It has been seven months since our world has drastically shifted, particularly within the tourism industry, and we know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. However, as we inch closer towards that light, we ask ourselves what shade of light will we need to conform to as the ‘new normal’ and re-shape our industry.
In August’s e-news we provided you with a detailed analysis of our past visitors that live within our region (Durham, York, and Headwaters), and visitors who travel into the region from 0-400km from the Central Counties boundary. These reports here are based on the collection of 2.5 million visitor postal codes from various stakeholders, events and festivals between 2017-2019.
This detailed visitor analysis allows you to better understand your visitors by painting a graphic picture of your customers, knowing their demographics, media consumption, hobbies, how/where to reach more of them, and much more. Our Data Interpretation Guide will help you read the reports further with examples.
Although we understand our Pre-COVID visitor type, during these difficult times the research tells us that this ‘new normal’ could produce a different type of visitor – for example, those that will feel more comfortable to travel sooner than others. We will continue to look at the research available to better understand your current visitors, observe trends, how the industry is re-shaping itself, and communicate the findings to you through our website and e-news.
In addition to the latest research below, we can help you by offering a FREE quarterly visitor report to help you better understand your current visitors and customers.
To get your FREE quarterly report, you must be collecting postal codes from your current customers and provide them to us to run the data for you. The report provides an analysis of who’s coming to your business in this new COVID environment and a one-on-one meeting to discuss your results.
If you don’t currently collect postal codes, hopefully this is a great incentive to start collecting and understand your visitors based on data (Tom can give you some ideas to start). Due to capacity, there are only 10 available spots for these free reports, please contact Tom if you are interested in this service. Participating businesses will gain valuable insight on their customers and help our region re-shape the visitor profile.
Latest COVID-19 Research:
Latest Hotel Stats:
Though we are still far from 2019 stats, each passing month our percent change in overnight visitation improves by approximately 3-5%. For example, RTO6’s occupancy % for Sept was 1% lower than Aug, however, the percent difference of 2020 vs. 2019 continues to steadily increase month-over-month. Keep in mind that Q2 (July – Sept) experienced record high revenues for overnight visitation. Though the increase in percent change is low, it is in the right direction and encouraging to see light at the end of this tunnel. Click on the links to see the hotel data for York, Durham and CCT region wide data.
As always, if you have any research questions or requests, please contact Tom.
