Alliance Shares New Tourism Comparison Study

Monday, October 04, 2010

The Greater Williamsburg Chamber and Tourism Alliance recently announced the results of a tourism analysis it commissioned earlier in the year comparing Williamsburg to other comparable destinations in the country.

The study offers a look at how Williamsburg has performed compared to other destinations, and not all the news is good. At the end of the study, Hess offers a series of strategies that make a tourist destination successful (based on his research). The Alliance feels that Williamsburg’s tourism industry currently employs most of the strategies already, with one main suggestion on a new strategy the local tourism marketing group should try.

“We were pleased to see that much of what Dr. Hess found to be working well at these competitive destinations is already underway here in Williamsburg, as indicated on the matrix developed by the Marketing Resource Task Force in summarizing the study's conclusions,” said Vice President for Tourism Bob Harris.

Williamsburg Tourism

According to the study, Williamsburg experienced one of the largest increases in tourism in 2007 over 2006, gaining a little over 6 percent based on room demand (this was the 2007 celebration of the Historic Triangle's 400th anniversary), and experienced the highest and most dramatic drop in tourism in 2008 versus 2007, dropping more than 14 percent, a loss more than double that experienced by any other comparable location.

In the three-year period from 2006 through 2009, Williamsburg was still by far trailing the pack with a drop in room demand of over 13 percent, still more than double all the other comparable locations.

Compared to the same destinations mentioned above, in 2009 Williamsburg had the lowest average occupancy rates and the lowest revenue per available room, and nearly the lowest average daily rate.

Some good news on the tourism front, the study found, is Williamsburg trails only Orlando and St. Augustine, Fla., in average number of nights at a destination (3.7 nights per visit).

Like Orlando, most people come to Williamsburg for entertainment and sightseeing – more so than the comparable destinations. Generally, Asheville and Charleston were the best in 2009 at attracting business visitors.

According to Harris, this is notable because, “while most of us think of Charleston, Savannah and Virginia Beach as being very popular for leisure travel, they also enjoy a significant corporate/business base that attracts business travelers not just for conventions, which Williamsburg does not have. And that naturally affects hotel occupancy levels, as business travelers generally stay at hotels as opposed to other lodging.”

Williamsburg also attracts a significantly higher percentage of high-income travelers than the comparable destinations, with 52 percent of visitors between 2007 and 2009 earning over $75,000 per year.

Many hoteliers have grumbled that timeshares are taking their business. The destination study seems to bear that out, showing that Williamsburg has a significantly higher use of these facilities than other destinations, with 22 percent of room nights between 2007 and 2009 going to timeshares. This translates into lower use of hotels and motels, according to the study.

Conclusions

The study goes on to examine in-depth the marketing strategies and various tourism metrics in Savannah and Asheville based on interviews conducted with representatives of each area’s visitors bureaus.

Hess concludes that most successful destinations have a long-term marketing strategy, have a well-defined target tourist and connect with the value-oriented tourist.

Other traits successful locations have include the ability to develop and communicate the meaning of the brand for the destination and to defend the brand by maintaining consistency and a plan to develop new destination drivers and to create an “experience” for tourists.

Forming a strong relationship with media both in print and online is also important, and so is communicating successes and pushing a social media agenda.

Implementing the Study’s Conclusions

The Alliance created a spreadsheet of the study’s conclusions and what suggestions could be implemented in the future, along with what suggestions are already in use. The Alliance commissioned the study for the Williamsburg Area Destination Marketing Committee, a group of tourism and locality leaders who make decisions on how to spend the $2 additional room tax collected in the Triangle solely for marketing the destination.

Asheville has a similar room tax to fund tourism, and a similar committee to oversee the marketing of the area. There are “many” members from the hotel industry on Asheville’s committee, according to the study.

The spreadsheet can be found here in its entirety.

The sheet offers examples of how the marketing arm for WADMC, called MRTF, already uses many of the study’s suggestions.

One example, according to Harris, is that “the WADMC destination campaign and website… emphasizes the experiential and emotional aspects of our destination for families, and also provides a growing number of vacation packages that provide value as well as fun for visitors - a great opportunity for our area's hospitality and attraction partners.”

Based on the study, the Alliance suggested developing a three- to five-year revenue forecast for preparing marketing plans.

According to Priscilla Caldwell, the operations director for the Williamsburg Hotel Motel Association’s tourist information center, “We think that Dr. Hess's findings are most relevant to helping our destination advance and have invited him to present them to our membership at the fall meeting.

“The Association has received inquiries from tourism business operators regarding the Hess Study and want to do our best to disseminate the information so that the community as a whole can achieve a better understanding of the situation and formulate goals to improve tourism here.”