Visit Berkeley 2022-2023 Annual Report

ABOUT VISIT BERKELEY

Visit Berkeley is the destination marketing organization (DMO) for Berkeley, Calif. Governed by a Board of Directors composed of Berkeley tourism and hospitality professionals, Visit Berkeley operates as a 501c(6) private, not for profit, mutual benefit corporation. We market Berkeley as a destination for small conventions, meetings, events and leisure travel. Visit Berkeley, formerly the Berkeley Convention & Visitors Bureau, was founded in 1992 when the hotels and city of Berkeley agreed to increase the TOT 1% to the existing 11% hotel transient occupancy tax (TOT) to stimulate the local tourism industry.

In 2012, the local lodging community, city officials and Visit Berkeley worked together to create the Berkeley Tourism Business Improvement District (TBID). Proceeds from a 1% assessment on hotel room revenue are available exclusively for the sales, marketing and operational programs of Visit Berkeley to benefit the tourism industry The assessment, implemented on November 1, 2012, would continue for five years through October 31, 2017. In July 2017, the BTID was approved and renewed for an additional 10-year contract, set for renewal in 2027.

To support our hotel stakeholders, Visit Berkeley continued our DMO-level sponsorship to give all Berkeley lodging properties membership in the California Hotel & Lodging Association, enabling all to participate in CHLA programs and benefits.

2022-23: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

The annual report details activity and initiatives organized and executed by Visit Berkeley from July 2022 through June 2023. During the year, the landscape in which Visit Berkeley markets the city as a destination has improved markedly since we emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic.That said, there remains a combination of rapid rate of change, economic uncertainty, and other factors that continue to impact how consumers travel.

A much-improved public health outlook largely removed health safety as a barrier to travel, though many international markets remained slow to recover to pre-pandemic levels.

Visit Berkeley operated for the majority of the 22/23 fiscal year with a four-person staff as we rehired the Digital & Visitor Services Coordinator position. During the year, Visit Berkeley continued to serve as an information resource hub for not only our core stakeholders, but for all tourism-related businesses in Berkeley as well as many residents.

BERKELEY HOTEL TRANSIENT OCCUPANCY TAX REVENUE, 2019-2023

VISITOR EXPERIENCE & ENGAGEMENT

● Visit Berkeley downtown offices reopened in September 2022, and began the process of renovating the Visitor Center for an anticipated soft reopening in Fall 2023. Drop-in visitors were served at the front of the office, and we continued with our website’s Live Chat feature during business hours.

The 2023/24 Berkeley Visitors Guide was produced by Visit Berkeley staff during the fiscal year. Our primary print collateral piece, the 100+ page travel guide showcases Visit Berkeley marketing partners in an engaging, magazine-style format. 40,000 copies were printed for distribution at Oakland International Airport, Berkeley hotels, the Berkeley Visitor Information Center, and select Visitor Info kiosks across the city The digital version is available for viewing and download at VisitBerkeley.com. In addition, we produced full-guide digital translations in Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese.

2023/24 Official Berkeley Visitors Guide

IKE Interactive Kiosk Experience

Designed to help visitors and residents navigate the City, the partnership between Visit Berkeley, the City of Berkeley and IKE brings state-of-the-art smart city technology to the public at no cost to the City or its constituents. With 9 kiosks live to date, community messaging from over 20 local art organizations, City departments, and event partners have been showcased on the kiosks.

As part of the agreement with Orange Barrel Media, the City of Berkeley will receive the latest models of IKE Kiosks to replace the existing nine currently in place and install the remaining 22 by Spring of 2024. The 9 kiosks located across Berkeley were interacted with over 24,000 times throughout the fiscal year The Kiosk on Center Street & Oxford Way by the entrance of UC Berkeley campus received the most interaction. The top 5 applications used on the kiosks were Get Around (transportation), Eat & Drink, Events Calendar, Visitors Guide and Arts & Culture.

The kiosk's safety features include a two-way Emergency Call button which connects with Berkeley Police Department directly. 76 emergency calls were made during the fiscal year.

Consumer media habits continue to change rapidly, creating a shifting landscape for paid media and advertising. The abundance of available media choices, with some channels better at branding, others at driving website traffic or booking transactions, makes developing a targeted media strategy of paramount importance. During the year, Visit Berkeley invested in all of the above, with the goal of creating hybrid campaigns that promoted the Visit Berkeley brand as they drive website traffic and conversions.

According to eMarketer, nearly 75% of brands are now leveraging influencer marketing. Influencers and content creators continue to play an increased role in their followers’ lives and it has become vital to incorporate these voices and their channels within overall media strategy.

Berkeley: Bay Area Basecamp

Visit Berkeley created “Bay Area Basecamp,” our new umbrella brand campaign to position Berkeley as the best place to stay while traveling to top Northern California destinations like San Francisco and Livermore/Napa/Sonoma wine country

Bay Area Basecamp was utilized in many of our paid activations in the fiscal year

Advertising Campaigns

AAA Tourbook, Digital Banners San Francisco Chronicle Bay Area Book Festival

Berkeleyside Berkeley Restaurant Week/March Munch Madness Cvent Meetings & Group

Leads Expedia Bay Area Basecamp hotel booking campaign (see below) Modern Luxury

SF Annual Hotel Guide Hearst Story Studio, Local Getaways, Travelzoo, Statepoint, NorCal Travel & Tourism Guide Bay Area Basecamp-themed campaigns.

Highlight Campaigns

Expedia.com/Hotels.com Visit Berkeley partnered with Expedia Group in a cooperative campaign with Visit California investment from February to September 2022, and extended that campaign directly with Expedia Group from November 2022 to June 2023. The goal of both phases of the campaign was to drive hotel booking conversions, with a focus on need periods and time of regional compression (e.g., Bottle Rock Napa). Visit Berkeley cumulative investment in both campaigns was $90,000, resulting in 15,800 room nights generating gross booking revenue of $3.4 million Return on ad spend (ROAS) reached $42 per ad dollar across both campaigns.

Travelzoo Sponsored story gallery emailed to 1.3 million, 220,000 social media reach, and 262,000 Travelzoo website views for a total reach of 1.8 million. Searches for Berkeley on Travelzoo increased 29% after the campaign run. Average time readers spent on gallery was almost 7 minutes and click through to Visit Berkeley was 13%, higher than Travelzoo’s average engagement.

Hearst Story Studio Native story placement across the Hearst media network (Oprah, Men’s Journal, Travel & Leisure, more) resulted in 2.1 million impressions, 6,400 clicks, 0.3 click through rate (industry standard generally considered 0.2)

California Visitors Guide Full page ad in official state visitors guide, 500,000 print and online distribution, California Welcome Centers, VisitCalifornia.com, 250,000 direct mail to qualified Merideth magazine subscribers (Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, Better Homes & Gardens).

OWNED-CHANNEL DIGITAL MARKETING

Information quality is the most powerful trust builder for brands and destinations. Investment in owned channels – website and social media – is a top priority as consumers increasingly evaluate destinations based on the quality of the information they provide. Content published through owned channels can highly influence consumer decisions. Additionally, the fluctuating media environment demands a sophisticated owned channel strategy for brands to facilitate a direct relationship with consumers.

VisitBerkeley.com

The destination website remains a key travel planning tool for most generations. Gen Z is likely to use a destination’s website for planning, and 59% are likely to use a travel or tourism business’s website to book directly. Millennials and Gen X are also both over 40% reliant on destination websites for trip planning and boomers top the chart at more than 65% using destination websites. Official destination websites are viewed as a reliable and expert info source where travelers can get the most up to date and dependable information.

VisitBerkeley.com showed significant year-over-year traffic and engagement gains. Now in its fourth year since launching, the award-winning website continues to grow in every relevant traffic and engagement metric. We invest in SEO and SEM to support site visibility and traffic growth.

● Over 358,000 web sessions, a 42% increase year-over-year compared to FY22.

● 70,000 impressions and 2,000 reads of 20/21

Berkeley Visitors Guide

● 600,000+ page views.

Social Media

Social media’s accelerated growth and use during COVID-19 had led to a landscape forever changed, with every generation increasing their social media use in some way Post-pandemic, users continue to spend more time on social media, but where they consume it is changing. Facebook continues to be a dominant channel, but it is losing users to Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. This shift has implications for Visit Berkeley investment in short-form video in the year ahead.

● Facebook page followers increased during the year but at a slower rate than previously, with 3,120 followers at the close of the fiscal year. While the rate of follower acquisition slowed slightly, our FB page had a 100% year-over-year gain in post reach to 71.4k. Women accounted for 67% of followers, a key demo group for travel decision-making and purchasing power.

● Instagram followers increased dramatically, to more than 8,000 with similar growth in reach to 111.3k, up 72% over the last year (IG defines reach as the unique number of users who have viewed a brand’s post or story).

Social Media Management

Visit Berkeley social media channels have been managed by local content company Bravo Your City for several years. As Bravo Your City closed shop, we changed our management to another local content creator in June 2023. Initial response to her content has been positive and we are looking forward to continuing expansion of influence for our social channels moving forward.

Content Creators / Influencers

Visit Berkeley works with like-minded creators for influencer integration and collaboration on Instagram and Facebook. These true collaborators create content that drives travel inspiration to our target markets. The art of finding the right influencer at the right price continues to present challenges, particularly as compensation is currently in transition with moving scales and deliverables.

Evolusen

During the year, we entered a pilot program with Evolusen, an influencer marketing & management platform, to attract and select influencers to come to Berkeley The initial results are encouraging and we will continue to use Evolusen into the next year as a low-cost resource to manage our growing social media influencer and content creator activity.

CrowdRiff: User-Generated Content (UGC)

CrowdRiff is the platform where Visit Berkeley curates rights-approved user-generated social media content to legally display on page banners, video embeds, etc. on VisitBerkeley.com.

Visit Berkeley E-News

Email marketing is one of the most effective and important ways for brands to build consumer relationships. Visit Berkeley produced monthly e-news targeted to different audiences.

Highlights, Sites & Bites

Visit Berkeley’s consumer e-news keeps our audience informed as it supports Visit Berkeley and marketing partner initiatives.

Berkeley Insider

Distribution of The Berkeley Insider, our e-news geared to key stakeholders, rose to more than 600 local recipients.

MEDIA & CONTENT HIGHLIGHTS

Visit Berkeley works with traditional and an increasing number of social media content creators to showcase the best of Berkeley to their audiences. First-hand experiences are still the fast-track to coverage, and Visit Berkeley will continue to work with individual travel journalists, content creators and influencers, drawing them to Berkeley to experience our brand mantra of “come for the culture, stay for the food” as they feature our marketing partners. We also attended the IMM North America Media Marketplace event held annually in New York City for 25 one-on-one meetings with travel journalists, content creators and influencers to forge relationships and eventual coverage of Berkeley.

INDUSTRY ENGAGEMENT AND INITIATIVES

Connect West SF, November 9-10, 2023

Visit Berkeley attended Connect West, meeting with 21 planners over a two day period. Throughout the B2B conference, planners were both excited and engaged with all the new opportunities Berkeley has to offer for both accommodations and offsite team building activities. Attendee Grant Caplan, CEO of Procurgience, met with Visit Berkeley during that time, leading to a multi-day familiarization stay in Berkeley in July of 2023. After introducing him to our city, this resulted in a vetted RFP and promise of more leads in the near future.

CalSAE Seasonal Spectacular, December 14-15, 2022

CalSAE's Seasonal Spectacular is the premier networking event for the association community on the West Coast! Visit Berkeley hosted a booth at the tradeshow, engaging networking opportunities with group meeting planners - all in the spirit of the holiday season!

Visit California Outlook Forum, Marc

Visit Berkeley attended the Outlook Forum, California’s premier travel and tourism event for industry professionals. This year’s conference featured the return

of in-market global experts with insights on the return of international travel, along with economic forecasts and the shifting marketing landscape.

Routes World 2022, October 16-18

Visit Berkeley was invited by Oakland International Airport (OAK) along with Visit Oakland and Visit Tri-Valley to showcase the San Francisco Bay Area's best airport to hundreds of airline executives at Routes World 2022 in Las Vegas. More than 8 million passengers passed through OAK in 2021, and the airport is on track to surpass 10 million total passengers in 2022 the fastest-recovering Bay Area airport post-pandemic. Helping to communicate the "Fly the East Bay Way" message, Visit Berkeley sponsored the opening “OAK-tober” Beer & Pretzel reception featuring locally brewed Trumer Pils. Over 500 attendees stopped by the OAK booth in the Exhibition Hall.

UC Berkeley Event Planner Certification Program

Visit Berkeley sponsored all four of the meetings for the UC Berkeley Event Planner Certification Program hosted at the Residence Inn, DoubleTree by Hilton, Hotel Shattuck Plaza and Bancroft Hotel. Jeffrey Church presented at one of the four meetings, with approx. 75 people in attendance at the Hotel Shattuck Plaza. We provided meeting & event maps

and guides to Berkeley. Our participation had immediate economic impact as three planners were connected to Visit Berkeley partners with private dining spaces.

Bus Parking Initiative & Film Office Permits

With the support of the City of Berkeley’s Office of Economic Development, Visit Berkeley continued the Complimentary Bus Parking Authorizations for Collegiate & Group Business bookings for Hotels. Through this incentive, hotels have been able to secure more sports and group travel bookings to stay in Berkeley over neighboring cities. 46 Bus Authorizations were processed for 2022-2023. The Berkeley Film Office also saw a robust increase in Film Permit requests, processing 38 during the fiscal year, twice as many requests from the previous year .

PROJECTS AND CAMPAIGNS

Berkeley Bucks

Visit Berkeley continues to lead the the City of Berkeley’s first ever e-gift card program, Berkeley Bucks, launched in the fall of 2021. In partnership with the Office of Economic Development, Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Berkeley Association and other Neighborhood DIstricts, Berkeley Bucks was integrated in a variety of citywide campaigns and continues to drive revenue to more than 120 Berkeley based businesses.

Visit Berkeley offsets all fees associated with the card, and sponsors BOGO offers for the summer and Holiday season marketed on IKE Kiosks, Berkeleyside, and print publications like Berkeley Times. During 2022-2023, Over $36K in Berkeley Bucks were sold, and over $23K were redeemed.

Berkeley Restaurant Week (March Munch Madness)

Registration for March Munch Madness brought on the largest number of participants in Berkeley Restaurant Week history with over 65 restaurants, bars, wineries, and culinary enterprises offering special dining deals between March 23 & April 3, 2023. The increase in participants can be attributed to the new tier pricing structure (starting at the $10-$20 price range), increased visibility of Visit Berkeley’s campaigns during the pandemic, and streamlined registration process. Erika Hazel, founder of the Bizerkeley Vegan Festival, was brought on as our “Vegan Cuisine Consultant” to assist in curating plant-based dining offers, and to give her stamp of approval on menus.

Visit Berkeley hosted its BRW “Tip Off” event at the DoubleTree by Hilton Berkeley Marina, serving light bites from the Berkeley Boathouse, cocktails made with Westward Whiskey, wine poured by Covenant and trunk show of food inspired art by ACCI’s Carolyn Tillie

Following industry trends and best practices, Visit Berkeley incorporated a comprehensive Content Creator campaign to market Berkeley Restaurant Week through social media influencers channels. With the support of Lawrence Ricardo, social media consultant, Visit Berkeley recruited 10 creators to dine at participating restaurants and stay at hotels to curate and capture content and promote the #BRW23 campaign.

Referrals from Instagram to visitberkeley.com increased by 118% during restaurant week by asking creators to make strong calls to action to get viewers on our website. This included #BRW23 content reaching over 500K views, 24K likes and 10K shares, through collaborations with creators and participating restaurants.

Advertising with Berkeleyside has become an integral part of our Berkeley Restaurant Week marketing plan. With consistent impressions and clicks through rotational media, focusing on placement in their Daily Newsletters provided us with an impressive 3K+ clicks to our BRW landing page. Focusing on more dedicated Eblasts for future BRW campaigns will be a better use of budget and creative.

Web traffic for the month of March in 2023 increased by 13% vs. 2022, with over 40K visitors to the website during Berkeley Restaurant Week. On Tuesday, March 28 the website received more than 2K visitors, a new daily high water mark in our website’s history

Berkeley Holidays & Holiday Gift Fair

Visit Berkeley promoted the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce’s Holiday Gift Guide on our website, social media channels and consumer newsletter Holiday season festivities were also showcased on our event calendar and through our interactive social media wall at the top of our Holidays page. Visit Berkeley participated in the Chamber’s Holiday Gift Fair at the Hotel Shattuck Plaza promoting and selling Berkeley Bucks. Gift Cards were raffled out throughout the Gift Fair and sponsored by Visit Berkeley.

Bay Area Book Festival

Visit Berkeley extended our annual sponsorship of the Bay Area Book Fair, held in downtown Berkeley in May. With our sponsorship, we received a half-page ad in the SF Chronicle’s official Book Fair section insert. As part of our sponsorship, Visit Berkeley was the presenter for the two evening keynote presentations by W Kamou Bell and Joan Baez, and we provided Visit Berkeley tote bags and information to more than 500 attendees through our branded tent table (perfectly positioned next to the overall Information tent).

The Bay Area Book Fair moved in 2023 to make most events free of charge to attend. Attendance spiked and we are looking forward to the 2024 event to leverage our sponsorship into promotion of overnight hotel accommodations and local dining and entertainment spend. As this continues to be the largest book festival in Northern California, the Bay Area Book Fair has the potential to grow into a keystone Berkeley event.

Barbara Hillman/ President/CEO

Dan Marengo/ Director of Marketing & Communications Jeffrey Church/ Director of Partnership

Development

Christian Galeana/ Digital & Visitor Services Coordinator

2022-23 Visit Berkeley Board of Directors

AJ Fox BAMPFA

Lisa Bullwinkel Another Bullwinkel Show

Theresa Ajari ASUC Student Union, UC Berkeley

Momi Asayag Berkeley City Club

Jeroen Buiks

Aiden by Best Western

La Dawn Duvall

UC Berkeley

Matt Terwilliger Cal Alumni Association

Bruce Carlton Marriott Residence Inn Berkeley

Joe Mulford CAL Intercollegiate Athletics

Luis Valdivia Holiday Inn Express & Suites

Christine McDermott

Graduate Hotel Berkeley

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Jack Hlavac Chairman of the Board DoubleTree by Hilton Berkeley Marina

Dell Dellinger Vice Chair Hotel Shattuck Plaza

Matthew Mooney Secretary/Treasurer La Quinta Inn & Suites

Barbara Hillman President & CEO Visit Berkeley