Destination Marketing

Visit Greater Palm Springs’ brand campaign “What Will You Find?” targeting leisure travelers continued to run in March, April, and May. And in mid-May, our ever-popular "Check In, Chill Out" campaign was launched.

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

For the months of March, April, and May:

Digital advertising amounted to 62M impressions
Television advertising generated 6.1B impressions and 568K spots
Out-of-home advertising generated 85M impressions
The meetings campaign generated 7.5M impressions

The international campaign promoting Greater Palm Springs in the United Kingdom and Ireland continued to run during this period, with additional results detailed in the international drawer below. This advertising generated 5.05M impressions in March and April.

The meetings campaign generated 3.4M impressions, promoting the “Oasis is Real” campaign. This included e-newsletter, content pieces, digital display, digital video, and social media promotion.

Season Two of the Art & Sol campaign launched in April with new video content highlighting our diverse community of local artists, supported with digital and social media promotion as well as updated blog content on our website.

The summer “Check In, Chill Out” campaign launched in mid-May with refreshed digital assets across all platforms, as well as the launch of our summer television co-op. Production was completed with 10 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, and Tommy Bahama Miramonte), with five non-production partners (BMW Performance Center, Hyatt Regency Indian Wells, Visit Palm Springs, Renaissance Esmeralda Resort & Spa Indian Wells, and Westin Rancho Mirage). Thank you to our partners for their continued participation in this program, which airs in custom markets through August/September across cable, connected television, and KTLA in Los Angeles.

For the second year, we are working on a custom summer campaign with VRBO “an oasis from everyday,” which will highlight content creators in three distinctive vacation rentals in Greater Palm Springs through video content and social amplification. This campaign will launch late in June to promote summer and fall travel. The 2023 this program resulted in 17.5M in future gross bookings for the destination.

This summer, we will also be participating in Expedia’s upcoming national brand campaign, “No Days Left Behind.” We are one of a limited number of destinations featured in this campaign, which will have an expanded reach across the US with high-impact advertising including digital, OOH, website, social media, and PR.

Looking Ahead
In addition to these campaigns, VGPS looks forward to continuing development of a new brand campaign that will debut in fall 2024. Production took place late April and early May in partnership with Starfish Branding Agency.

Our sustainability documentary, focusing on conservation efforts in the destination featuring Friends of the Desert Mountains and The Living Desert Zoo & Gardens, launched on June 5^th in alignment with World Environment Day.

Digital

NEW: A new digital display program with AdTheorent launched in March with custom four-way swipe mobile ad units promoting destination pillar content like Outdoor Adventure, Wellness, Arts & Culture, and Dining. The campaign has generated over 4.8M impressions.

For March, April, and May, Expedia generated 11M impressions from our overall brand campaign as well as our Visit California international co-op running in Canada, Mexico, and the UK. As a result of these campaigns, over 27K hotel room nights and 34K vacation rental room nights were booked for a total of $24M in revene.

TripAdvisor generated 18.2M impressions, resulting in $321K in hotel revenue and a total economic impact of $1.2M.

Sojern’s programmatic display campaign generated 4.6M impressions with 619 room nights booked.

Our Travelzoo partner promotion campaign went live in May with new summer partner deals and offers as well as a refreshed destination showcase page, resulting in 3.8M impressions.

Centro digital display programs generated 11.1M impressions across multiple campaigns. Advertising promoted What Will You Find? and Check In Chill Out Brand campaigns, Oasis of Art, Benefits of Tourism, Nonstop Flights, and Spring Getaways. Additionally, streaming audio with Pandora and a Weather Channel campaign also run via Centro’s platform.

Nativo’s native advertising platform generated 3.1M impressions, highlighting several campaigns including Oasis of Art, Benefits of Tourism, and Spring Getaways, as well as pillar content promoting Wellness and seasonal brand blog content.

We continued to run banner ads in IGLTA email newsletters and on the website, reinforcing our LGBTQ+ friendly meetings and leisure messaging resulting in a total of 79K impressions.

Content programs with Lonely Planet, Locale, and Dogtrekker also ran from March, April, and May, resulting in 1.4M impressions.

Below are dashboards displaying our YTD digital stats. Please note that our May 2024 data has not yet been fully incorporated into these dashboards but will included by the end of June. An arrow in the upper right-hand corner of a box indicates additional information is available. Click to open. 
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 March, April, and May, dedicated vacation rental advertising ran across Centro’s display platform and Nativo’s native advertising platform, generated 6.1M impressions.

Our VRBO vacation rental campaign generated 3.5M impressions and resulted in 26K room nights and $12.8M in revenue.

Dedicated vacation rental TripAdvisor advertising, including off-platform Rove placements, generated over 3M impressions.

NEW: A vacation rental-dedicated program with Sunset Magazine launched this spring with digital display advertising, email newsletter inclusions, and social media, generating 83K impressions.

NEW: A high-impact digital campaign with Undertone launched in May, highlighting vacation rentals with a “brand reveal” drop-down ad unit. The campaign generated 2.6M impressions.
Television

During the months of March, April, and May, television impressions amounted to 6.1B impressions and 568K spots. Television tactics included cable, connected television, and Canadian Broadcast Network (Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, Winnipeg).

Television markets included our year-round and seasonal drive and fly markets (Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Salt Lake City, Portland, Denver, Dallas, New York, Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, Austin, Boise, Chicago, Eugene, Houston, Minneapolis, and Canadian markets including Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Vancouver, and Winnipeg). In addition, we are continuing to run television in one-stop markets (Kansas City, St. Louis, Omaha, Washington D.C., and Indianapolis). In mid-May, television tactics switch to year-round fly and drive markets only.

Our Check-in, Chill-out summer television co-op campaign began to roll out in mid-May and has generated 1.04B impressions thus far across KTLA, Spectrum Cable, and connected TV. Co-op spots can be viewed HERE.
Billboard

For March, April, and May, total billboard impressions amounted to 85M.

Events promoted with billboard support in March, April, and May include Palm Desert Food & Wine, Fashion Week El Paseo, Cathedral City LGBT Days, and Game-A-Con at the Palm Springs Convention Center.

EXAMPLES OF BILLBOARDS FROM THIS REPORTING PERIOD ARE BELOW.
Meetings

Greater Palm Springs meetings media continued in March, April, and May. 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 7.5M impressions, and included digital display advertising, content stories, social media and email blasts via Centro, Connect, Conference Direct, Northstar Meetings, Small Market Meetings, California Meetings & Events, Smart Meetings, AdTheorent, Meetings Today, USAE, ASAE, MPI, and Nativo.

NEW: AdTheorent, which also launched as part of our consumer marketing tactics, was implemented as a four-way swipe mobile ad unit as well, highlighting meetings blog content, air service information, and a call to action to submit an RFP.

NEW: Nativo was also newly implemented during this timeframe, after seeing success with consumer audiences. Native ads target meeting planners online with recent blog content and generated over 1M impressions in April and May.
International Marketing

Greater Palm Springs’ international media plan targeting UK travelers continued to run digital and social media advertising in March, April, and May and will continue throughout 2024. During March and April, advertising generated 5.05M impressions and nearly 3,000 conversions.

An expanded media plan continued to run during the spring in partnership with Brand USA and Visit California throughout Canada, the UK, Germany, Mexico, and France.

While campaigns are still in progress, initial results show strong results with over 7M impressions for our Visit California x TripAdvisor campaign in Canada, Mexico, and the UK (including high CTRs over 3 times the benchmark). Brand USA’s Optimized Audience campaign in Mexico delivered over 2M impressions and over $111K in attributable bookings from our campaign. Additional results will be included in future board reports as campaigns finalize.

EXAMPLES OF INTERNATIONAL MARKETING FROM THIS REPORTING PERIOD ARE BELOW.