Destination-Marketing Organization Smashes All Previous Goals, Publishes Leading-Edge Destination-Marketing Plan with New Economic Forecasts
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. – Newport Beach & Company, the official destination-marketing organization for the City of Newport Beach, released the results of its group sales and leisure-marketing efforts for fiscal-year 2016, which ended June 30, 2016. The company booked 159,975 hotel rooms – a 17-percent increase over last fiscal year. Those hotel bookings generated $95.6 million dollars in economic impact to the destination – an increase of 31-percent over the same period last year. According to STR, Inc. – a leader in hotel research and data – those room nights are equivalent to nearly 18 percent of all rooms sold in Newport Beach last fiscal year – an historic high for the company.
By leveraging relationships with leading meeting planners across the nation, the group-sales team booked 88,175 room nights—6,175 room nights ahead of its goal—for an estimated $57 million in economic impact. Over the last eight years, the group sales team has increased its definite room-night bookings by 770 percent from 10,115 rooms in fiscal-year 2009 to the record 88,175 rooms in 2016.
Additionally, through marketing efforts in digital communications, public relations and advertising, Visit Newport Beach elevated the community as a luxury leisure destination among a record audience, resulting in more than 71,800 incremental hotel room nights and $38 million in incremental visitor revenue.
In its new, two-year destination-marketing plan beginning on July 1, 2016 through June 30, 2018, Newport Beach & Company developed a bold roadmap for the next two years with goals and objectives created based on travel trends and economic forecasts through 2018. Click Here to View the Plan.
“We have created one of the most comprehensive destination-marketing plans in the industry,” said Gary Sherwin, president & CEO of Newport Beach & Company. “This 172-page, two-year plan equips Newport Beach hotels, restaurants, retail centers and businesses with leading-edge economic forecasts; our team’s integrated, strategic plans; and a roadmap to build their plans around the destination’s overarching plan.”
In the new plan, Newport Beach & Company forecasts stabilized occupancy rates and solid room-revenue growth in Orange County and Newport Beach hotels for the remainder of 2016 through 2018 with annual average Newport Beach hotel occupancy rates surpassing 80 percent for the first time ever in 2017 and hotel average daily rates increasing a total of 10 percent from 2015 through 2018.
For all of Orange County, forecasts for the remainder of this year show the countywide hotel-occupancy rates to increase three percent and hotel average daily rate to increase 5.1 percent compared with 2015 hotel performance.
In 2015, Newport Beach occupancy rates in hotel rooms averaged 78 percent; but hotel-demand is expected to stabilize in 2016 based on an uncertain economy. By 2017, hotel occupancy rates are expected to exceed 80 percent and by 2018, achieve 82 percent occupancy rate with 965,475 rooms sold – an average increase of more than one percent per year. Average daily hotel room rates will grow at a greater pace between three- and four-percent per year over the next three years, from $237 per night in 2015 to $261 in 2018 per night on average.
“Following a robust rebound of visitors to California since the recession, California expects visitation to moderate to a pace of 2.2 percent growth per year,” said Adam Sacks, president of Tourism Economics. “At the same time, Newport Beach expects to see tempered growth over the next few years for visitors to the city; however, travel spending per party is expected to increase at a faster rate.”
“This comprehensive destination-marketing plan truly sets Newport Beach & Company, Visit Newport Beach, Inc. and our tourism community up for success in the next two fiscal years,” said Sherwin.
For more information please visit www.newportbeachandco.com
About Newport Beach & Company
Founded in January 2013, Newport Beach & Company is a non-profit organization established to serve as the official marketing agency for the city of Newport Beach. The agency brings together all of the marketing entities connected to the Newport Beach brand, and is designed to oversee separate business units that include Visit Newport Beach, Dine Newport Beach, Celebrate Newport Beach, Enterprise Newport Beach and Newport Beach TV. For more information, please go to VisitNewportBeach.com.
About Visit Newport Beach, Inc.
Visit Newport Beach Inc. is a non-profit, 501(c)6 marketing organizations under contract with the City to position Newport Beach as a visitor and conference destination. Visit Newport Beach Inc. sells the destination through direct sales efforts such as database marketing, lead generation, trade show participation, and familiarization tours for potential clients. In addition to these direct sales efforts, VNB promotes Newport Beach through advertising, international, collateral, online public relations and efforts. Visit Newport Beach Inc. is funded primarily by the city through Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT), as well as through a Tourism Business Improvement District (TBID) and private-sector membership dues from the hospitality industry or other related businesses.
