2016-2017 Annual Report...Visit Corvallis Annual Report 2016-2017 4 Occupancy & Average Daily Rate...

2016-2017 Annual Report

Mission Statement

Visit Corvallis’ mission is to strengthen Corvallis and Benton County economies by marketing the area as a desirable destination for meetings, conventions and corporate travel, as well as leisure travel, through collaboration and partnerships, resulting in increased occupancy tax and revenue.

Visit Corvallis is the recognized destination marketing organization for the city of Corvallis. Our goal is to create long-term demand for Corvallis and Benton County as a destination through collaborative partnerships, outreach marketing and comprehensive product knowledge.

Table of Contents

Highlights from the Year: FY 2016-2017 4

Marketing & Advertising 4

Occupancy & Average Daily Rate 4

Visitor Services 5

Travel Trade & Conference Services 6

FY 2016-2017 Grants 6

Social Media and Website Analytics 7

FY 2016-2017 Lodging Industry Performance 8

Benton County Travel Impacts & Visitor Volume 8

FY 2016-2017 Financial Results 9

FY 2016-2017 Board of Directors 10

FY 2016-2017 Visit Corvallis Membership 11

Appendix A: Marketing and Advertising Results 12

Appendix B: Lodging Industry 15

A Message from the Executive DirectorIn 2016 we ran a digital marketing campaign with

Madden Media. The campaign began in March and ran through September. We had three stories created which generated over 3,700,000 impressions. Overall click through rates were .18%. With social media anything that generates between .05% and .10% is considered a very successful campaign.

We also continued our partnerships with TripAdvisor, Beaver Sports Properties, KEZI, Willamette Living Publications and Travel Oregon. Our Social Media Coordinator has also kept up a busy presence on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all the while maintaining our website.

By far the two biggest projects of the year have been preparation for the total solar eclipse and the re-structuring of the Regional Destination Marketing Organizations in the state. In February of 2017, I was selected to present our testimony on why the Willamette Valley Visitor Association should retain its status as the official designee of funds distributed by Travel Oregon. We were awarded the contract and that has resulted in significant re-structuring of our organization. It does present a really exciting time for us all with many opportunities ahead.

We have hosted three travel writers this spring resulting in some excellent and diverse coverage from Epoch Magazine in the Bay area (Corvallis was their favorite stop), Long Haul Trekkers (who featured biking), and two vegans with dogs (did a piece on dog friendly destinations).

The weather and other concerns have provided us with some interesting challenges this last year resulting in occupancy being down slightly (.04%). However ADR has

continued to increase (7.8%).

It is an honor to submit the 2016-2017 Annual Report for your review. We are so looking forward to this coming year. We have some great changes ahead!

Sincerely,

Mary Pat Parker, Executive Director

A Message from the PresidentIt has been an honor to serve as the President of the

Board of Directors for Visit Corvallis this last year.

It’s been really interesting serving on this Board of Directors as this is totally out of my professional purview - except financials, of course. I have learned a lot about tourism and how it fits into overall economic development.

Thank you,

Jenn Humcke, President

Visit Corvallis Annual Report 2016-2017 4

Occupancy & Average Daily Rate

Month Occupancy % Over 2015 ADR % over 2015

July 2016 Down 4.8% Up 7.4%

August 2016 Up 5.8% Up 5.2%

September 2016 Up 1.0% Up 3.8%

October 2016 Up 1.0% Up 15.5%

November 2016 Up 5.6% Up 2.4%

December 2016 Down 10.7% Up 4.5%

January 2017 Up .03% Up 2.5%

February 2017 Down 4.7% Up 2.8%

March 2017 Down 7.4% Up 4.8%

April 2017 Down 7.3% Down 7.8%

May 2017 Up 4.5% Up 14.5%

June 2017 Up 5.5% Up 3.7%

* Statistics courtesy Smith Travel Research.

Highlights from the Year: FY 2016 - 2017Visit Corvallis partnered with the Historic Preservation

Commission to create a new geocaching tour and commemorative coin.

We created the first Farm-to-Table Dinner Series for Linn and Benton counties. We hope to make this an annual event.

Visit Corvallis featured Bellhop at Feast Portland in September 2016.

We worked extensively with Travel Oregon in building the new plan for Regional Destinations Marketing Organizations.

Visit Corvallis presented to Leadership Corvallis with Heart of Willamette Winery Association President, Brett from Cascadia Expeditions and Scott West from Travel Oregon.

Mayor Traber appointed Mary Pat Parker as the point person of coordinating all agencies in Benton County about the Eclipse. PIO reps from the City and the County stepped into to assist. It was an “all hands on deck” project from January on.

Mary Pat Parker served on the bike path meeting committee to develop a path from Corvallis to Albany.

Visit Corvallis worked with many travel writers and industry partners to host travel writers and other influencers. Many thanks to Holiday Inn Express, Block 15 Brewing, Cascadia Expeditions, 4 Spirits Distillery, Tyee Cellars, Garland’s Nursery, Forks & Corks Catering, Cardwell Hill Cellars, Gathering Together Farm, Lainey Morse, and too many others to mention, for assisting Visit Corvallis in hosting these writers and partners.

Marketing & AdvertisingLast year we ran several campaigns to promote Corvallis

and Benton County through social media, television and print advertising.

We ran a successful campaign with Madden Media. It received over 11,000,000 impressions with click-through rates ranging between .19% to an all-time high of .32%.

We also ran a Seven Wonders campaign on KEZI and their social media platforms. In print we ran ads in Oregon Wine Magazine, the Travel Oregon Visitor Guide, Willamette Living Magazine and Portland Metro Magazine, Portland Monthly, Adventure Outdoors, Northwest Travel & Life and Meeting News Magazine.

Results from our TripAdvisor campaign are not available as of this writing. For more information about these campaigns, see Appendix A.


Visitor ServicesThe Visitor Services Department’s essential role in the distribution of the visitor information and promotion of

Corvallis led to more than 45,335 visitor interactions and/or information fulfillments throughout the year.

The Visitor Center is staffed by a Visitor Services Director and one volunteer. It is open Monday - Friday year round, and on Saturdays during the months of July and August.

DistributionVisitor Center 4,828

OSU, Events, Festivals, misc. businesses 3,536

Corvallis Lodging Properties 4,025

Welcome Centers, DMO, Chambers of Commerce 3,400

Maps to Lodging Properties 4,325

Table Tents to Area Restaurants 3,570

FulfillmentResponse to Leads 18,672

OtherHistoric Homes Trolley Tour 2016 7

Trolley Tour Riders 175

Visitor Geo-AnalysisVisitors who drop in to the Visitor Center are randomly surveyed. The charts below represent the results. These

results are for visitors who came in to the Visitor Center and should not be considered a full geo-analysis.

Will you be staying in a hotel?

Yes 41%

No 59%

Where are you from? (Top 5)

OR 34%

CA 16%

WA 9%

CO 9%

TX 4%

Why are you here?

Relocation 39%

Vacation 10%

Passing Through 21%

Friends & Family 14%

OSU 2%

Business 1%

Day Trip 13%


Travel Trade and Conference ServicesBrandi Ebner provided information about group travel

to the following companies:• Beijing Beiao International Travel Service

• Spirit of the West Magazine

• Gujarat Travels

• Beijing UTour International Travel Service

• Mice Magazine

• NuVu Traveler

• U.S. Commercial Service - Singapore

• Tourico Holidays - AK, OR, WA

• Great Training & Tours

• Sichuan China Youth Travel Service

• Tobu Top Tours

• Tourico Holidays - National Parks/Tucson/Sedona/Flagstaff

• Allegiant

• Albatros Travel

• Wooridoori

• BriKrae

• Viator, a TripAdvisor company

• Beijing Shougang International Travel

• Tourico Holidays - West Central

• Beijing Global Tour International Travel Service

• Viajes Espana

• Air Link Travel

• EverGreen Escapes Cascadia

• EASA Guatemala

• Avitours L’aliaXa Travel Network

• Chengdu Harmony International Travel Service

• Diadema

• AMERICA Journal

• Andar de Viaje Magazine

• Essentially America Magazine

• China Youth Travel Service Dalian

• Clipper Vacations

• CHD / Chinese Host

• BMI Publishing Ltd./Selling

• Meeting News Northwest magazine

Brandi assisted with conferences, meetings, and conventions, or provided RFPs to:

• National Association of Sports Commissions Sports Events Symposium

• Oregon Cattlemen’s’ Association 2019 Convention

• The Great Northwest Challenge Rugby tournament

• Class reunion

• Oregon ASA annual softball tournament

• 2018 Oregon Amateur Basketball tournament

• Group dinners during MHI convention

• Equis Feed annual veterinary nutrition seminar

• Annual Nonprofit Organization Board Training

• Fireball Run Adventurally

• Medtronic board retreat

• Center for Non-profit Stewardship meeting rooms

• Oregon Special Olympics

• OSU’s Annual Golden Jubilee celebration

Brandi represented Visit Corvallis at:• GoWest Summit

• Oregon Sports Marketing Coalition

• Travel Oregon’s Agri-Tourism network

• Oregon Travel & Tour Alliance

• Travel Oregon’s Outdoor Recreation Committee

• Meeting Planners International - Oregon chapter

• Oregon Society of Association Management

FY 2016-2017 GrantsIn addition to our usual support of the Red White & Blue Riverfront Festival, the Corvallis Fall Festival, Rhapsody in

the Vineyard, Septembeerfest and others, we have given grants to Oregon State Gymnastics, Campeones de Salud, the Boys & Girls Club of Corvallis, the Corvallis Half Marathon and Crescent Valley High School Baseball.


Social Media and Website AnalyticsIn FY 2016-2017 we maintained active social media presences on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+

and Tumblr. We had almost 30,000 fans across our social media platforms. Facebook provides the majority of our fan base, with Twitter and Instagram coming in distant (although growing) seconds.

In FY 2016-2017, across our entire social media presence, we had over 5 million impressions on our social content, over 50,000 instances of engagement (likes, shares, comments, retweets, etc.) on our content, and over 40,000 link clicks from our content back to our website or to content hosted by partner and member websites.

According to Google Analytics, in FY 2016-2017 we had 232,636 sessions on our website, from 159,735 users, resulting in 617,842 page views. Users visited an average of 2.66 pages per session, and the average session duration was one minute and 25 seconds. Our bounce rate is almost 33%, and almost 67% of sessions on our site were new sessions.

For reference, a session is the period of time a user is actively engaged with our website.

In 2016-2017, 46% of our traffic came from mobile users, 44% from desktop/laptop users, and 10% from tablet users.

Ninety-five percent of our web traffic comes from within the United States, with Russia and Canada far distant seconds, driving less than a percent of traffic each. Within the U.S., the top five locations originating web traffic for our site are Oregon (66%), California (10%), Washington (8%), Texas (~1%) and New York (>1%).

Our events calendar, attractions, dining, lodging and Seven Wonders pages were our most popular pages in 2016-2017, representing about 37% of the pages visitors browsed while on our site.

VisitCorvallis.com sent over 40,000 visitors back to member and partner websites through link clicks in 2016-2017. The top receivers of that traffic were Alder Creek Cottage, the Best Western Grand Manor Inn & Suites, DowntownCorvallis.org (for two different event listings), and various properties listed through VBRO.com.

* In Sept. of 2017 we discontinued one of two Twitter accounts, our Tumblr account and our Pinterest account due to lack of engagement, click-throughs and fan growth, so their statistics are not reflected in this chart.


FY 2016-2017 Lodging Industry Performance

July 2016 - July 2017

Occupancy YTD Average Daily Rate Rev. per Available Room Revenue YTD Change

2017 2016 2017 2016 2017 2016 2017 2016

-1.1% 4.1% 4.2% 7.7% 3.0% 3.3% 3.1 10.4

* Statistics courtesy Smith Travel Research.

Benton County Travel Impacts and Visitor Volume

Travel Indicators

Visitor Spending Impacts

Amount of Visitor Spending that supports 1 job $62,420

Employee Earnings generated by $100 Visitor Spending $31

Local & State Tax Revenues generated by $100 Visitor Spending $5.40

Visitor Volume (2015p)

Additional visitor spending if each resident household encouraged 1 additional overnight visitor (in thousands) $4,265

Additional employment if each resident household encouraged 1 additional overnight visitor 68

Visitor Shares

Travel Share of Total Employment (2014)* 3.4%

Overnight Visitor Day Share of Resident population (2015p)** 4.4%

* Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bureau of Labor Statistics. Estimates by Dean Runyan Associates.

** Annual Overnight Visitor Days divided by (Resident Population)*365.

“Visitors who stay in private homes typically comprise the largest share of overnight visitor volume. Visitors who stay overnight in commercial lodging typically have the greatest economic impact. There is substantial variation among destinations, however. Most rural and suburban areas have high shares of private home visitation. Urban areas tend to have greater shares of hotel/motel stays.” - Dean Runyan Associates.

* For more information on Benton County Travel Impacts, see Appendix B.


2016-2017 FY Financial Results

Ordinary Income/Expense July 2016 - June 2017

Income

City of Corvallis $544,800.00

Co-Op Advertising Revenues $2,500.00

Co-op Promotions Income $1,640.00

Income: Misc $54,969.82

Interest Income $20.49

Membership $9,338.35

Refund $102.00

Relocation Packets $927.00

Souvenir Income $61.00

Total Income $614,358.66

Gross Profit $614,358.66

Expense

Administration $58,488.99

Conferences/Education $1,638.33

Marketing: Advertising $115,785.84

Marketing: Community Relations $1,098.00

Marketing: Contract Services $7,800.00

Marketing: Dues $6,280.00

Marketing: Entertainment $412.00

Marketing: Festivals $17,208.00

Marketing: Internet $6,662.22

Marketing: Media Relations $54.99

Marketing: Postage & Shipping $10,100.23

Marketing: Printing $2,220.00

Marketing: Promotions $4,673.07

Marketing: Research $2,000.00

Marketing: Sales Trips $6,109.86

Marketing: Sports Grants $4,470.50

Marketing: Visitor Services $3,029.05

Payroll Expenses $215.25

Personnel $296,245.82

Total Expense: $544,492.22

Net Ordinary Income $69,866.44

Net Income $69,866.44


FY 2016-2017 Visit Corvallis Board of Directors

Officers & Executive Committee

Jennifer Humcke, President & TreasurerOregon State Credit Union

Scottie Jones, Vice PresidentLeaping Lamb Farm Stay

Kate Lynch, SecretaryForks and Corks Catering

Lainey Morse, Past PresidentLainey Morse Photography & Original Goat Yoga

Directors

Scott AlexanderWillamette Life Media

Caitlin BeachThe Hotel Group

Alexandra EderFernwood Circle Guest House

Chris HeuchertBlock 15 Brewing

Tom JohnsEmerson Vineyards

Holly JonesCorvallis Knights

Shanan Le Bre4 Spirits Distillery

Cindee LolikFirst Alternative Co-op

Marti Staprans BarlowHospitality Vision

Erin O’Shea SnellerOregon State University

Linda Van PowellCivic Outreach, Inc.

Lisa WarrenTown & Country Realty

Ex-Officio Directors

Tom NelsonCity of Corvallis

Melody OldfieldUniversity Marketing, Oregon State University

Brad WebsterCorvallis Chamber Board President

Joan WessellDowntown Corvallis Association

City Liaison

Barbara BullCity of Corvallis


FY 2016-2017 Visit Corvallis Membership

Alder Creek Guest Cottage

Applegate Cottage

At Home in Oregon

Benton County Fairgrounds

Best Western Corvallis

Best Western PLUS Prairie Inn

Blue Bird Hill Farm B & B

Brooklane Cottage

Cascadia Expeditions

Comfort Suites Corvallis

Corvallis Budget Inn

Corvallis Chamber of Commerce

Corvallis Country Club

Corvallis Custom Kitchens & Baths

Corvallis Depot Suites

Corvallis Fall Festival

Corvallis Furniture

Corvallis Pedicab

Corvallis West End Suite

Corvallis-Albany Farmers Markets

Cyrano’s Bookbinding

Days Inn

Donovan Guest Houses

Downtown Corvallis Association

Econo Lodge

Elmer’s Restaurant

Eugene Airport

Faulconer Development/Apex Realty

Fernwood Circle Guest House

First Alternative Co-op

Five Star Sports

Galaxie Motel

Garland Nursery

Hanson Country Inn

Heart Of Willamette Wineries

Hilton Garden Inn

Holiday Inn Express

Hospitality Vision

KEZI TV

KOA Kampground

Lainey Morse Photography

Leaping Lamb Farmstay

Lewisburg Guest Suite

Majestic Theatre

Mudslinger Events

OSU Alumni Association

Peak Sports

Rodeway Inn

Running Princess Apparel

Samaritan Health Services

Sibling Revelry

Starker Forests, Inc

Stash, LLC

Super 8 On The Riverfront

The Arts Center

The Clothes Tree

The Corvallis Clinic

The Inkwell Home Store

University Inn

Valley Catering

Van Buren Court

W.I. Construction, Inc

Windermere Willamette Valley


Appendix A: Marketing and Advertising Results



KEZI 7 Wonders Ad CampaignTV RecapMonth: Station Budget # of Spots Station Budget # of SpotsOctober: KEZI 9 $1,100 22 ME TV $400 80Nov. KEZI 9 $1,275 42 ME TV $220 109Dec. KEZI 9 Off ME TV OffJanuary KEZI 9 $1,275 63 ME TV $225 127February KEZI 9 $1,275 60 ME TV $225 162March KEZI 9 $1,275 70 ME TV $225 140April KEZI 9 $1,275 71 ME TV $225 131TOTAL: KEZI 9 $7,475 328 $1,520 749The KEZI 7 Wonders campaign ran April-October of 2017.

October (General image 7 Wonders commercial): 93,524 Impressions, 2.5 Retargeted, 157 Total Clicks, 6 VTC, 151 Clicks to Website

November (Downtown Corvallis commercial): 285,369 Impressions, 432 Total Clicks, 44 VTC, 388 Clicks to Website, .15 CTR

December: Campaign break

January (Finley NWR commercial): 121,540 Impresions, .6 retargeted, 217 Total Clicks, 209 Clicks to Website, .17 CTR, 201 Clicks to Website, 1 to Twitter, 7 Calls from Mobile Ad

February (Covered bridges commercial): 102,666 Impressions .4 retargeted, 165 Total Clicks, .16 CTR, 2 VTC, 153 Clicks to your Website, 1 to Twitter, 9 Calls from Mobile Ad

March (HOWW commercial): 114,648 Impressions, 7.1 Retargeted 184 Total Clicks, 15% increase to website, 24 VTC, 138 Clicks to website, 1 Facebook, 1 Twitter, 1 Map Download, 18 Calls from Mobile Ad

April (Alsea Falls): 86,530 Impressions, 254 Total Clicks, .20 CTR, 81 VTC, 165 Clicks to website, 1 to Facebook, 2 Map downloads, 5 Calls from Mobile Ad

October Total Additional Impressions: 104,053, 73 Clicks

Nov. Total Additional Impressions: 147,609, 69 Clicks

Dec. Total Additional Impressions: 85,222, 61 Clicks

January Total Additional Impressions: 79,529, 40 Clicks

Feb. Total Additional Impressions: 78,031, 50 Clicks

March Total Additional Impressions: 84,388, 56 Clicks

April Total Additional Impressions: 79,662, 57+ Clicks


Appendix B: Lodging Industry

2016-2017 Annual Report...Visit Corvallis Annual Report 2016-2017 4 Occupancy & Average Daily Rate...

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