Board of Supervisors Presentation July 30, 2013The Calaveras Visitors Bureau Mission Statement: To serve

our members and community by supporting sustainable economic growth through the promotion of tourism in

Calaveras County.

• Is open 7 days a week proudly serving visitors & residents: 7,455 for 2013.

• Provides 24 hour information: phone, bulletin board & website.

• Includes a gift shop selling Calaveras County souvenirs (predominantly frog related), covering the cost of our lease.

• Sells tickets to member events.

• Keeps track of available hotel rooms and helps visitors book their overnight stays.

• Houses the Calaveras Visitors Bureau – the official destination marketing organization for Calaveras County.

CALAVERAS VISITOR CENTER

• 501c6 non-profit association governed by a Board of Directors elected by member businesses.

• Funding & Income – approximately $300,000 to $350,000 annually

ORGANIZATION & FUNDING

County TOT (33% of the 6% tax)

City TOT (13% of the 10% tax)

Membership includes ad sales

Partnerships - coop advertising

Gift shop sales - covers our lease

OUR BUDGET: EXPENSES

MerchandiseMarketingOfficePayroll

• Approximately 50% of our budget currently goes to marketing. With fixed overhead, any additional financial investment goes directly into marketing. -annual-budget.

To see full budget details go to: www.gocalaveras.com/calaveras-visitors-bureau-annual-budget

2013 -14 MARKETING PLAN INCLUDES:

• Design, production, distribution of 75,000 Activities Guides

• Calaveras booth in the California State Fair Counties Exhibits

• Exhibits at the most productive Travel and Trade Shows• Bay Area Travel & Adventure Show• Sunset Celebrations• LA Travel & Adventure Show

• Strategic online, print & radio advertising• Website upgrades and updates

• Mobile app• Interactive online map• SEO and SEM

• Regularly scheduled social media marketing, blogs and press releases

• Partnering with local, regional and state marketing organizations to leverage our marketing dollars

• Media FAM (familiarization) trips• First hand experience of Calaveras is the

best marketing!

ACTIVITIES GUIDE

• 75,000 Activities Guides:• Distributed through:

• Fulfillment from ad reader response

• Various Gold Country Visitor Centers and California Welcome Centers (California’s State Visitors Centers)

• County rack distribution program

• Travel trade shows• Member businesses• Media & tour operator

fulfillment• California State Fair• Distribution at Bay Area

Corporations & sports shops (key target drive market)

• Digital version also available on CVB website and issuu.com where it’s fully interactive and can be shared anywhere online.

2013 -14 STATE FAIR BOOTH:

• Nearly 700,000 people attend the State Fair over 2-1/2 weeks.

• Award winning booths with interactive games and interesting facts, create good will and entice visitors to Calaveras County.

• For 2013 we are using a tracking mechanism for measuring ROI – VIP activation cards, capturing visitor stats online.

• The Calaveras exhibit won Gold and Best Visitor Experience.

CVB WEBSITE: GOCALAVERAS.COM

• Lists & links to every tourism related business and activity in Calaveras County that we know of.

• Provides the most comprehensive calendar of activities for the county.

• Posts regular, tourism-related blogs including interviews with member businesses.

• Members Corner now includes complete board meeting information, budget, agendas and tourism stats (best place for BOS to see what the CVB is currently working on).

• Visitation up by 30% over this time last year.

CVB WEBSITE: Investments for 2013-2014

• Mobile app• Approximately 30% of our

web visitors are accessing our site from mobile devices.

• Interactive map• Shows visitors what’s

available from any given location

• Easy user-created itineraries

• Includes trail maps and all recreational attributes in Calaveras

• SEO and SEM• Site will rank higher in

search engines• Targeted advertising follows

visitors as a reminder to visit Calaveras!

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

• The CVB Facebook page has nearly 9,000 likes. We post to it at least once daily to encourage visitor engagement.

• A Youtube channel has been created with videos featuring Calaveras County – many uploaded by visitors.

• We have 2 Vimeo channels: one contains episodes of Tourism Matters in which we interview member businesses, the other features videos on Calaveras travel.

• The CVB Twitter account consists of an automatic feed that posts every time we blog or make a Facebook post.

TRAVEL & MEDIA SHOWS

• We only attend the events that have the largest attendance within our drive markets and/or produce the greatest ROI:• LA Travel & Adventure

Show• Bay Area Travel &

Adventure Show – direct to consumer

• Sunset Celebration Weekend

• Visit California Media Receptions – direct to media

PRINT & ONLINE ADVERTISING

• Sunset Magazine• Sacramento Magazine• Official State Visitors Guide• Facebook• Google Pay Per Click• Visit California website

STAYING CURRENT: Conventions

• Destination marketing is constantly evolving, which is why we attend conventions and summits – to keep up on the latest marketing trends at:

• The WACVB (Western Area Convention & Visitors Bureau) Tech Summit and CEO Forum.

• Visit California’s Outlook Forum which gives us the latest State tourism stats and current marketing goals.

• CalTravel Conference which provides the opportunity to network and learn best practices from our peers.

Destination marketing is not cheap, so we work with our regional partners to purchase larger ad space, share trade show booth space, distribute each others’ activities guides and more. Our marketing partners include:

LEVERAGING OUR MARKETING DOLLARS