Visit Stockton Quarterly Report - October 2021

QUARTERLY REPORT 2021 | JULY • AUGUST • SEPTEMBER SAVE THE DATES

A LETTER FROM THE CEO Welcome to Fall!

As we enter the 19th month of our pandemic journey, we continue to be amazed by the resiliency and determination of the hospitality industry. We are hearing encouraging news from many of our hospitality partners, but we still face ongoing workforce concerns and supply chain issues slowing down our region’s recovery. We are optimistic that many of these challenges will begin to wane in mid-2022, and our partners can resume normal business operations.

The Stockton hotel industry is still trending in the right direction as the recovery-focused marketing investment from Visit California continues to pay dividends statewide, especially in the non-urban and highway destinations. This coupled with many people still enjoying the flexibility of their remote work and increased disposable income, Stockton continues to reap the benefit. Data for the hotel community continue to be positive with room demand above 2019 levels since March 2021, and average daily room rates for August were $17 more per night than August 2019. Additionally, the latest credit card data shows that visitor spending in July and August 2021 exceeded that of 2019. While it is too early to call this a recovery, it is a fantastic opportunity to make up for losses experienced in 2020. Hopefully in 2022, with the return of youth sports, corporate, and group travel, we will see these trends continue.

The Visit Stockton team stayed continually active this past quarter. With the assistance of San Joaquin County Tourism Recovery funds, we kicked off the San Joaquin County Farm Trail, our latest check-in challenge experience focused on supporting the agritourism industry in our county. Learn more on the next page. This funding from the county is also supporting increased marketing to support the Stockton Airport. September also brought back our first large event, Stockton Brew Fest, at its new location in Downtown Stockton. We are incredibly pleased with the support from over 1,000 attendees, the generosity of our brewery partners, delicious food from our local food trucks and great local music. Proceeds from this event are shared with the Stockton Sports Foundation.

The quarter ahead is going to be just as amazing as Visit Stockton has a few great new initiatives launching as we head into the new year. Stay tuned! As always, we are here to serve and support our partners and the Stockton community. If you are seeking a partnership, have feedback or ideas you would like to share, or just have a question, please do not hesitate to reach out to me personally.

Wes Rhea, CTA, CDME Chief Executive Officer

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CURRENT EFFORTS

UPCOMING DATES

Stockton Art Trail Stockton is fortunate to be home to incredible creatives and an abundance of outdoor artistic masterpieces. To celebrate, Visit Stockton is launching the Stockton Art Trail! With over 50 pieces highlighted on our mobile passport (and more added regularly), the Stockton Art Trail provides a map to some of the City’s most celebrated public, sculptural, and mural artforms. The mobile passport allows users to track their progress across the trail, and to sweeten the deal, Visit Stockton will be awarding “I Love Stockton Arts” mugs to the first 50 people to check into 10 locations. For more information on the Stockton Art Trail, visit stocktonarttrail.com.

Destination Innovate

STOCKTON ART TRAIL LAUNCH October 18, 2021

In August, Visit Stockton began working with Destination Innovate, a destination marketing agency, after conducting a social media audit of our paid social strategy. DI is helping our organization reach more people in avenues we have yet to explore, including Pinterest, and expanding the awareness of our community outside our regular targeting. Since we began working with DI, our Visit Stockton Pinterest page has gone from 4k monthly views to over 600k monthly views, a nearly 15,000% increase! We look forward to our first metrics update call with Destination Innovate that will take place mid-October.

2022 Wall Calendar Visit Stockton is bringing back our much-coveted wall calendar for 2022.

To engage our audience and collect community generated content, we are hosting a month-long photo collection contest. Every-other day, we

STOCKTON RESTAURANT WEEK Early 2022

are posting on Facebook and Instagram asking for photo submissions that relate to our content themes and events through our Crowdriff collector tool. At the end of October, we will randomly select 12 winners (one for each month) and award them with a gift certificate to a local restaurant! This program is meant to excite our audience for their chance to have their pictures featured in the calendar, and is an extremely economical approach to growing our photo library for future projects. To follow our photo contents, check-out Visit Stockton’s Facebook and Instagram pages!

ONGOING PROGRAMS

STOCKTON ARTS WEEK Spring 2022

Stockton Taco Trail On April 2, 2021, Visit Stockton launched the Stockton Taco Trail, a mobile-exclusive pass that allows users to explore dining options, check-in, and win Stockton Taco Trail prizes. Over 50 restaurants, taquerias, markets and food trucks are featured in the program, the largest collection of mouthwatering tacos and treats ever assembled in the city’s history! To date, we have had over 2,800 sign-ups and 2,100 check-ins. The Stockton Toco Trail will run through December 31, 2021, and you can sign-up to start checking-in at stocktontacotrail.com.

Stockton Savings Pass The Stockton Savings Pass, a free mobile coupon book, continues to be a free advertising opportunity for businesses. Last summer, Visit Stockton increased promotion of the pass to both businesses and residents, and we are currently revamping the Stockton Savings Pass, including onboarding new businesses and promotions. Efforts to stimulate spending in our city will continue via this valuable tool as we continue to move forward past recovery and into the new normal. If your business is interested in being included on the Stockton Savings Pass, or to sign-up for one of your own, visit stocktonsavingspass.com.

San Joaquin County Farm Trail San Joaquin County farms and agricultural experiences offer some of the world’s best produce and most enjoyable agritourism offerings in California.

Thanks to a generous grant from the San Joaquin County Tourism Recovery Campaign, Visit Stockton gamified our popular Farm Stands & Markets in San Joaquin County Guide with the San Joaquin County Farm Trail. With over 40 stops, the San Joaquin County Farm Trail digital passport amplifies the recovery efforts of one of the region’s largest industries, supports family and locally owned businesses, and lets users track their trail progress for a chance to win an exclusive “Greatness Grows Here” tote. The first 250 people to check into 5 stops along the trail will receive a tote, and the game runs through December 31st (or until prizes run out). For more information and to register for the San Joaquin County Farm Trail, visit sanjoaquinfarms.com.

SPORTS & EVENTS Upcoming Events:

Recent Bids Submitted:

• Visit Stockton Pacific Invitational October 21-23, 2021

• USA Racquetball Jr Olympics – 2022 • USA Artistic Swimming 12U Championships – 2022 • NCAA Water Polo Opening Round Game - December 2021

Recent Awarded Events: • American Cornhole Organization Tournament - 2022

CTA Looking Back

TOTAL CTAS CERTIFIED SINCE 2013 – 727 CTAS

CTA Lunch & Learn at Stockton Civic Theatre: The CTAs received a guided tour of the Stockton Civic Theatre with Artistic Director, Dennis Beasley. Following the tour, the group enjoyed lunch directly on stage.

Upcoming Events

Lunch & Learn at The Children’s Museum of Stockton - November 16, 2021

TRADESHOWS & CONFERENCES UPCOMING TRADESHOWS AND CONFERENCES: S.P.O.R.T.S. the Relationship Conference October 11-13 Tourism Academy October 13-15 SportsETA Symposium October 25-28 Adobe MAX Virtual Conference October 26-28 Crowdriff SEE 2021 Virtual Conference November 2 US Sports Congress December 3-7

Website Updates

CTANetwork.com was released with a new web design and programmer. The home page boasts Stockton CTAs in front of the Buddhist Temple in downtown Stockton. CTAs can now renew and make payments all in one place online.

CalSAE Seasonal Spectacular December 12-18

We are expecting to host our next CTA class on OCTOBER 27, 2021, so please reach-out to christa@visitstockton.org for more information.

WEBSITE STATS: VISITSTOCKTON.ORG JUL. AUG. SEP. TOTAL SESSIONS: 71,164 Up 72.48% from 41,260 in July 2020

PAGEVIEWS: 112,895 Up 87.39% from 60,247 in July 2020

SESSIONS: 82,801 Up 99.68% from 41,466 in August 2020

PAGEVIEWS: 127,473 Up 119.22% from 58,148 in August 2020

SESSIONS: 98,112 Up 125.85% from 43,446 in September 2020

PAGEVIEWS: 147,620 Up 142.31% from 60,923 in September 2020

SESSIONS: 252,087 Up 99.80% from 126,172 in July-September 2020

PAGEVIEWS: 387,988 Up 116.37% from 179,318 in July-September 2020

SOCIAL MEDIA VISIT STOCKTON

Likes: 58,107 as of 9/30/2021 (up 269 from 6/30/2021 )

@VISITSTOCKTON

Followers: 22,173 as of 9/30/2021 (up 456 from 6/30/2021 )

@STOCKTONCA

Saves in Q3: 262 as of 9/30/2021 (up 321 from Q2)

@VISITSTOCKTON

QUARTERLY REPORT | 2021

JULY • AUGUST • SEPTEMBER

Followers: 3246 as of 9/30/2021 (up 1317 from 6/30/2021)

Total Likes: 6565 as of 9/30/2021 (up 2691 from 6/30/2021)

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Participate in one of events that benefit the less fortunate in our community.

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IN REVIEW

MEET THE TEAM Stockton Beer Week and Stockton Brew Fest Returning to Downtown and the first time at Weber Point Events Center, Stockton Brew Fest was held on September

Wes Rhea, CTA, CDME Chief Executive Officer wes@visitstockton.org | 209.938.1555

artist vendors, 6 food trucks, and 3 musical performances in

Christa Griffith, CTA Office Manager & CTA Program Manager christa@visitstockton.org | 209.938.1555

beautiful weather backed by the Delta breeze. In our post-

Special Events

11, 2021. We hosted over 1,100 attendees, 30+ beer labels, 9

event survey, an overwhelming majority of people said the attend a Visit Stockton event again in the future, and that they were likely to attend more events in

Rebecca Scharmann, CTA Events & Community Engagement Manager rebecca@visitstockton.org | 209.851.3096

Downtown Stockton. A few critiques were to have a larger beer selection and to better communicate

Sports & Tourism

parking options to attendees in Downtown. Overall, our team was extremely satisfied with the first live

Tim Pasisz, CTA, CMP, CSEE Director of Sports & Tourism tim@visitstockton.org | 209.938.1556

event met or exceeded their expectations, that they would

event we have hosted in nearly 2 years and we are looking forward to bringing more live events to the community in the future.

awareness of the craft beer industry and promoted patronage at local establishments throughout

Courtney Phelps, CTA Events Administrative Coordinator courtney@visitstockton.org | 209.938.1552

Stockton. Some events that were highlighted included a beer-centric fun run organized by Fleet Feet

Marketing

in Lincoln Center, burger and brew pairings at Black Rabbit Society, and the annual Kill the Kegs Night

Amy Alpers, CTA Director of Marketing & Communications amy@visitstockton.org | 209.636.4348

Stockton Brew Fest was the kick-off to the 10-day Stockton Beer Week celebrations, which raised

at Cast Iron Trading Co. Looking ahead, we hope to involve even more local businesses in Stockton Beer Week and look forward to 2022! More information about Stockton Beer Week can be found at stocktonbeerweek.com.

Resident Sentiment Survey In partnership with University of the Pacific marketing students, Visit Stockton conducted a resident sentiment survey to identify the community shared value of Visit Stockton, including the awareness of the organization, our efforts, and local programming. This was an opportunity for residents to share what they would like to see from our organization, and for us to determine their understanding of local tourism and the positive impact tourists make in our community. The survey

Anthony Esteves, CTA Content Manager anthony@visitstockton.org | 209.938.1553 Kalena Fields, CTA Graphic Designer & Brand Manager kalena@visitstockton.org | 209.938.1557 Jesse Salazar, CTA Video Production Manager jesse@visitstockton.org | 209.938.1553

was deployed through August 31, 2021 and our goal was to collect 1,000 responses from zip codes across the city. We did reach our goal of collecting over 1,000 completed survey results, and over 2,000 partially competed. Those results are current being reviewed and analyzed by the University of the Pacific Marketing Students, and we expect to have completed reporting later this fall.

LOOKING FORWARD Stockton Restaurant Week Coming back for its 13th year, and Annual Stockton Restaurant Week is just around the corner. Last year, Stockton Restaurant Week focused on take-out and incorporated a digital passport to check-in to dining establishments for a chance to win prizes as incentive to get out and support local businesses.

In 2022, we plan to reintroduce the mobile passport and will include both take-out and indoor dining options. With over 1,500 sign-ups for our mobile platform in 2021, we have a great database of contacts to start promoting the festivities and look forward to onboarding even more participating restaurants for Stockton Restaurant Week 2022. More information about Stockton Restaurant Week can be found at stocktonrestaurantweek.com.

Stockton Arts Week

BOARD OF DIRECTORS George Kaplanis, CTA President Omega Hospitality

Rhona Miles, CTA University Plaza Waterfront Hotel

Wes Yourth, CTA Vice President University of the Pacific

Isadora Harness, CTA Marriott Properties

Susan Obert, CTA Treasurer Haggin Museum Alex Munro, CTA General Manager Hilton Stockton

Jai Patel Red Roof Inn Christina Fugazi Council Appointee Councilmember District 5, City of Stockton

Week and Collide Arts Festival from its original dates in October 2021 to Spring 2022. A pivotal

Visit Stockton Board of Directors Meeting

component of Stockton Arts Week are the workshop grants that are funded through the City and

The next board meeting will take place

administered by Visit Stockton. A majority of these community-focused, hands-on workshops take

on October 21, 2021.

place indoors, and with the ongoing concern of the health of our community, the decision was made

Email wes@visitstockton.org for a

to move the events into the Spring. At that time, Visit Stockton will promote the 10-day celebration

link to join the zoom meeting.

Visit Stockton and the City of Stockton made the decision to move the annual Stockton Arts

of our city’s diverse arts and cultural offerings. More details regarding Stockton Arts Week grants and participation in Collide Arts Festival will be at stocktonartsweek.com.

QUARTERLY REPORT | 2021

JULY • AUGUST • SEPTEMBER