TOURISM DEVELOPMENT

As 2023 evolves, the travel industry seems to be taking a more proactive role as it begins to rebuild its resources and gain better understanding into traveler behaviors and trends. Travel has proven its resilience, and leisure travel remains strong even as group travel has begun approaching 2019 levels. 

January and February data for our destination continues to demonstrate positive performance in leisure travel as occupancy remained 4% to 5% higher than the same months pre-pandemic. Leisure ADR shows very little change as evident by January’s $40 increase and February’s $90 increase over those same months in 2019. Group occupancy, however, is continuing to make strong gains with January down only 5% versus 2019 and February 2023 outpacing February 2019 group occupancy. Overall, occupancy in Greater Palm Springs is slowly rebalancing the share between group and leisure travel. 

In this year’s first quarter, the Tourism Development team's programming has included:

• holding virtual meetings with clients in China and the UK via Brand USA,
• promoting our destination's experiences through Visit California’s partnership with GetYourGuide,
• hosting clients at the recent Globetrotter luggage product launches in London and Tokyo,
• participating in the Family Travel Expo webinar with TravPro,
• hosting of client FAMS from the UK and Japan,
• attending several travel trade shows including International Inbound Travel Association, and Visit USA Scandinavia, and
• holding numerous in-person client meetings from our offices in Europe and Australia.

The team will remain busy in the near term by representing Greater Palm Springs and California’s Desert Region at the Travel & Adventure consumer travel show in Texas, meeting key international senior level executives at the California Cup, joining Visit California on their Canada Sales Mission, meeting our airline network planners at Routes Americas, and attending U.S. Travel’s IPW later in May.

Finally, I’m very excited to announce a well-deserved promotion for Joanne Ohanesian, moving from Tourism Development Specialist to Tourism Development Manager. Joanne has been with Visit Greater Palm Springs for 7+ years supporting multiple departments and is bringing a wealth of destination knowledge and client relationship expertise to our team. Joanne’s role will now expand into more areas of our programming, including membership-based travel organizations, tour series, airline reservation call-centers, and niche travel segments including wellness and LGBTQ+. She will also oversee our annual Travel Advisor Appreciation Month and continue her work with Joyce Kiehl on our Desert Region funding program. We are also continuing our search for a Tourism Development Manager for the U.S.A. Latin America and Australia markets.

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