall, Visit California and Brand USA debuted their latest co-op offerings, which included several new options. We look forward to continuing efforts across Expedia, Sojern, and TripAdvisor as we have in the past, both domestically and internationally. New programs that will launch at the end of 2024 and into early 2025 include AdTheorent, Booking.com, and Hopper, in addition to participating in Brand USA’s international campaigns in the UK, Canada, Germany, Mexico, and France.

Digital

NEW: A new campaign with Fodors launched in August and continued in September and October, utilizing high-impact digital placements across their site. This campaign generated 1.8M impressions and 3,246 clicks in September and October.

For September and October, Expedia generated 6.1M impressions across all of our campaigns, including our brand creative on Expedia and VRBO platforms, international campaigns in Canada/Mexico/UK, and our participation in Expedia’s “No Days Left Behind” national brand campaign. As a result of these efforts, over 25,000 hotel room nights and 19,900 vacation rental nights were booked for a total of $18.8M in revenue.

In September and October, TripAdvisor generated 1.3M impressions, which resulted in $295K in hotel revenue and a total economic impact of $895K.

In September and October, Sojern’s programmatic display campaign generated 2.1M impressions, and as a result 361 room nights were booked equating to a total economic impact of $5.4M.

Our Travelzoo partner promotion campaign continued for September and October, and resulted in 8.1M impressions and over 15K partner clicks. We look forward to re-launching our Destination Showcase page in early January.

Centro generated 2M impressions inclusive of multiple campaigns, including our brand campaign, Oasis of Art, Benefits of Tourism, and LGBTQ+ campaigns.

Nativo generated 944K impressions, highlighting campaigns for Oasis of Art, Benefits of Tourism, and our new Escape Your Ordinary campaign.

We continued to run banner ads in IGLTA’s email newsletters and across their website, reinforcing our LGBTQ+ friendly meetings and leisure messaging, with more prominent placements as we look forward to our destination hosting the organization’s 2025 global conference. These advertising efforts resulted in a total of 37K impressions.

Content programs continued with DogTrekker, SpaFinder, and Locale Magazine, highlighting our destination pillars including dog-friendly travel, health & wellness, and late summer/early fall travel. These programs resulted in 1.8M impressions.
Vacation Rentals

Vacation rentals are incorporated into our overall consumer marketing campaign year-round. This includes television spots, out-of-home, social media, digital video content, and blog content/articles.

In addition, dedicated digital programs drive to the vacation rental landing page on the Visit Greater Palm Springs website. In September and October, dedicated vacation rental creative ran across Centro, Nativo, TripAdvisor, and Sojern, totaling 1.2M impressions.

Our VRBO vacation rental campaign in September and October generated 3.8M impressions and resulted in 19,800 room nights and $10.2M in revenue.

Results were also compiled for the full VRBO summer campaign (July-September), which included a custom landing page, video assets, and digital and social support filmed at three vacation rental properties throughout Greater Palm Springs. The full campaign was successful, resulting in a $107.8:$1 return on ad spend, generating 1.9K room nights and $14.2M in gross booking revenue. Social media impressions reached over 11.1M with over 125K clicks.
Television

During the months of September and October, our television campaign amounted to 4.3B impressions and 369K spots. Television tactics included cable, connected television, and KTLA (Los Angeles). Television markets included our year-round drive and some fly markets: Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Dallas, Denver, Oakland, San Jose, Salt Lake City, New York, Houston, Boise, and Eugene. Our Canada markets included Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, and Winnipeg.

Our Summer Chill television co-op campaign concluded for all partners in September, resulting in over 10.1B impressions for the season. This season included 15 co-op partners: Agua Caliente Casinos, Agua Caliente Cultural Plaza, City of Desert Hot Springs, City of Indian Wells, JW Marriott Desert Springs, The Living Desert Zoo & Gardens, Omni Rancho Las Palmas, Palm Springs Preferred Small Hotels, The Ritz-Carlton Rancho Mirage, Tommy Bahama Miramonte, BMW Performance Center, Hyatt Regency Indian Wells, Visit Palm Springs, Renaissance Esmeralda Resort & Spa Indian Wells, and Westin Rancho Mirage.

In September and October, fall television co-op campaigns began with Palm Springs Preferred Small Hotels and Agua Caliente Casinos, generating 426M impressions. These campaigns will continue to run through the end of December.
Billboard

For September and October, total billboard impressions amounted to 137M.

Events promoted with billboard support during this timeframe included Cinema Diverse, The Epson Tour, Greater Palm Springs Pride, Desert Air, Run with Los Muertos, McCormick’s Car Auction, Props & Hops, and the Cathedral City Hot Air Balloon Festival.

EXAMPLES OF BILLBOARDS FROM THIS REPORTING PERIOD ARE BELOW.
Meetings

Greater Palm Springs meetings media continued in September and October.

Throughout the duration, the new “Oasis is Real” campaign targeted meeting professionals with the overall goal of motivating group business bookings.

The meetings advertising earned 5M impressions and included digital display advertising, content stories, social media, and email blasts via Centro, AdTheorent, Northstar, USAE, Connect, California Meetings & Events, and MPI.
International

Greater Palm Springs’ international media plan targeting UK travelers continued to run digital and social media advertising in June, July, and August, generating 6.7M impressions and 1.6K conversions.

International campaigns were also confirmed with Brand USA and Visit California in Canada, the UK, Mexico, France, and Germany for an early 2025 debut.

EXAMPLES OF INTERNATIONAL MARKETING FROM THIS REPORTING PERIOD ARE BELOW.