TOURISM DEVELOPMENT
Each year at this time, the Tourism Development team thoroughly reviews the latest data to assess the impact of our efforts over the past year and strategize the optimal allocation of resources for the upcoming year.
Lingering economic concerns have continued to weigh on traveler’s minds as more than one-third of middle-income consumers say that cost concerns impact their willingness to plan a trip. According to Hoteldive.com, U.S. hotels saw weaker than expected Q3 performance as occupancy rates for all location types in Q3 remained below 2019 levels. Our STR data mirrors this weaker demand with leisure occupancy at 38.4% through October versus 40% last year at this time. This reduction is also seen in our Visa cardholder count across our top domestic markets who are mostly experiencing flat or slightly reduced numbers.
Visa cardholder count is painting a better picture for us when it comes to our international markets. Overseas source markets have combined for a year-over-year gain of +14.2%. Canada is the lone outlier in this positive international trend with a decrease of -3.9% year over year. The “persistent gap” between outbound and inbound international travel continues to be a headwind for U.S. hotel occupancy growth, according to CBRE. In the third quarter, outbound international travel was 20% above 2019 levels, while inbound traveler volume was 13% below 2019 levels.
Our domestic markets have been a high priority for Tourism Development this fall as we have conducted sales missions in Portland, Seattle, Washington DC, and New York. Additionally, we have attended American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA) events in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Virginia. Attended the annual AAA Travel Conference in Carlsbad as well as the National Tour Association’s (NTA) annual Travel Exchange.
ABOVE: Visit GPS Tourism Development Manager, Oleg Nakonechny, presenting client gifts during Pacific Northwest sales mission.
ABOVE: Visit GPS Tourism Development Manager, Joanne Ohanesian, attending AAA conference in Carlsbad, California.
In the international markets, we recently partnered with Visit California and multiple Visit USA committees to conduct destination trainings in Korea, China, Japan, UK, France, Germany and India. We attended Brand USA’s Travel Week in London, traveled to meet key clients in Mexico City and Guadalajara and hosted destination visits from clients traveling from Belgium, Canada, Scandinavia, Mexico, Australia and France.
From our clients, we continue to hear great interest in the events coming up in the USA in the next few years – World Cup, Olympics, Route 66 anniversary – and other experiences unique to the U.S. Sustainable and luxury travel seem to be trending high among European travelers as well as sports, in general. To help capture more visitors, we are excited to host important travel trade conferences such as Go West Summit in January and GTM West in June. In addition, we have begun actively promoting the Tourism Exchange, in partnership with Brand USA and Visit California. Tourism Exchange is a B2B digital marketplace that connects inventory and availability from tourism businesses like yours with a diverse marketplace of OTAs, travel distributors and international buyers. The goal of this program is to help online businesses increase distribution and visibility and help offline businesses become bookable online for the first time.
To close out 2024, we will be attending ILTM in France, and the Travel Counsellors Annual Conference in Manchester, UK. Finally, we are partnering with Porter Airlines to host travel advisors in conjunction with the airline’s inaugural flight from Toronto along with coordinating another client FAM to celebrate United’s inaugural flight from Washington Dulles.
