Monterey County Convention & Visitors Bureau (MCCVB) 2016-17 Business Plan Outline The following document outlines the direction for the Marketing, Sales, and Visitor Services initiatives for 2016-17.
MCCVB Group Sales Strategy March, 29, 2016 Scott A Wilson Scope & Objectives: The scope of this recommendation will focus on two key goals within the group sales team: Leads & Bookings. The primary objective of the Sales Team is to generate new group business for Monterey County Hotels. The evolution of our sales team and growing relationship with the hotels will turn towards a stronger deliverable for increased booked room nights. The key elements to get to that goal will be quality leads (higher rated and off-peak preferably) and increased hotel response to RFP s. 2015/16 Sales Strategy: Our primary focus this year was to: 1. Go after higher-rated corporate business that would fit into all of the hotels while the Monterey Conference Center was under construction. 2. Continue to generate larger association business for the hotels not affected by the renovation. 3. Continue to grow off-peak business between November and May 4. Increase booking Conversion by: a. Better Quality of leads b. Motivate hotel partners to respond to RFP s c. Better communication on booked business d. Quicker response rate from hotels YTD results from these strategies: 1. Corporate room night growth of 243% YTD over STLY 2. State Association room night growth of 76% YTD over STLY 3. Newly created PACE Report shows off-peak growth opportunity and bookings and every year is ahead of Pace. 4. Booking conversion has grown 9.54% YTD over STLY a. Higher conversion rate shows better quality of leads b. Hotel response rate has increased by 37% c. We show increased conversion every month d. Total room nights YTD are up 79% over STLY
Segmentation & Booking Analysis: (Data is through April 30, 2015) LEADS BOOKINGS UN-BOOKED VARIANCE Segment # Groups # Rms. # Groups # Rms. # Groups # Rms. % Booked Corporate 269 91,204 60 7,626 (209) (83,578) 22.30% Gov t Incentive Int l Assoc. Nat l Assoc. Reg l Assoc. SMERF Sports St. Assoc T&T Total 28 8,916 12 1,902 (16) (7,014) 42.86% 12 1,895 2 107 (10) (1,788) 16.67% 35 28,199 7 2,721 (28) (25,478) 20.00% 115 58,556 22 9,861 (93) (48,695) 19.13% 21 5,818 6 374 (15) (5,444) 28.57% 107 30,299 35 3,491 (72) (26,808) 32.71% 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 118 52,059 52 14,171 (66) (37,888) 44.07% 17 931 8 364 (9) (567) 47.06% 722 277,877 204 40,617 (518) (237,260) 28.25% (Data is through April 30, 2016) LEADS BOOKINGS UN-BOOKED VARIANCE Segment # Groups # Rms. # Groups # Rms. # Groups # Rms. % Booked Corporate 337 127,089 115 26,157 (222) (100,932) 34.12% Gov t 33 11,372 9 1,323 (24) (10,049) 27.27% Incentive 17 1,605 13 966 (4) (639) 76.47% Int l Assoc. 35 23,737 9 2,977 (26) (20,760) 25.71% Nat l Assoc. 106 70,487 34 11,121 (72) (59,366) 32.08% Reg l Assoc. 26 9,748 7 1,037 (19) (8,711) 26.92% SMERF 90 26,298 32 3,836 (58) (22,462) 35.56% Sports 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 St. Assoc 101 34,630 61 24,971 (40) (9,659) 60.40% T&T 25 1,749 11 311 (14) (1,438) 44.00% Total 770 306,715 291 72,699 (479) (234,016) 37.79%
What we can see from these charts There are 32,082 more booked room night than STLY There are only 48 more leads yet a dramatic increase in bookings Dramatic Increase in corporate business booked +18,531 Slight increase in booked National Association room nights (despite MCC closure) +1,260 Large increase in booked State Association room nights (despite MCC Closure) +10,800 Despite a similar amount of leads and a much higher booking percentage we still have over 237k rooms un-booked after nine months Incentive business is a popular segment for our hotels With over 17k less leads YOY in State Assoc. - bookings were 10,800 room nights more which show the higher quality of these leads. Last year the top three segments for booked rooms were: 1. State Association 2. National Association 3. Corporate This year the top three segments for booked rooms are: 4. Corporate 5. State Association 6. National Association Where we need work Keep working with hotels to grow response rate, speed and engagement on RFP s Keep working to grow MCC business for 2018 and beyond Continue to find more groups during need periods months Continued growth in the incentive market segment Where we are doing well Increase in corporate leads Continued focus on delivering leads from the higher rated segments
Continued growth in National & State Association business More bookings from better qualified leads Spreading out the geography from leads Future Recommendations: Since there is already a large gap (237k+) between lead room nights and booked room nights it shows that increasing leads is not a necessary step. However continuing to increase the quality of leads to create more bookings will remain our primary focus in fiscal 2016/17. One of main metrics for next year will continue to be increasing room nights through higher rated business during need periods with an increased hotel response rate to close these groups. Roadmap Activities: Continue to target and prospect the following market segments: Corporate o Pharmaceutical o Financial o High-Tech o Insurance o Telecommunications o Agricultural Incentive National Association Higher Rated State Association Trade Shows: Similar number of trade shows YOY (66/63). Expenses down YOY by $113k because we do not have the expense of a new booth, no opportunity cost and many of the shows are the less expensive Luxury summit shows. Goal is to meet or exceed lead numbers for repeat shows with a minimum of 3 leads at the end of each show with lead growth from there. Client Events: Similar number of client events (40/37) but different events with the exception of the bigger highlight events (i.e. SF Giants game). Expenses down YOY by $38k because we made the events a little smaller this year and some less expensive
events. Continue to hold events in new regional markets changing the type of events to keep clients interests. Continue International involvement with Visit CA sales missions as well as SF Travel sales missions. Work with our East-West marketing partners for China sales missions. Client Event & Sales Mission goals are to meet or exceed lead numbers from any repeat events or a minimum of two leads within three days of the end of the event. Sponsorships: Seven less sponsorships in 2016/17 (33/26) although we are involved in larger more involved partnerships like Helms Briscoe, AMEX, CalSAE, PCMA, MPI, and FICP. Expenses are down YOY by $26k because we are doing less sponsorships. Our goal is to create stronger partnerships with larger industry organizations to not only increase our exposure with meeting planners but to be able to get in front of planners that do not currently know Monterey. There is not a specific lead goal for this segment as the turnaround is longer, however we do track business that comes from these sponsorship segments. Next Steps: 1. Approve budget 2. Develop sales plans by regional territories to target business that our hotels want. 3. Develop new ways to increase hotel response to grow room nights
MCCVB Marketing Communications Strategy May, 3, 2016 Rob O Keefe & Alliah Sheta Scope & Objectives: Marketing Communications will continue the evolution into content marketing personnel and resources are geared to generating and distributing content that is specifically designed to drive overnight visitation Being a content marketing organization involves more qualitative marketing, hence starting in FY15-16, much more emphasis was placed on reaching the right audience (target segments), in the right place (proximity) with the right message (tailored content). This approach will expand in the coming years. There is a trade-off with qualitative marketing for example, it s less important to drive up overall web visits and more important that we attract people to the web who are likely to take a trip to Monterey County. Delicious The 2016-2017 plan will 1. Utilize content marketing to drive engagement qualified web and social traffic 2. Maintain / build upon targeted earned media (ad equivalency) in key feeder markets 3. Build upon/evolve Group and MCC marketing programs 4. Build upon/evolve International marketing in key and opportunistic markets 5. Better utilize and share research and reporting for community/members 6. Increase collaboration with community/members on content marketing and key programs (i.e. Sustainable Moments) Key Goals FY 16-17 Brand Comm Effectiveness & New Brand Index YTD as of April 2015 / Per Month Avg 4.1 / 4.1 Web Visits 1,413,429 / 141,342
Social Engagement 431,630 / 43,162 Targeted Earned Media $40,288,423.61 / $5MM* *Targeted Earned Media = only media in select, top target markets that have a higher propensity to travel to Monterey County Key Metrics FY16-17 Total Earned media (all segments) PR Impressions Journalists Assisted 690 / 75 Facebook Fans 89,392 Twitter Followers 15,110 Instagram Followers 8,218 YTD as of April 2015 / Per Month Avg $40,915,821.30/ $5.6m 42,436,566,445 / 5B Social Engagement 431,620 / 43,162 Visitor Database 50,356 Unique Web Visitors 1,413,429 / 141,342 Room Nights Booked Through Web 1,425 / 142 Unique Website Referrals to members 241,276 / 24,127 Total Page Views 3,338,798 / 333,879 The Overall Plan Includes Three Areas: Paid, Earned and Social Paid - previously paid media was the foundation for our marketing approach with two major promotions per year (Fall & Spring) and a level of on-going media placements. In the next year, paid media will be used more to generate and amplify content engagement. There will still be one major promotion per year (Fall) and the rest of the paid media will be used to spike social media reach and engagement. Earned extending from the new approach started in FY15-16, the primary area of focus for earned media will be on the region/markets with highest potential (in
part determined by proximity). PR focus will also include overall national and international markets, but the primary tracking (goal) will be on targeted earned media (in designated region/markets). In addition, more effort will be made to specifically amplify all earned media through social channels. Social Facebook will continue to be the main area of focus for our social program it is both an excellent channel for content distribution/amplification as well as converting website traffic with high-potential visits. Instagram will also remain a primary channel of focus. Twitter, Pinterest and other channels will continue to be utilized according to the type of content and the users of these channels. Research it s being proposed to evolve the communication effectiveness study into a brand preference index that would be more appropriate to measuring the effectiveness of integrated communications with content marketing as a base (as opposed to having paid media as the base, as in the past) and conducting this measure once per year (at the end of the FY). The visitor profile study would be published at the midpoint of the fee as a summary of the previous CY. Additionally, proposing two event impact studies to further validate the power of events and potentially the growth (e.g. Measure car week again to compare to 2014 measure). Group Marketing this will continue to be a two-prong approach: destination group marketing which will get 75% of the budget, and MCC which will get 25% (noting that mcc will get considerable exposure in the destination messaging). The group marketing plan is guided by Group Sale s input/plan for the next year which involves surrounding tradeshows and other activities with marketing support. The mcc plan will both drive awareness of the new facility and focus on supporting the grand opening in April 2017. International China remains the primary focus with the smaller share of the budget with smaller allocations for Canada and Mexico. Additionally, a portion of $$ will be used for opportunistic which includes the UK and Europe through the newly founded San Jose/Santa Cruz regional partnership.
Geo Markets California Drive Northern Cal, Central Valley, Central Coast, Northern LA region Fly LA, SoCal (Orange, Riverside, San Diego Counties) Short Haul WA, AZ, CO, NV, OR Long Haul TX, IL, NY National (Lifestyle) Group International China, Canada, Mexico, UK Monterey County (Local)
Target Audience PRIZM Segments
The following diagram illustrates the approach MCCVB will adopt. Overarching Campaign Content Bursts Always on Content Choreographed Go-to-Market Approach The Overarching Campaign initiative will be the Fall campaign to include a brand promotion with sweepstakes designed to drive off-season travel. The Content Bursts will be 6-8 (approx.) content activations designed to drive overall and specific awareness, favorability and intent to travel. These could be pop-ups as done in the past or completely different activations but the goal is to drive qualitative awareness and engagement. Always On Content on-going, daily or weekly creation and/or distribution (amplified) content.
FY16-17 MCCVB Visitor Services Goals and Recommendations Visitor Services programs will continue to focus on Room Night Influence. The primary objective of the Visitor Services Team is to generate overnight business for Monterey County accommodations. The key element to reaching our objective will be providing inspirational information to customers that increase their propensity to stay overnight and/or extend their already planned stays. What we learned this year: Walk-in traffic to the Visitors Center continued to decline due to technology and WiFi availability. More walk-in visitors are looking for places to stay (per our survey results) than the previous year. Canada, Germany, France, Australia and China remain in the top ten countries of origin of the Visitor Center s International customers. Satellite Visitor Center opportunities have grown year over year. We are evaluating the overnight influence propensity for each event to ensure maximum return on resource investment. Where we need work: Using resources in the most strategic, efficient and impactful way. Where we are doing well: Influencing visitors to stay overnight and/or lengthen their stay in Monterey County. Meeting and exceeding our customers expectations. Recommendations: Maintain a 55% goal of visitors influenced Continue to track walk-in traffic; add the number of visitors per hour to our metric so that we may allocate resources to activities with the greatest propensity to influence overnight stays Adjust Satellite Visitor Center schedule to reflect strategic impact and ROI