Tourism Newsletter for December, 2016
From the Tourism Director
December is my favorite month of the year in Prescott. The lights have been placed on the trees around Courthouse Plaza, the Courthouse itself is decorated and we are all ready for the 62cnd annual Courthouse Lighting Ceremony, the 34th annual Christmas Parade and Frontier Christmas at the Sharlot Hall Museum on Saturday, December 3rd. These treasured events - and many more - help make Prescott Arizona's Official "Christmas City". In addition to the traditional events, new events keep getting added to the list. This year Ice Skating at the Prescott Resort is a great new activity to complement the Gingerbread Village that has been entertaining residents and visitors alike for the past 25 years!
The press has taken note of our "Christmas City" events with some excellent coverage in the Arizona Republic, azcentral.com, Arizona Highways, AAA Highroads and others (see the Media Report below).
One of the ways that we communicate with the press is at media events organized by the Arizona Office of Tourism. On November 17th I represented Prescott at the "Arizona Media Marketplace" meeting with travel writers and editors from around the country. DMO's (destination marketing organizations) from around Arizona were in attendance.
The weekend of December 3rd and 4th we will have two journalists from the Winnipeg Free Press (Canada) visiting us and experiencing our Christmas events and hiking one of our many trails for an article to be published next month. The Winnipeg Free Press has a daily circulation of 500,000 in addition to 170,000 online visitors per day.
On November 10th I participated in a panel discussion about trends in Arizona tourism with representatives from the Phoenix, Scottsdale, Glendale and Tempe tourism organizations at an event hosted by the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association (HSMAI).
Sales Update/Tim McAlphin
As we head into the holiday season things slow down as contacts are out of the office on vacation or preparing for the end of year scramble for business. I spent this month trying to reach as many contacts as I could before they shut things down for the end of the year.
I prepared and distributed my report from the Destination Arizona conference in October with action items to follow up on to acquire new business. Properties should also be following up on these leads as there is business available for Prescott.
With our abundant outdoor space and sports facilities Prescott is an ideal location for sporting events. Sporting events don't require one major property to accommodate everyone attending the event so they can stay at multiple properties. Moving forward we joined the National Association of Sports Commissions (NASC) to get access to open bid events that we can bid on. Once we joined NASC we had access to their current open bids and the opportunity to bid on these programs. I devoted a lot of my time to reviewing these bids and narrowing down specific programs that would be appropriate for Prescott. We will target specific events and send a bid out to try and bring that event to Prescott. In March 2017 we will attend the NASC conference in Sacramento, CA where we will have the opportunity to meet with the primary contacts representing these events.
I attended the MPI monthly meeting at Ak Chin resort and had a chance to look at their multipurpose event facility that served as movie theater, entertainment venue and meeting space. This is something Prescott should consider moving forward to attract new business.
I also attended the HSMAI monthly meeting where tourism representatives from Scottsdale, Phoenix, Glendale, Mesa Tempe and Prescott participated in a panel discussion.
Lodging indicators for October
:
Occupancy: 67.5% (+7.3%), ADR: $100.50 (+6.7%), RevPAR: $67.84 (+14.6%)
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Year to Date: Occupancy: +1.6%, ADR: + 4.3%, RevPAR: + 6.0%
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(ADR: Average Daily Rate, RevPAR: Revenue per Available Room)
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Brochure requests (from advertising) received in November: 4,091
- Subscribers for monthly consumer/trade/media e-newsletters:
26,257
- "Book Direct" referrals to Prescott hotels in November from visit-prescott.com: 334
- Facebook: "Likes": 5,533
- WEB SITES (Main, Tablet and Smartphone): 10,147 Sessions/ 8,844 Users / 32,301 Page Views
Visitor Center
Phone Calls Received:
1306 - YTD: 15,012, Walk-In Guests:
1,980 - YTD: 26,628, International Guests:
47 - YTD: 607
INDUSTRY NEWS
CURRENT STATE OF THE ECONOMY AND TRAVEL
While recent reports clearly show that the economy is not firing on all cylinders, especially with respect to exports, and inventories, which together are dis-proportionally hampering the manufacturing sector and will likely result in a deceleration in fourth-quarter GDP growth, 2015 delivered a number of noteworthy economic achievements for the country: the largest number of new jobs (2.9 million) since 1999; the fastest growth in private sector hourly earnings in more than five years; the lowest unemployment rate since 2007; and the lowest price of oil since 2004. And while gyrations in the financial markets and softening growth in some economies abroad are darkening the outlook in some respects, these storm clouds are being overcome by solid economic fundamentals which should benefit the travel industry in 2016.
LABOR
According to Moody's Analytics, wage growth is expected to accelerate substantially as the economy attains full employment. It may take a while, but wages are ultimately expected to reach a 3.5 percent growth rate.
CONSUMER CONFIDENCE
CONSUMER SPENDING
Coinciding with strong third quarter data, the most recent release concerning personal income and outlays for November remained a positive omen for personal spending looking into 2016.
EXPORTS
STATE OF BUSINESS
The macroeconomic turbulence of late 2015 and early 2016 was felt primarily in the manufacturing sector.
LEISURE TRAVEL
According to the December U.S. Travel Barometer, three-quarters of U.S. residents with near-term travel intent searched for travel within the U.S.
LODGING INDUSTRY
While the U.S. saw the
second lowest RevPAR growth in November 2015, increasing just 4.3 percent that month, it has still grown 69 months in a row.
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