MEMPHIS CONVENTION & VISITORS BUREAU ANNUAL REPORT 2017 IN REVIEW SM Phillip Van Zandt
MEMPHIS EARNED MEMPHIS RECEIVED 4.1% GROWTH IN VISITA- TION IN 2017 4.1% GROWTH IN VISITATION IN 2017 WE WELCOMED 11.7M VISITORS TO MEMPHIS IN 2017 nearly half a million more visitors than we received in 2016. In fact, our steadily increasing tourism revenues and visitation growth clearly indicate that Memphis is maturing as a destination. I strongly believe that the past 20 years of cultivating our tourism assets along with targeted marketing strategies have created this growing momentum. In 2017, we have seen steady growth in our established origin markets, domestically and abroad, as well increased interest in Memphis from new and emerging markets like Denver and Australia. For example, Memphis saw a 25.8% year-over-year increase in visitation from Canada in 2017, one of our established origin markets as well as a 48.8% year-over-year increase in visitation from Australia, where we just opened an office in 2017. Domestically, we saw a 15.4% year-over-year increase in visitation from Nashville, a highly-saturated regional origin market and a 17% year-over-year increase in visitation from Denver, one of our targeted emerging national origin markets. Those are just a few examples and I could certainly keep going. That s why I am so confident that our momentum will only continue to build. MEMPHIS VISITORS IN 2017 We attracted nearly half a million more visitors in 2017, compared to 2016. This growth increased our five-year visitation average to over 11M annual visitors. 4.1 VISITATION GROWTH OVER 2016 11.7 M+ % $3.3B+ Our growth rate has more than doubled since we received TID funding. In 2016, our visitation growth rate over prior year was 1.8 percent. ECONOMIC IMPACT 1 We have over 68.9K jobs in hospitality and leisure in the Memphis metro area. 2 22.7K of these are supported by domestic tourism alone. 3 Especially when I look forward to an increased high-end hotel room supply, an improved convention center and more competitive airfares, along with increasingly refined attractions and new amenities, particularly near our riverfront I am confident that, with your support, our destination will only continue to flourish as a world-renowned destination. President & CEO Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau 1 U.S. Travel Association analysis, 2016 // 2 Bureau of Labor Statistics, December 2017 // 3 U.S. Travel Association analysis, 2016 3
THE MEMPHIS CONVENTION CENTER $175 REINVENTION THE NEW MEMPHIS CONVENTION CENTER will feature a panoramic glass exterior with new outdoor spaces that overlook the Mississippi riverfront, along with street-level restaurants and shopping. Every part of the building will be modernized and upgraded with hotel quality finishes to enhance the experiences of our convention delegates. Practical updates, like increasing the number of concurrent break-out rooms and integrating additional loading docks, will only strengthen our city s appeal for meeting planners. $175M CONVENTION CENTER RENOVATION $0 LOCAL TAXPAYER DOLLARS INVESTED $325M+ SAVED BY REIMAGINING EXISTING SPACE The Memphis Convention Center This renovation is funded through This project will position Memphis as renovation is nearly underway, taxes paid on hotel room nights and a desirable meetings and conventions tvsdesign and LRK including a complete exterior façade transformation that will modernize the entire building and attract more meeting planners. revenues generated by purchases made in the Downtown Tourism Development Zone. No local tax dollars will be used for this project. destination for years to come, while saving the city hundreds of millions of dollars by reimagining our current building. 5
The Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau is DEDICATED TO MAKING DATA-DRIVEN DECISIONS across our organization. In January 2017, we established an internal tourism research department that has already delivered significant insights, changing the way we attract visitors to Memphis with broad impacts across our organization from our consumer brand positioning GETTING TO KNOW to our meetings and conventions sales strategies, and from our membership structure to our media buying patterns. For example, we have recently developed clearly defined Memphis visitor personas by analyzing interactive online content on our website. Over the past year, we have partnered with more than 27 data and analytics vendors and we re just getting started. 11.7M 27+ MEMPHIS 19K+ SURVEY RESPONSES FROM LIKELY MEMPHIS VISITORS 1.7K+ MEMPHIS VISITORS INTERVIEWED DATA & ANALYTICS RESEARCH PARTNERS VISITORS We have captured the responses of over 19K Memphis Travel website visitors to Our research team hit the Memphis streets last year, interviewing over Memphis was the first city in America to partner with Arrivalist Craig Thompson specific questions about their planned trip to Memphis, giving us deeper insight into what potential visitors find most desirable about our destination. 1.7K tourists. Our results have defined the profile of Memphis attraction visitors, including their spending patterns, length of stay and accommodations choices. on their innovative A3 platform that tracks and attributes visitor arrivals. However, we didn t stop there. We partner with over 27 research partners ensure we re always up to speed. 7
OUR ALWAYS ON MARKETING CAMPAIGNS focus on digital media, and they generated over 45M media impressions for the Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau in 2017 but we know there are more ways to create excitement about visiting Memphis. That s why we use the PESO model, emphasizing strategic alignment across our paid, earned, shared and owned marketing channels. For example, we activated our targeted Denver consumer marketing campaign at the Great American Beer Fest, directly interacting with many of the 25K+ attendees before revealing a new Memphis mural in downtown Denver. We shared the mural imagery across our social media channels while leveraging paid promotions, directing potential visitors to our website for more information about Memphis. Meanwhile, our simultaneous media blitz delivered compelling PR coverage in the Denver market. By the end of 2017, we saw a 17 percent increase in visitation from Denver year over year with nearly one third of those visitors arriving in Memphis after our October activation. OUR TARGETED PESO ACTIVATION 45M+ MEDIA IMPRESSIONS 29K+ ROOM NIGHTS BOOKED 1.5X MORE LIKELY TO ARRIVE Our always on marketing campaigns Our digital marketing campaigns on Memphis visitors who view our INCREASED DENVER VISITATION 17% Phillip Van Zandt delivered over 45M impressions, and our video content performed exceptionally well, earning a consistent 65 percent view-through rate across all of our digital platforms. Expedia, TripAdvisor and Adara directly resulted in over 29K room nights booked from July 1, 2017 to April 30, 2018 generating over $4M in local hotel revenues. advertising on sites like Expedia or TripAdvisor are 1.5 times more likely to visit Memphis than consumers who never see our advertising and they stay 68% longer in Memphis. 9
THE MEMPHIS TRAVEL WEBSITE 33% GROWTH IN ORGANIC TRAFFIC The Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau DIGITAL MEDIA PRESENCE includes Memphis Travel and the I Love Memphis Blog. Combined, these two channels reach potential Memphis visitors from all over the world to share the best features of our city. The Memphis Travel social media channels received over 91K social media engagements in 2017, while the I Love Memphis Blog social media channels received even more engagements, totaling over 430K. The Memphis Travel social media team is also engaging social media influencers to boost our brand awareness, while following the data by investing more heavily in Pinterest, OUR SOCIAL NETWORK a high-potential social media channel for our audience. 2M+ UNIQUE WEBSITE VIEWERS 5.6 229K SOCIAL MEDIA FOLLOWERS MILLION WEBSITE PAGEVIEWS Alex Shansky Over 2M unique users visited the Memphis Travel website and the I Love Memphis Blog in 2017. The Memphis Travel website has seen especially dramatic growth, with 1.3M unique visitors in 2017 a 31 percent increase over 2016. The Memphis Travel website and the I Love Memphis Blog received 5.6M page views from online visitors. The Memphis Travel website alone delivered a 29 percent increase in total pageviews. Over 229K people follow the Memphis Travel or I Love Memphis Blog social media accounts. The I Love Memphis Blog social media accounts have over 188K followers alone, illustrating the impact of this strategy. 11
OUR PUBLIC RELATIONS TEAM REACHED OVER Our public relations team PROMOTES MEMPHIS ALL OVER THE WORLD by collaborating with journalists here and abroad to share the good news about Memphis. Just in 2017, Fodor s Travel ranked Memphis in the top ten cities to visit on their 2018 Go List, Travel + Leisure named Memphis one of the top five best U.S. cities for an affordable getaway, and the Telegraph included Memphis in their top ten places to visit while also including Beale Street on their list of 25 incredible streets you must visit before you die. Over one-third of the media coverage we earned for Memphis was published overseas, which will only continue to contribute to our growing number of international visitors. 746 STORIES PLACED 3.3B 3.3B+ READERS REACHED $9M+ AGGREGATE AD VALUE READERS Our PR team is constantly pitching and perfecting stories about Memphis by working with journalists from all over the world. In 2017, our team hosted 181 journalists here in Memphis. In 2017, some of the high-readership media coverage generated by our public relations team included stories in The Daily Mail, The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, and on MSN. The most valuable digital media coverage we earned appeared in The Guardian, The Washington Times, and Southern Living, as well as on the Travel Channel and across the BBC network. Brand USA 13
INTERNATIONAL VISITATION MEMPHIS HAS ALREADY CULTIVATED A GLOBAL REPUTATION as the home of blues, soul and rock n roll and our world-famous BBQ doesn t hurt. Our top five international origin markets are Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan Australia and Germany, and taken together, these countries represented 60% of our international visitation in 2017. Over 80% of surveyed international visitors report that our music legacy attractions, our legendary live music scene or the nightlife on Beale Street are the most iconic Memphis experiences. We have had dedicated sales and public relations representatives in Japan as well as all across Europe, focusing on countries like the United Kingdom, Germany and France and in 2017, we expanded that team to include a dedicated representative in Australia and New Zealand. Since then, we ve seen a 48% year-over-year increase in visitation from the land down under. Overall, international visitation to Memphis increased 17.2% over 2016 and these visitors spent $39.5M in Memphis on Visa payment cards alone. INCREASED +48 % +17.2 % 17.2% Alex Shansky AUSTRALIAN VISITATION The Memphis CVB added a dedicated Australia/ New Zealand representative to our international team in 2017 and since then, Australian visitation to Memphis has grown by 48%. INTERNATIONAL VISITATION We saw 25 percent growth in visitation from Canada, while experiencing 23 percent growth in visitation from Japan and also grew visitation from high-impact European origin markets, like the U.K and Germany. $39.5M+ INTERNATIONAL SPENDING This represents a 29 percent increase in international spending over 2016 but these figures only reflect direct spending on Visa cards alone, so we know this is just a fraction of our true impact. 15
OUR TOUR AND TRAVEL SALES TEAM is in constant communication with domestic and international tour operators, encouraging them to build more tourism packages that include Memphis. Our team represented Memphis internationally, meeting tour operators in Germany, Australia, Japan, Canada and the United Kingdom, as well as domestically, at events like the National Tour Association, OMCA and the Student & Youth Travel Association. As a result, our team booked over 235K hotel room nights in Memphis for 2017, sustaining and growing Memphis visitation from key origin markets and that s only what we can currently track. $34M+ $16M+ $50.7M+ OUR TOUR & TRAVEL SALES TEAM INTERNATIONAL FIT TRAVEL ECONOMIC IMPACT DOMESTIC GROUP TRAVEL ECONOMIC IMPACT INTERNATIONAL & DOMESTIC ECONOMIC IMPACT SOLD OVER 235K ROOM NIGHTS David Meany We tracked over 179K hotel room nights booked by international visitors in Memphis, resulting in an economic impact of over $34M and that s only what we can clearly attribute. We generated a 23 percent increase in the economic impact of domestic group travel over 2016 with over 56,204 hotel room nights booked and that s only what we can track. Our tour and travel sales team booked over 235K hotel room nights through domestic and international tour operators for 2017, creating an economic impact of over $50.7M. 17
OUR SALES TEAM & SPORTS COUNCIL OUR CONVENTION SALES TEAM hits the road every year, traveling all over the United States to promote Memphis as a desirable destination for meetings and conventions. In 2017, our representatives promoted Memphis at tradeshows and industry events like IMEX, Destination Showcase and Connect. Now, with the planned renovation of the Memphis Convention Center already underway, our team is gearing up to find new ways to drive even more demand for hotel room nights in Memphis in the years to come, while also continuing to maximize the traditional sales strategies that demonstrate effectiveness. BOOKED OVER 375 $117 MILLION+ 177K+ TOTAL ECONOMIC IMPACT TOTAL ROOM NIGHTS $55M+ ECONOMIC IMPACT OF SPORTS EVENTS Andrea Zucker Our meetings and conventions sales team and sports council booked 375 future meetings in 2017, which will add more than $117M to the local Memphis economy, including 20 major meetings that will contribute over $1M each. In 2017, our conventions sales team and sports council booked over 177K future room nights for Memphis hotels. In 2017, the Memphis Sports Council booked over 60 sporting and athletic events that will generate more than 75K room nights and over $55M in economic impact, just from sports and athletic events held in Memphis. 19
MEMPHIS IS A WORLD-CLASS DESTINATION BUT NOT BECAUSE OF US. We are only successful because of your daily dedication to cultivating meaningful, one-of-a-kind visitor experiences that reflect and celebrate the rich legacy and vibrant culture of our city. Every time we promote Memphis around the world to attract more visitors, we know that when these visitors arrive, everyone in our community will work together to deliver an iconic Memphis experience. Together, we create lasting one-of-a-kind memories that our visitors will cherish for years to come and we transform these visitors into our best brand ambassadors when they encourage their family and friends to visit our destination by sharing their positive memories. Cultivating highly positive visitor experiences also encourages repeat visitation and increases length of stay, which will only continue to amplify our success. WORKING TOGETHER TO 104K+ MEMBER WEBSITE REFERRALS 1,520 EMPLOYEES TRAINED 398K+ VISITORS SERVED ENHANCE THE VISITOR EXPERIENCE In 2017, the Memphis Travel website referred over 104K online visitors to the websites of our local members and partners, including our attractions, hotels and restaurants, among other businesses. Welcome to Memphis trained 1,520 front-line employees, developing our workforce as a way to enhance the visitor experience, ensuring that visitors have the best possible experience. Our visitor centers welcomed more than 398K Memphis visitors in 2017, generating more than 87K referrals to our members and partners while making sure that each visitor has a memorable A.J. Wolfe experience in Memphis. 21
MEMPHIS RECEIVED 4.1% GROWTH IN VISITA- TION IN 2017 FROM TOURISM 20/20 TO DESTINATIONNEXT: A FUTURE OF POSSIBILITY We are nearing the end of our ambitious Tourism 20/20 Strategic Plan. In partnership with our City and County governments, local communities and extraordinary business leaders, associations and non-profit foundations, the Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau delivered on more than 21 strategies including: Funding for the transformation of the Memphis Cook Convention Center Creation and launch of the Memphis Sports Council Routinely held town hall programs around the County designed to understand and build connections into our local community programs and priorities Increase of more than 4.1% in visitation, delivering an economic impact of more than $3.3B. We ve focused on elevating, growing and promoting tourism as a priority in Memphis and Shelby County, and our efforts are contributing to the increasing vitality of our market and the citizens we serve. While Tourism 20/20 is nearing completion, our work is not done. In 2018/2019, we will launch a new phase of strategic planning, focusing on trends and strategies identified by Destinations International in their DestinationNEXT Futures Study. This effort is one that will connect our local efforts to that of the national and global traveler, visitor and convention attendee. The MCVB team with its Board and partners is aiming high and thinking big. We are developing a compelling vision for Memphis and Shelby County to increase our market s visibility and presence as a one-of-a-kind place to visit, explore and experience. We are seeking a greater share of the visitor s wallet when they come to Tennessee and are elevating the unique character of our City and its amenities to more audiences than ever before. Our plans are ambitious. We are confident that with your continued support and investment in tourism and in the visitor experience, we will not only accomplish our goals, we will exceed them. So, get ready. It s time for us all to take the tourism and convention industry in Memphis and Shelby County to the next level and achieve our true potential. Chair of the Board Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau Jen Andrews Executive Director Shelby Farms Park Conservancy Ekundayo Bandele Founder/CEO The Hattiloo Theatre Cindy Brewer Past Chairman Principal, LEO Events Scott Brockman President & CEO, Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority Commissioner Willie Brooks Ex Officio, Representing Shelby County Commission OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS Sally Pace, Vice Chair Chief Executive Officer Connect Healthcare Collaboration Doug Browne, Secretary President & GM The Peabody Memphis CHAIR OF THE BOARD Lani Glancy, Chair Director, Diversity & Talent Development AutoZone EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS Mauricio Calvo Director Latino Memphis Frank Colvett, Jr. Ex Officio, Representing Memphis City Council Christopher Crider General Manager, Sheraton Memphis Downtown Hotel Allison Fouche Ex Officio, Representing the Mayor of Memphis Terri Freeman President National Civil Rights Museum Gary Hahn VP of Marketing & Media Elvis Presley Enterprises Harold Graeter Associate Executive Director AutoZone Liberty Bowl Rich Peterson, Past Chairman Executive Director, Memphis Regional Office ALSAC/St. Jude Children s Research Hospital Lori Huffstutler Ex Officio, Representing Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International Brent Long Director of Special Events Holliday Events Studio David McKinney Ex Officio, Representing the Mayor of Shelby County Ernie Mellor Ex Officio, Representing Memphis Restaurant Association Jennifer Oswalt President Downtown Memphis Commission Sandy Robertson President Beale Street Merchants Association Elizabeth Rouse President & CEO ArtsMemphis Phil Trenary President & CEO Greater Memphis Chamber Tricia Weatherford Ex Officio, Representing the Metropolitan Memphis Hotel & Lodging Association Duncan Williams President Duncan-Williams, Inc. 23