THE VALUE OF TOURISM: Part II

By: Jim Chadderdon, Executive Director for Discover Klamath Visitor & Convention Bureau

In last month’s KCEDA newsletter, we talked about the value of tourism in Klamath County. At nearly $150MM annually, inbound visitation to our area provides new monies to local businesses that then recirculates through our local economy several more times.

Let’s take a closer look at who is visiting and where and how they are spending money.

Visitors typically stay (i) In private residences, (ii) in hotels/motels, (iii) Other – e.g. camp. 41% of all Klamath County visitors stayed in private residences in 2014, 31% stayed in hotels/motels, and 28% stayed elsewhere.

What’s interesting is that visitors who stay in hotels spend a lot more than visitors who stay in private residences. 57% of all monies spent were by the 31% who stayed in lodging. Only 26% of total visitor spending was done by the 41% of people who stayed in private residences.

Here’s how visitors spent money in 2014:

• Lodging:  $  27.2MM
• Restaurants:  $  34.5MM
• Grocery/Convenience Stores:  $  14.1MM
• Local Transportation & Fuel:  $  17.9MM
• Arts, Entertainment, Recreation:  $  17.9MM
• Retail Sales:  $  17.3MM
• Other:  $  12.6MM

—————————————————————————–

Total Spending:  $141.5MM

Also, we need to distinguish between “Overnight Travel” and “Day Travel”. Klamath seeks more “Overnight Travel” because these people obviously stay longer and spend more on accommodations, food and beverage, etc…  In 2014, the “Day Travelers” (in and out of Klamath in a single day) were 19.7% (20%) of total visitor dollars, whereas “Overnight Travelers” generated 80% of tourism dollars. This has implications to how and where tourism marketing occurs. Event Managers may wish to target communities a little further away, such as Bend, Coos Bay, Reno, or Redding versus closer communities such at the Rogue Valley where we are more likely to attract the single “Day Traveler”.

A stat that shows how well tourism is working is the figure that captures how long visitors stay in Klamath. A few years ago the average visit was 1.9 days. In 2014 that figure had risen to 2.6 nights per visit. Not surprisingly, there are behavioral and spending differences between those who stay in lodging versus those who stay in private residences. The former stays an average of 1.9 nights, whereas the latter spends 3.0 nights. Since we know lodging visitors spend more than residential visitors, it should be a goal to increase the length of stay among those who stay in lodging. For those who own or manage lodging properties the implication is clear: you should be encouraging multi-day visits by packaging visitation with other things such as restaurants, events, day-trips, etc… Clearly, getting lodging visitors to remain in town longer has extraordinary financial rewards.

In 2014, Klamath benefitted from 2,062,000 overnight stays. That was up +2.2% versus 2013. Private Residence visits were up slightly more than lodging visits (3.0% vs. 2.0%). The average person in lodging spent $92/day and $173 per trip in Klamath, whereas those who stayed in private residences spent $32/day and $96 per trip.

The Bottom Line: Analyzing visitor habits and spending habits gives us good insights as to how tourism efforts are working. At this point the big picture looks good for Klamath County tourism as more people are visiting and discovering our area. At nearly $150MM annually, and 1840 jobs, tourism is an economic driver in Klamath County and its importance is growing.