STR Tracking for Sonoma County
Things to Note:

  • STR is comparing “Weekly Year Over Year”
  • 49 of the county’s 112 hotels report to STR
  • The average from other destinations includes: Napa, Palm Springs, Monterey, South Lake Tahoe, and Vallejo/Napa Valley
  • For more information on how data is calculated due to hotel closures, please refer to this document.
Smith Travel Research (STR) is the recognized leader in hospitality industry benchmarking around the globe. Powered by the world's largest hotel data sample, they deliver confidential data, accurate and actionable insights, and comprehensive solutions to empower decisions. Discover how STR collects data, how it is calculated, and a glossary of terms, by clicking here . 
Today's Takeaways
From SCT's director of marketing systems & insights, Ariane Hiltebrand
This week, Destination Analysts are seeing improvements for several travel sentiment metrics thanks to positive news about vaccine developments and stabilization of new virus cases in some of the biggest U.S. “hot spots.” By now, masks and social distancing are widely accepted and expected safety measures among American travelers. 88% now use masks which is up from last week, and the vast majority expects travel providers and destinations to adhere to strict safety measures.
When asked specifically about which lodging type travelers perceive as most safe, 51.2% chose luxury hotels, followed by 3-4 star hotels, followed by campgrounds and RV parks. The other lodging types have a bit more work to do in convincing travelers that their properties are safe as well.

Communicating and adhering to strict protocols should be the number one messaging priority for travel providers above all other marketing messaging. Other than that, road trips versus air travel and regional trips versus long-haul trips jumped up to their highest popularity points since early March for most travelers who are still traveling in August and fall. 
Destination Analysts Key Findings to Know
From the 7/26 Destination Analysts' Travel Sentiment Report
  • A few important travel metrics positively increased this week: excitement for near-term travel, openness to travel inspiration, and the number who say they will take a trip in 2020.

  • 18.2% of American travelers anticipate their next road trip will be in August.

  • The profile of those that recently traveled by air skews younger, urban dwellers that typically traveled for business and conventions in the pre-pandemic period.

  • Those that have recently traveled by air largely rate their experience with the health and safety protocols implemented by their airline and the airports as satisfactory.

  • More Americans are now agreeing with pandemic etiquette and say they will practice it when traveling, including wearing a face mask.

  • Nevertheless, the marked stress Americans are feeling during the pandemic remains a parasite on travel morale.

  • Overall, half of American travelers agree they have lost their taste for travel for the time being—a feeling more pronounced in Baby Boomers and those in the West and Northeast.
Website Insights for sonomacounty.com
Looking at the week of July 17 - 23, traffic to sonomacounty.com is stable compared to the prior week. Top content that people were engaging with was the coronavirus info page , Life Opens Up summer campaign page, and editorial about beaches, outdoor activities, nature parks, coast, Russian River, Lake Sonoma and redwoods, glamping and camping, wineries, gardens, and road/bike trips.


In terms of city geo locations for website visitors, we see our key drive markets on top of the list: San Francisco is the top source for website visitors with a share of 17% (unchanged), Sacramento is #3, San Jose moved up to #4, Oakland #5 , and Los Angeles is #7. We saw 2 out-of-state cities in the top 25: New York and Chicago.