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HomeMy WebLinkAboutStaff Report 370-09TO: HONORABLE CITY COUNCIL FROM: CITY MANAGER DATE: SEPTEMBER 21, 2009 DEP ARTMENT: PLANNING AND COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENT CMR: 370:09 SUBJECT: Third Quarter 2009 Destination Palo Alto Update This is an information report and no Council action is required. BACKGROUND Destination Palo Alto, the City of Palo Alto's visitorship effort was initiated through a City Council Colleagues' Memo in February 2006. Following the regular meetings of a multi- stakeholder committee, funds were identified and a formal contract for the delivery of services was awarded on October 6, 2008 to the San Mateo County/Silicon Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau (SMC/SVCVB) in conjunction with the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce and Palo Alto Weekly. Visitorship services under the Destination Palo Alto brand began in October, 2008. As a part of the contract, quarterly reports are submitted to the City which detail milestones towards the stated objectives of the contract. The third quarterly report from the SMC/SVCVB was received on July 13, 2009. Following submission of the fourth quarterly report, covering the period from July 1 through Septerrlber 30, 2009, staff will return to City Council with a recommendation to fund the second year of the contract for 2009-10. At that time, milestones and metrics will be focused specifically on Palo Alto and the impact of Destination Palo Alto on local hotels and businesses. Because many events are planned well into the future (often a few years in advance of the actual event), the first year of reporting has been for the entire San Mateo County/Silicon Valley area that the convention visitor's bureau covers. The attached report provides aggregate numbers for leads generated and events booked. DISCUSSION The main focus of the Destination Palo Alto effort in the past few months has been to create important exposure to Palo Alto hotels, restaurants and businesses. The period covered in this report is April 1-June 30, 2009. No figures for the National Senior Games held in Palo Alto in August 2009 are included in this report although efforts to maximize the impact to local businesses has been a high priority in the months leading up to the games. Three booths--two information booths and a City of Palo Alto booth, were staffed by Visitor Center and San Mateo CMR: 370:09 Page 1 of3 County/Silicon Valley CVB employees for the entire 16 days. While assisting tourists, local discounts and Destination Palo Alto brochures were distributed to visitors. The 2nd ever US China Green Energy Forum is scheduled for October 2009 at..the Crowne Plaza Hotel and was mentioned in the last quarterly update. This will be a showcase for Palo Alto's green efforts and will highlight local initiatives and businesses. Attached is the third quarter report for Destination Palo Alto from the SVCVB for City Council information and review. Key milestones in the third quarterly report include: 1. Number of leads generated 2. Potential room nights in leads 3. Total number of room nights booked 4. Percentage of no'n peak/target dates booked F or clarification, each lead is defined as one potential piece of business or one potential meeting or conference. The number of room nights varies from lead to lead. These can vary from one room night to many per lead. Definite room nights are rooms that are actually on the books, or with contracts in place. In addition, the report identifies the number of promotional packages created, fanliliarization tours hosted and other important milestones. Outreach to all area hotels, City Hall, Stanford University's Visitor Center, Stanford Shopping Center and other Palo Alto business districts has been continued and expanded. A number of site visits and familiarization ("fam") tours have focused on legal, medical and religious planners, as well as others. In addition, the international focus of fam tours has been expanded. With Mexican planners as the initial tour participants, additional fam tours with an international emphasis will be scheduled over the next few months. Of special interest, the San Mateo County Film Commission assisted a film maker who shot a piece for the Disney Channel called United Front which includes Stanford University footage. The Destination Palo Alto website has grown exponentially since its launch. The link to Destination Palo Alto on the City's website is live. As noted in the report, visitors to the website have grown from 472 in January 2009 to 1963 in June 2009. Page views have grown from 791 to 7727 for the same period. The report also includes a detailed accounting of advertisements, tours, online pieces, broadcasts and other media outreach and coverage since the last quarterly report. Further specific information on the activities to achieve the milestones identified for Destination Palo Alto is provided on Page 3 of the quarterly report. CMR: 370:09 Page 2 of3 RESOURCE IMPACT The first year of the Destination Palo Alto Visitor Program is funded through an allocation fronl the City's General Fund for FY 08-09. The amount of the funding allocated for the program is based on the expected growth in hotel occupancy that results from implenlentation of the program. The expected growth in occupancy is estimated to be 5 percent, which translates into $240,000. Staff included $240,000 in the 2008-09 Proposed Budget for the Destination Palo Alto Visitor Program. Staff intends for the program to be a two-year pilot with $240,000 for the second year being proposed as part of the 2009-10 budget. ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW This informational report to the City Council is not considered a project pursuant to Section 21065 of the California Environmental Quality Act. ATTACHMENTS A: Destination Palo Alto Third Quarter Report July 10,2009 PREPARED BY: --~~~~~-r--~------------ S anager, Economic Development/ Redevelopment DEPARTMENT HEAD: Ck ~.~ Curtis Williams, Director Planning and Community Environment CITYMANAGERAPPROVAL: ~~ r--- /James ~eene City Manager CMR: 370:09 Page 3 of3 ATTACHMENT A 111 Anza Boulevard, Suite 410, Burlingame, CA 94010 650-348-7600 • 1-800-288-4748 Fax 650-348-7687 info@sanmateocountycvb.com • www.visitsanmateocounty.com Destination Palo Alto Third Quarter Report Submitted to the City of Palo Alto by The San Mateo County/Silicon Valley Convention & Visitors Bureau July 10, 2009 Meeting leads generated (April-June): 93, with a total of 43,800 potential room nights and a potential economic impact of $13,624,131. Definite meetings/events booked: 46, for a total of 61,655 room nights and an economic impact of $30,518,870. Of particular note with regard to booked events was the securing of the first u.S. (and second ever) China-US Green Energy Forum which will be held in October at the Crowne Cabana Hotel. This event will not only bring business to Palo Alto, but will showcase Palo Alto and its green efforts and successes worldwide. The Mayor will speak at the event and City departments will also be incorporated into the forunl. Familiarization tours (Tours of the area with meeting planners and others to familiarize them with the area, its hotels and things to do.) The CVB hosted meeting planners from Washington, DC and the Midwest on a F AM trip of the area in May. The planners' nleetings range fronl legal to nledical to religious meetings and range in size from 10 people to 250. All book multiple meetings every year. Using conservative estimates, the potential economic impact of their meetings, alone, could be as great as $2,266,176. (Additional meeting planner fams taking place July, August and September.) In April, the Bureau hosted our annual media fly-in familiarization tour for travel writers. Among the publications/websites for which they write/broadcast: US Airways and Alaska Airlines magazines; Frommer's California; Up! Magazine; Entrepreneur Magazine travel guides; Restaurant, Food and Travel Show; The Travel Planners Show; Travel'n On Radio; Around the World Travel; Let's Travel Radio; about.com, SwissMade Magazine; www.52perfectdays.com;divorce360.comandTheAntiTourist.This year's focus was arts and culture and included trips to Cantor Center for the Arts and The Gamble Gardens. Their media kits all included multiple pieces of editorial which included things to do and see in Palo Alto. All responses to media requests and proactive pitches of stories to the media have included Palo Alto. Packages created Special "Extend your stay" pdfs were created for the major events coming to town, including the Senior Games, Grad Weekend and Admit Weekend. These pdfs go out in advance of events to attendees in order to entice them to book a longer stay in advance. These have also been shared with the Stanford Visitor Center. In June, a request was sent for, and responding Palo Alto properties included in special packages/discounts for the military. These packages will be sent by the end of July to military travel sites and publications, including one done by a syndicated military newspaper columnist with readership of over half a million. (She has launched a new website and requested these packages.) In May, Palo Alto properties were asked for special offers for distribution to our CTTC (California Travel and Tourism Commission) office in Germany for inclusion in Wetter. com promo in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Wetter. com is one of the largest weather forecast websites in Germany with an average of 4.2 million unique users per month (as of Apr-June, 2009). The editorial ideas we sent in will be used by CTTC as part of their promotion of California vacations. 'Nulllber of visitors to DP A website The new Destination Palo Alto web site has seen an exponential increase in the number of hits and page views since its redesign. The new Destination Palo site statistics are below: DESTINATION PALO ALTO WEB STATISTICS Jan-Feb-Mar-Apr-May-Jun- 09 09 09 09 09 09 Unique Visitors 472 485 363 nla 1532 1963 Page Views 791 648 477 nla 5870 7727 Note: April stats unavailable due to transition to new website. Palo Alto Media Coverage April-June Advertisements featuring Palo Alto (Readership in parentheses): Meetings West magazine and web site (47,600 meeting planners), Smart Meetings (42,166 meeting planners), Group Tour Magazine (15,000 tour operators), ASAE Associations Now (46,000), RCM(7,500 religious meeting planners), Small Market Meetings (9,000 meeting planners), NTA-Courier (30,000 tour operators), and the MPI- Kansas City Annual Membership Directory (19,000). Editorial featuring Palo Alto: • "Northern California Coastal", Meetings West Magazine June 2009 edition, Marlene Goldman (Readership: 26,000 meeting planners) Special Note: An interview was just conducted for a feature on the City of Palo Alto in an upcoming issue. • "Destination Guide: San Francisco Bay Area" Smart Meetings, April 2009 http://smartmeetings.com/destinations/meetin-on-the-dock-of-the-bay (42,166 meeting planners) • "Exciting Things to See and Do in San Mateo and Palo Alto, CA," Jason Rich Travel blog, April 27,2009, http://jasonrichtravel.blogspot.coml2009/04/things-to-see-and-do-in-san-mateo- palo.html In June, the San Mateo County Film Commission assisted a film maker who wanted to organize shooting an Interchannel piece for the "Disney Channel", called "United Front". He successfully shot at Stanford University, working with the athletic department and the Junior Water Polo Association. International fam tour updates: A group of top travel agents from Mexico were given a whirlwind tour of the area and information on Palo Alto. Additional international famswill occur over the next three months. At the international tour operator show, POWWOW, in May, we had a tremendous response to advance appointment requests with tour operators. This was due, in large part, to promotion of our representation of the Palo Also area. As a result, we were able to introduce Palo Alto and Stanford University to tour operators and media for the first time there. Report on average daily spending by overnight visitors to Palo Alto: Because research surveys are coming in extremely slowly from the participating Palo Alto area hotels and Visitor Center, no true picture can be given at this point about average daily spending by visitors to Palo Alto. Survey collection has been extended and Senior Games participants will be surveyed following that August event, so we should have a fairly accurate figure on visitor spending by the next report. The Destination Palo Alto Committee continues to brainstorm ways to improve the rate of survey collection. Miscellaneous Activities for Quarter Three: • Highlighted Palo Alto at event we hosted for meeting planners in Chicago in June; • The operation of the visitor center was continued and nUlnber.ofvisitors is growing. Currently, the center assists approximately 30 walk-in visitors per week, plus several others by phone each day. (When the signage is installed in mid-July, those numbers are expected to grow considerably.) One of those "stop-ins" resulted in the booking of Palo Alto hotel rooms for a religious conference; • Staffed a Destination Palo Alto table during Admit Weekend, disseminating coupons for local establishments and assisting visitors with their needs; • Provided special pdf to camp operators, encouraging parents to stay in the area while the kids are at camp; • Broadened annual photo contest, specifically requesting shots of Palo Alto in our desired shots; t , • Began contacting Stanford department chairs to determine individual possible conferences/synlposia that could be targeted for the area and began targeting those meetings; • Continued dissenlination of meeting leads to Palo Alto properties; • Continued meeting planner site visits to Palo Alto properties; • Continued promoting individual Palo Alto locations to production companies and filming scouts; • Continued our regular "hot rates/dates" eblast, which includes Palo Alto properties, to planners as well as the listing of these hot dates on our website. (Palo Alto properties are also able to list on cvbhotrates.com, thanks to our paid participation.) • Continued Quarterly Destination Palo Alto meetings and Hospitality Committee meetings to ensure all key groups are working together to promote major events and disseminate information. Overall The City of Palo Alto has continued to benefit from broad exposure to meeting planners, individual travelers and the media in the recent (third) quarter. Definite bookings are beginning to materialize from the first months of participation. While outreach to meeting planners and tour operators continued, strong efforts were made to ramp up the Shop Palo Alto efforts aimed at groups. Over 75 discounts have been gathered from stores and restaurants for groups coming to Palo Alto. The new Destination Palo Alto brochure was published in time for distribution at Admit Weekend. (Visitor Center team members stuffed the bags for Admit Weekend with the discounts and new Destination Palo Alto brochures and were on campus offering help throughout the days of the event.) The discounts were also given to, and used by, the Stanford Alumni team for their use during grad weekend and the dining portion of the discounts was distributed by Stanford for its alumni events. (Participating businesses were given decals to post in their windows With regard to the Senior Games, three booths-two information booths and a City of Palo Alto booth-will be staffed by Visitor Center and San Mateo County/Silicon Valley CVB employees f9r the entire 16 days. Local discounts and new, customized Destination Palo Alto brochures will be distributed and attendees assisted on site. As mentioned above, the only challenge we have had is in the research area. We have had a very low number of responses from hotel guests. Please Note: City Staff has been provided with: • (Booking) Pace Report with comparison to prior year (T = Tentative lead; D = Definite booking); and • Hotel occupancy comparison with TOT comparison (by month, year) Attachment: Activities for Quarter Three-Benchmarks Confidential • Four of the meetings booked between April and June were booked by Palo Alto properties, for a total of 4433 rooms. As mentioned previously, the lead time between dissemination of a lead and the actual booking can be months or even a year or more. • PACE Report with comparison to prior year • Hotel occupancy comparison with TOT comparison (by ntonth, year)