Luring the California ‘Drive Market’
Park City, Utah, hopes that discounted SUV rental rates will persuade Californians to make the 11-hour drive to the ski resort this winter. Arizona’s latest advertisements tell Californians about the state’s wealth of scenic road trips.
It’s the same story in Nevada, New Mexico and other Western states, as tourism officials try to jump-start cash-starved visitor and convention industries by funneling more of their advertising and marketing dollars into heavily populated California.
“Everyone is going after the ‘drive market,’ ” said Bonnie Crail, vice president of marketing for Park City Mountain Resort, which also is dangling reduced lift-ticket and lodging packages in front of Californians willing to drive to Utah. “The definition of ‘drive market’ is rapidly changing. It used to be a local, two-hour drive, but now, it can reach anywhere from the West Coast to Texas.”
California long has served as the engine that powers domestic tourism in Western states rich with natural attractions. “Everyone needs to target California because that’s where the people and the dollars are,” said Los Angeles hotel consultant Bruce Baltin of PKF Consulting. “California is critical.”
The state’s 33.9 million residents grew in importance after the Sept.11 attacks as foreign travelers disappeared and consumers in the Midwest and East stuck close to home. Californians now represent Western states’ best hopes to weather the winter--which could grow even tougher if the economy remains stalled and additional terrorist activity occurs.
“You’ve got a state that’s larger than most countries,” said Billy Vassiliadis, chief executive of R&R; Partners, an advertising agency that creates ads for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. “It’s probably the best tourism market in America.”
New advertising being rushed into California’s major markets echoes the strategies tourism agencies typically rely on as the national economy slows. During the early 1990s, for example, state and local tourism agencies hunkered down and poured their limited advertising dollars into their best markets.
There are some encouraging signs. A survey conducted after Sept. 11 by a ski magazine showed that many younger skiers still were willing to fly. Las Vegas reported a recent uptick in 25-to 35-year-old visitors.
But Western states clearly face a tough challenge after Sept. 11. Consumers usually rein in discretionary spending when the economy stalls. Now, some consumers have cash but aren’t comfortable flying. What’s more, hotel occupancy rates typically slip during winter months.
That’s why states are fighting hard for tourists who can jump into their cars to get away.
Tourism officials agree that they’re unlikely to grab market share during coming months; most are content simply to keep market share stable until the prime tourism season returns and the economy rebounds.
But states that hope to lure Californians will have to get in line.
Californians account for 85% of the domestic travel completed inside the Golden State, so Sacramento hopes to defend against interlopers with a $5-million advertising campaign that will urge residents to “rediscover California” rather than head out of state. Convention and visitors bureaus from San Diego to San Francisco also are asking residents to stick close to home.
Los Angeles’ downtown hotels, for example, are readying special packages that will include room reservations for two and tickets to sports or cultural attractions, with prices ranging from $119 to $299 per night for two.
San Diego’s Convention and Visitors Bureau isn’t abandoning national markets, but the agency is shifting funds to pay for radio and newspaper advertising that will debut in November in Southern California. The county draws more than half of its tourists from California and Arizona, but the new ads “will place an even greater emphasis on our drive market,” bureau Vice President Sal Giametta said.
Individual properties also are fine-tuning marketing messages to reach consumers who aren’t yet comfortable flying.
The Argent Hotel in San Francisco, for example, recently completed a $10-million renovation. The high-end property’s new promotion offers free parking and gasoline for Southern Californians considering a Bay Area getaway.
Other states, though, clearly hope to woo Californians during the winter.
Nearly a quarter of Arizona’s 26.7 million visitors during 2000 came from California, with Greater Los Angeles accounting for 14% of all visitors. Now Arizona is intensifying its overtures; recently, the state said it would reserve $250,000 of a new, $3.3-million advertising campaign specifically for California ads. Arizona officials also hired a public relations firm to drum up friendly coverage from California-based television news crews in Phoenix for baseball’s World Series.
Nevada and Hawaii are the two states with the heaviest dependence upon tourism dollars on a per capita basis, according to the U.S. Travel Data Center. Both states spend heavily to promote their destinations, and both have good reason to increase California media budgets: Southern California regularly generates 25% of Las Vegas’ tourist traffic, and Los Angeles and San Francisco are the top two markets for Hawaii.
Hawaii tourism officials acknowledge that there’s little they can do to get reluctant Americans to book an island getaway. “What we do want to do is effectively promote our destination among those willing to get on an airplane,” said David Preece, vice president for North American markets at the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau.
Some tourism agencies are hesitant to pour their limited funds into the increasingly crowded market--an expensive proposition given California’s media costs. “California is a major geographic market for us, accounting for about 8% to 9% of our visitors,” said Janet L. Green, cabinet secretary for the New Mexico Department of Tourism, which is readying a $200,000 campaign. “But we’re proceeding cautiously. There’s so much clutter in the media marketplace right now.”
Tourist destinations continue to vet advertising messages to ensure that they’re in sync with the stressful times. Some tourism officials say they’re taking cues from New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who appears in television commercials that invite out-of-towners to visit the Big Apple.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Bureau is building on a television campaign introduced this month that offers consumers the “freedom to escape from it all.” The ad, which features a never-released Frank Sinatra recording, will be replaced by spots that feature such well-known entertainers as Penn and Teller and Siegfried and Roy lip-syncing to Sinatra’s voice.
The new round of tourism advertising in Western states comes at a time when destinations gradually had been shifting their emphasis away from four-color brochures stuffed with dazzling photos of gloriously green golf courses, fabulous sunsets and pristine beaches.
Brochures still will include pretty pictures and such tag lines as New Mexico’s “Put Yourself in a State of Enchantment.” But the emphasis is shifting from traditional brand advertising to what’s known as retail advertising.
The cover of a recent Arizona newspaper insert delivered inside California newspapers earlier this month showed tourists winding their way through a field of cactus plants. Inside, the advertisement was stuffed with specific offers from such attractions as the Nelson Fine Arts Center in Tempe and the Scottsdale Plaza Resort.
Advertising will continue to target hometown travelers. Park City recently rolled out advertising aimed at Utah residents living within an easy drive of ski resorts.
Tourism officials also are concentrating more heavily on direct marketing. Hawaii has used print and broadcast advertisements to build a database that includes 300,000 mainlanders who are interested in an island getaway.
San Diego’s new advertising will include postcard-perfect scenes. But messages “will be more of a retail hard sell than you might have seen in the past,” Giametta said. “It will be about the bargains, the values.”
