VISIT BALTIMORE TOURISM WORKFORCE STUDY EXECUTIVE SUMMARY CY21 will see Visit Baltimore s state mandated hotel-tax funding come up for renewal before the Maryland General Assembly in Annapolis, and, a new Administration and much changed City Council take up residency in City Hall. For these and more reasons, Visit Baltimore decided to take a closer look as to how our meetings and tourism industry creates jobs and opportunities for residents from every city neighborhood and every surrounding jurisdiction. OUR OBJECTIVES #1. To estimate where employees of Baltimore s tourism related business live, demonstrating the importance of tourism (and Visit Baltimore s operations) to the local/regional/state economy as well as the breadth of tourism related jobs; and, #2. To demonstrate to individual legislators how Baltimore s tourism industry supports business and employs constituents in their own districts regardless of whether or not their district falls within the boundaries of Baltimore City and/or encompasses a traditional tourism neighborhood. THE RESULTS By example of Visit Baltimore s membership network, Baltimore tourism directly employs more than,3 jobholders residing in 22 MD Legislative Districts spanning seven counties including Baltimore City. SEE APPENDIX A. A closer look of jobholders at the zip code level estimates roughly half or, 23,2 of those jobholders as residing in one of any 1 of Baltimore City s Council Districts. SEE APPENDIX B. While Visit Baltimore cannot claim 1% of regional hospitality and tourism businesses as members, we can reasonably claim to influence and/or impact a majority of the total DIRECTLY and/or INDIRECTLY EMPLOYED tourism jobs for the Baltimore region as estimated by annual reports from Tourism Economics: Sub-industries represented in Visit Baltimore s Member Tourism Employment Analysis, Direct / Indirect Baltimore Region Tourism Employment Of which, are Transportation Source: Tourism Economics
OUR METHODOLOGY To collect information from a significant percentage of Visit Baltimore s membership and, after sufficient data cleanup and statistical analysis, use the responses of that sample to estimate/project the net workforce impact and representation of Visit Baltimore s membership at the resident zip code level. OUR PROCESS First, and in collaboration with our independent research firm the Social Studies Group*, we crafted/deployed a twophase all-visit Baltimore-member online survey: Phase 1 invited members to provide detail including report buy-in/contact, payroll systems, industry category, and staffing size metric. Phase 2 provided an Excel report template (alongside FAQS and detailed instructions for extracting the relevant information from individual payroll systems) for members to summarize their active employee roster by the following standard information fields: o Employee Type (PT/FT); o Primary Employee Address Zip/Post Code; and, o And, requested but not required, Position Level (Director, Manager, Assistant, etc.) At no time were individual employee names or salary information requested. Phase 1 was deployed in November 21. Phase 2 was deployed in late December 21. Following 1:1 member follow up and reminder appeals, Phase 2 concluded in August 21. In total reports from 1 unique member accounts were provided to Visit Baltimore and/or the Social Studies Group. At this time, Visit Baltimore also provided to the Social Studies group a matrix breaking down: 1) full member roster by industry category, and 2) the number of business accounts completes within each industry category; and, a full listing of Visit Baltimore member business accounts including industry category and zip code of physical business location. SEE EXAMPLE 1 *The following describes the Social Studies Group s analysis: Cleaning and collating data from individual excel reports into a database table for querying (NOTE Employee Type and Position Level were excluded from analysis at this stage). Establishing whether the sample provided is representative of the full Membership [e.g. population] and sufficient for 1:1 extrapolation. Once determining the sample was not statistically representative, normalizing the data. Specifically, using data science to estimate where employees in the sample and thereby full population reside by: o Compiling a zip code matrix and recording the distances between all appropriate employee and employer zip codes in the sample; o Computing the average employee commute (distance between employer zip code and employee zip code) in the sample data; o Computing a "distance adjuster" a number that considers the "likelihood" of each zip code as having a resident employee of the business using the distance distribution tables and business zip codes; o Averaging the number of employees per sample employer (per business industry type), then multiplying that by the number of businesses in the population in order to estimate the total number of jobs at all population firms; and, o Pulling appropriate Census data in order to estimate zip codes where employees are likely to live.
Using linear regression on the sample data, SSG applied both the distance adjuster and Census fields to create equations for the following primary business industry categories: o Hospitality [encompassing Accommodation, Restaurant & Caterer, and Nightlife categories from Visit Baltimore matrix] o Retail [encompassing Retail & Shopping from Visit Baltimore matrix] o Services [encompassing all marketing/convention/conference and related professional services from Visit Baltimore matrix, but excluding all transportation categories as the sample was too small] o Attractions & Associations [encompassing Attractions & Entertainment as well as all Agencies, Associations and Nonprofits from Visit Baltimore matrix]. SSG then applied the regression equations from the sample to the population data in order to forecast zip codes where employees were likely to reside. EXAMPLE 1 Matrix denoting Visit Baltimore s active membership population by industry category (at time of Phase 2 survey conclusion) AND unique business report completes in those same categories (e.g. the sample ). Parent and Child accounts refer to Visit Baltimore CRM and member account types for billing purposes (e.g. parent and subsidiary). This breakout was important in identifying the number of unique business completes in instances whereby multiple parent and subsidiary entities were included in a single staffing report. FOR QUESTIONS CONTACT: Allison Burr-Livingstone, AVP of Public Affairs ablivingstone@baltimore.org or 1.9.
APPENDIX A: VISIT BALTIMORE TOURISM EMPLOYMENT JOB HOLDERS BY LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT 3A 1,3 Harford,9 2B Carroll 1,22 Cecil 3, Baltimore County 3B 1,2 3,332 9B Howard 3 21 1,2 3,2 32,2 Baltimore City, By example of Visit Baltimore s 2A 3 92 9A 2 3A,2 3B,9 31A 32 3, 31B Anne Arundel 33 membership network, Baltimore 31 tourism directly employs,3 3A job holders, residing in 22 1,931 Legislative Districts and seven counties including Baltimore City. MD Legislative District Associations & Attractions Services (excluding transportation) Retail Hotel, Restaurant & Nightlife Resident Job Holders Represented by Visit Baltimore s Membership 3 33 39 1,22 9 1 3,9 1,32 9 2,29,9 9 1 1,31 2 3, 9 1 31 1, 3,2 9 9 19 21 1,3 3,332 1 1,99 2 2,,2 93 1, 1,3,2 91 2 1,22, 2 3 21 391 1 3 333 1,2 3 3 2 19 2 1,931 31 1,2 9 2,3, 32 33 93 31 3 19 39 2 2 3 21 31 32 1,3 3 1 1, 1, 91 1,22,2 2 1 19 1 1 3 2 31 21 92 3 31 32 Grand Total,99,23, 1,231,3 Source: The Social Studies Group and Visit Baltimore member surveys
21 2 APPENDIX B: VISIT BALTIMORE TOURISM EMPLOYMENT 22 2 23 JOB HOLDERS BY CITY COUNCIL DISTRICT 23 2 2 29 2 213 th 2 9 th 2 29 21 th 21 1 1,23 2 21 3rd 2 1th th 2,9 21 21 22 223 2 231 1th tourism directly employs,3 1,1 22 job holders - of whom approximately % (23,2) are 219 City residents representing all 1 City Council Districts. 21 219 21 21 3,33 Zip Code City Council District 223 1 2 21 29 23 21 23 2 3 21 2 2 29 1 21 1 23 1 1 92 9 9 3 1 19 1 19 1 39 1 91 9 1 1 21 13 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 9 3 9 29 1 21 2 Hotel, Restaurant & Nightlife 21 2 Services 2 (excluding transportation) Associations & Attractions 21 3 29 231 23 21 21 2 Retail 21 1 2 Source: The Social Studies Group393 and Visit Baltimore member surveys 23 21 231 2 99 3 19 2 19 1 21 23 1 3 2 29 1 1 2 1 1 22 22 1 1 1 1 23 1 1 19 2 2 2 1 22 39 1 192 22 21 22 223 9 1 22 21 23 3,33 23 1st 9 213 membership network, Baltimore 21 221 22 By example of Visit Baltimore s 2 2 3 th 213 2nd th 2 9th 21 th 21 1,9 3,1 2 1,321 2 th 22 21 2,29 2 21 23 21 2,1 2 Resident Job Holders Represented by Visit Baltimore s Membership 3,33 2,9 2,29 1,23 9 2,1 1,9 3,1 1,1 9 22 9 21 1 2 2 19 1 3 21 1 2 2 13 1 1,321 Grand Total,,9,,9 23,2 Source: The Social Studies Group and Visit Baltimore member surveys