Cheryl Cothran, Ph.D., Director Arizona Hospitality Research & Resource Center, Center for Business Outreach

 Measure how you’re doing  Be accountable to stakeholders  Test assumptions & anecdotal evidence  Plan, Market and Product Development  Track trends over time...

 AOT resources at:  State and national park attendance  County gross sales (AZ Dept of Revenue)  County occupancy, ADR, RevPAR  Local occupancy, ADR, RevPAR (Smith/ STR)  City bed tax collections  Employment data/ hospitality sector (BLS)

 Use local bed tax collections to estimate gross lodging expenditures ◦ $100,000 annual bed tax collection at 10% = $1.0 million in lodging gross sales  Estimate total visitor spending from lodging sales ( if lodging makes up 25% of direct spending, you can calculate total spending - $1m/.25 = $4m )  Estimate percent of county lodging your local lodging sales represent (county = $10m; yours is $4m = 40%)

 Calculate Your Tourism ROI ◦ Divide total tourist spending by amount spent on promotion ◦ $2million visitor spending/$100,000 promotion costs = 20 ROI ($1 in ads = $20 in spending)  ROI from annual promotional campaign ◦ $20,000 ad campaign and total tourist spending increased to $2.5million ◦ $500,000 difference / $20,000 = 25 ROI ◦ Higher than the 20 overall, suggesting the campaign was successful in driving ROI

 Number of available rooms = 5,000  Average annual occupancy rate = 50%  Average number of occupied rooms = 2,500  Annual occupied rooms = 2,500 x 365 days = 912,500 occupied rooms  Average number guests per room = 2  Total number overnight visitors = 1,825,000  Overnight visitors are 50% of all visitors = 3.7 million total visitors (day & overnight)

 Collect visitor information easily  Local staff can do it, inexpensive  Enter into database and analyze  Keep entering & analyzing data  Track patterns over time  Display patterns within this group...  Not representative of all visitors – but the subset that comes to the Visitor Center

 Visitor Profile Survey – demographics, origins  Economic Impact Survey – visitor spending  Event Survey – size & economic impact  Visitor Satisfaction Survey – how to improve  Conversion study – % of inquirers who convert  ZIPCode analysis – e.g., which CA cities...

 Intercept survey of visitors ◦ Attractions with high traffic... random sample ◦ Labor intensive  Mailback survey ◦ Names/addresses - may have to buy list ◦ More expensive, but good results  E-survey ◦ Need addresses of target audience ◦ Best for defined groups

BENEFITS: easy to do, less expensive, quicker PROBLEMS: may not be representative, low response rates, bouncebacks  Survey Monkey ◦ Free... but is web-survey best method?  Other E-survey software ◦ Qualtrics - panel surveys...

 Sample size / validity  How long to survey (seasonal/12 months)  Create questionnaire, properly-worded unambiguous questions  Conduct yourself or outsource?

 What to do with results?  Enter to database (Excel, Access...)  Ability to analyze data? (SPSS, SAS...)  Hybrid? You distribute/ collect... outsource the data analysis or vice-versa

 Local research essential  Shorthand measures you can use  Determine what need to know  In-house or need help?  Do research & be accountable!