2023 Tourism Impact Report

LETTER FROM THE CEO

Dear Tourism Partners,

In a book as filled as this one is with data, analysis, activities, and nose-to-the-grindstone hard work, this one little corner does a lot of big-picture stage setting.

The picture painted by the industry data is a bit abstract in nature. Less Monet. More Jackson Pollock. Record visitor spending and visitation. Hotel demand has softened somewhat, even as prices have firmed up. This has led to a modest net increase in hotel revenue metrics year over year, though we’re still short of the highs we reached in 2019. But this is not a love letter to inflation. When you zoom out to the ISS level to look at the Pierce County tourism industry as a whole, revenue is up 21.0% since 2019, and 82.0% from ten years ago, in 2013 That’s progress amidst the chaos

We’ve been navigating a constant swirl of smaller stories—shifts in performance between cities, properties opening and closing, and the ongoing tension between downtown and rural dynamics. We’ve seen supply chains become a household term, with each “new normal” challenging us to adapt once more. Yet, from a wider perspective, the Pierce County tourism industry has shown remarkable resilience.

We’ve also seen a pivot toward an event-driven approach, complementing our traditional seasonal focus. We’ve had events and concerts where there’s not a room to be had in city – and sometimes the county – as well as months where our marketing machine is in overdrive to put heads in beds to bridge the gaps between these high-profile occasions.

These trends aren’t just local—they mirror a broader national pattern. Cities across the country are still recovering from the pandemic’s impacts. It’s worth remembering that when 2020 became 2020, we were at the pinnacle of a decade-long boom cycle—unheard of in our industry. A flattening was inevitable, but we’ve managed to hold our ground and are steadily building back.

Here at the Tacoma - Pierce County Tourism Authority, our small but dedicated team continues to do what we do best. We’ve set new records across Sports, Leisure Tourism, Meetings, and Conventions. You’ll find the highlights of our achievements in this report, and I encourage you to explore the details to see how we’re driving results.

We’ve also embraced evolution internally. We’ve launched a new website, created fresh video content, and updated our maps to enhance the visitor experience. And by the time this report finds your hands, you’ll notice our new name to reflect the next phase of our journey.

So, as we move forward, we remain committed to thinking creatively, working strategically, and positioning Pierce County for future growth. We’re grateful for your continued partnership and look forward to what we’ll achieve together in the year ahead.

Best Regards,

Dean Burke President and CEO Tacoma - Pierce County Tourism Authority

Formerly Travel Tacoma - Mt. Rainier

PIERCE COUNTY TOURISM BREAKDOWN

In the following pages, you’ll read about the visitors to Pierce County and the impact they made: How many came. Who they were. Where they came from. Where they stayed. How much they spent. The local jobs their spending created in Pierce County.

Note that the nature of the geolocation data included reflects our mission by only looking at visitors from 50 miles outside of Pierce County. Visitor volume and visitor spending data is provided by State of Washington Tourism and Tourism Economics, and originates with the Department of Revenue and does not make that distinction.

HOW MANY FOLKS VISITED PIERCE COUNTY

WHAT DID THEY SPEND IN PIERCE COUNTY

EARNINGS CREATED BY TOURISM IN PIERCE COUNTY

JOBS CREATED BY TOURISM IN PIERCE COUNTY

DEMOGRAPHIC FINDINGS

HOUSEHOLD SIZE

Footnote: Geolocation data is collected and anonymized from mobile apps where the user has opted-in to provide location data. This data represents a statistical model based on a sample size of devices. The model was developed and optimized to report on audiences, trends, spending, demographics, and key markets for visitors from outside 50 miles outside of the destination.

WHERE ARE THEY COMING FROM?

The graphics below show the data about where visitors to Pierce County originated, but that’s not the whole story.

We are still very much a drive-market destination compared with some of our larger neighbors. To a large extent, we always have been. However, the concrete that seemed to set on that notion during the pandemic, seems to be softening a little as visitors are coming from further afield.

While overall trips to Pierce County from 50+ miles were up 5.8%, the number of trips from flight distance (200+ miles) in 2023 grew year over year by 11.6%, while drive-distance trips (50-200 miles) fell by 6.4%. So we’re seeing a little bit of a rebound in those longer-distance, longer-stay (average of 3.5 days vs. 2.2 days for drive distance) trips.

800k

TRIPS BY STATE

STATE TRENDS

600k

400k

200k

TOP MARKETS

TOP VISITATION BY CITY

Portland, OR

Vancouver, WA

Spokane, WA

Marysville, WA

Bellingham, WA

Aberdeen, WA

Arlington, WA

Lake Stevens, WA

Seattle, WA

Yakima, WA

Ellensburg, WA

6,677,565

VISITOR DAYS

19,212,831

UNIQUE VISITORS

2,779,580

HOW ARE THEY VISITING?

LENGTH OF STAY

WEEKDAY VS WEEKEND

Footnote: Geolocation

PIERCE COUNTY

HOTEL INDUSTRY PERFORMANCE

Hotels in Pierce County reached another record revenue of $203.6 million, but only by just a fraction of a hair at 0.1% growth, and due in large part to inflation rather than industry recovery and performance.

Occupancy and demand both dropped year over year for the first time since the pandemic, but were offset by all-time-record ADR – both in Pierce County and nationally – which also pushed RevPAR to record levels here and across the country.

HOTEL OCCUPANCY

63.7%

(-1.1% year-over-year; -10.8% from 2019)

HOTEL AVERAGE DAILY RATE

$129.45

(+3.4% year-over-year; +21.4% from 2019)

HOTEL REVPAR

$82.52

(+2.4% year-over-year; +8.4% from 2019)

The softening demand is something we plan to watch closely.

HOTEL REVENUE

$203.6

MILLION

(+0.1% year-over-year; +21.0% from 2019)

HOTEL DEMAND

1.57

MILLION ROOMS SOLD

(-3.1% year-over-year; -0.0% from 2019)

For national context, hotels nationwide were 63.0% occupied in 2023, which is -4.7% from 2019.

PIERCE COUNTY HOTEL ADR

TRAVEL TACOMA BY THE NUMBERS

GOALS AND ACTUALS

Throughout the year, Travel Tacoma works to achieve contracted goals, and regularly track and report on our progress against those goals. These are the results for 2023:

MEETINGS AND BOOKED EVENTS

SERVICING

MARKETING

THE BUSINESS OF GENERATING ROOM NIGHTS

If we sound like a broken record sometimes, this groove is going to get a little bit deeper: We’re here to generate paid-lodging room nights.

It’s not that that’s where tourism begins and ends, but it’s a measuring stick that has some heft to it. If you’re successfully bringing overnight visitors, you’re also necessarily positively impacting spending, hotel and restaurant health, small businesses in the community, and tourism-related jobs. Room nights are now a concrete, measurable metric in all three lanes where we operate (sports, meetings and conventions, and individual leisure), and can act as a stand-in for those directly related areas where measurement is more abstract. Not all destination marketing organizations (DMOs) attach this level of focus to one metric. In fact, most don’t. We can’t speak to what motivates them and where their focus is, but we’ve become fluent in room nights because that’s a common language we share with our stakeholders.

To that end, Travel Tacoma generated another record number of room nights: 163,720. Each of our three pillars of business established its new high-water mark:

MEETINGS & CONVENTIONS

27,936

SPORTS

64,940

INDIVIDUAL LEISURE

70,844

These are what we know we generated, at a bare minimum. Each of our pillars has wide swaths of visitors and room nights that are beyond our ability to track, and therefore count. Some meetings and sports-event participants and attendees book outside of room blocks. Leisure visitors who were inspired by a travel article we worked on won’t necessarily show up on our books. There are examples aplenty of those we inspired or invited, but don’t even know about. These numbers exclude them

THE BUSINESS OF GENERATING ROOM NIGHTS

Executing a meetings and conventions sales plan in 2023 was like rowing in a hurricane: You can point your boat in the right direction and paddle for all your worth. You’ll make progress, but at the end of the day, the weather has a lot of say.

While 2023 was an incredibly strong year for meetings and convention future bookings, we’re seeing the continuation of a concerning trend: Planners are booking their events within a much shorter timeframe. This trend is industry-wide, and destination-agnostic, and it has a lot of sales professionals with their heads on swivels. This is part of the weather we’re rowing in.

The previous window of booking 3-5 years in advance is no longer standard, and we’re now seeing event planners book larger events with smaller teams and shorter lead times – closer to 1-2 years in advance.

The past few years has brought a high turnover for both event planners and hotel suppliers. Our team has been working on building new relationships with companies and organizations we’ve worked with for many years, and in many cases are educating our customers and colleagues who are new to the industry.

With virtual fatigue fully set in, the demand for in-person meetings is high. We see very few hybrid or fully virtual conventions, but still reduced sizes and budgets for many events.

With the strong booking pace of 2023, we began to reconsider our booking criteria for groups hosting events at the Greater Tacoma Convention Center. With our calendar quickly filling for the upcoming few years, we began increasing our minimum guestroom requirements to preserve space for the groups with the highest economic impact.

BUSINESS ACTUALIZED

Room nights: 26,440

Meetings & Events: 180

Attendees: 106,437

Economic Impact: $27.0 MIL

IN 2023

FUTURE BUSINESS BOOKED

Room nights: 27,936

Meetings & Events: 190

Attendees: 119,735 projected projected

Economic Impact: $28.6 MIL

IN 2023 FOR 2023-2027

THE BUSINESS OF GENERATING ROOM NIGHTS

In our 2022 annual report, we were thrilled to report on a banner year for amateur sports, with results that not only exceeded pre-pandemic benchmarks, but set all-time records for the history of our 30+ year work as a sports commission.

You know what they say about records: they exist only to be broken. 2023 brought new records which surpassed many set in 2022.

The South Sound remains a hotbed for gymnastics with Charity Choice, Washington State Compulsory and Region 2 Championships bringing over 14,000 room nights. We will continue to target more gymnastics events as a result of the years of work with Charity Choice

Also in 2023, after new leadership at the WIAA put their entire catalog of high school championships out to a competitive bid, we cemented our partnership for years to come by winning several of those key events for Pierce County. We look forward to the outsized impact the state wrestling, track and field, basketball, and soccer championships will continue to have on all our communities - the “Legacy” of these Championships continue. Cross-country racing continues to establish us as a premiere location to host any Championship – from a local race to a National Championship. The five events held in 2023 brought over 5,000 room nights and also helped to vouch for our next and biggest Championship for Fall of 2024 – the USA Track & Field Club Cross-Country Championships. This event will surpass our current largest race/event, the Ft. Steilacoom Invitational by bringing over 3,000 room nights in December 2024.

Our fourth year with Vacation Races has continued the off-road trajectory of growth, surpassing the 2022 mark of 1,905 participants to 2,134, and moving past 2,289 room nights to the new benchmark of 3,324 room nights

BUSINESS DELIVERED

Room nights: 64,940

Number of Events: 47

Attendees: 194,786

Estimated Direct Spending: $42.4 MIL IN 2023

THE BUSINESS OF GENERATING ROOM NIGHTS

When you strike gold, take a minute to celebrate, but whatever else you do, keep digging!

Over the past few years, we’ve developed and refined a scalable recipe for success by developing data-based travel itineraries, marketing them through geolocation, and tracking results to see if the people who interacted with our ads ended up coming to Pierce County and staying in paid lodging here. Trackable, quantifiable room nights

It’s a good method. So good, in fact, that we’ve been asked to speak about it at conferences and on webinars regionally and across the country, and it’s fast becoming an industry standard.

And while the industry catches up, we asked the question: What’s next?

We asked in the form of an RFP and threw open the door to all tourism data providers and data-focused marketing agencies: How can our destination, plus your technology and data, equal room nights? More importantly, how can we prove it?

The results? After running through eight proposals representing 11 of the top agencies in the business, we discovered that…

Our current system of geolocation to deliver and track the room nights we generate is still state of the art, but there are new technologies making headway. One of those methods is tracking attribution by credit card spending data, and the top purveyor is just now looking at tourism after having been the go-to advertising attribution throughout the retail and F&B industries for years.

So starting in 2024, we’re going to add spending-based advertising and attribution to our marketing mix, where we’re able to see data from credit card transactions: Where did that card (and by extension, its owner) travel from? How much did they spend in Pierce County? And specifically, how much did they spend on hotels and lodging? Divided by the average daily rate during that period gives us a solid number of room nights generated by our ads.

BUSINESS DELIVERED Individual Campaigns: 12 Visitor Days Generated: 569,983 IN 2023 Room nights: 70,844 goal: 31,000