San Diego Celebrates National Tourism Week 2002
By Joanne DiBona, Communications Director
San Diego joins the rest of the nation May 4-11 in celebration of National Tourism Week—an event that gives us the opportunity to proclaim the important role the visitor industry plays in our local economy.
Ironically, the tragic events of September 11 make our message more meaningful than ever before. During those weeks after the attack, we watched our national tourism industry grind to a screeching halt and experienced first-hand what a profound effect that collapse had on our national and local economy.
San Diego’s visitor industry is comprised of small, medium and large business enterprises located throughout the entire county. It serves as a powerful economic engine that drives much of our community’s success and progress.
All these businesses, large and small, immediately felt the repercussions of the downturn in tourism during those months. Directly impacted were our region’s hotels, restaurants, visitor attractions, transportation services, tour operators, i.e., those businesses that deal directly with San Diego’s visitor.
Then it hit other businesses and services that owe a good part of their revenue to tourism. The caterer, musician, florist, photographer, event planner, gift basket provider, sports rental store, and hot air balloon company, to name just a few, saw an abrupt drop off in business and revenue.
It didn’t stop there. Because the tourist and convention dollar trickles down through every level of our economy, businesses you may never have associated with the visitor industry also felt the blow of tourism’s standstill. Printers, graphic designers, waste removal companies, paper manufacturers, translators, food distributors, janitorial suppliers, golf clinics, and security services were just a few of the hundreds of companies and services that lost revenue during that period.
It became very obvious, very soon that when tourism suffers, the entire national economy suffers.
Fortunately, San Diego got back on its feet much quicker than many visitor destinations across the country, thanks to our region’s popularity as a drive and short-haul flight market and the success of an aggressive marketing campaign conducted by the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau. That campaign, our Rediscover San Diego program, offered incredible vacation values to travelers in our target markets, as well as to local residents who were encouraged to take a vacation in their own back yards.
Always popular as a drive market for California, Arizona and Nevada residents, visitors began to come back. San Diego became an ideal choice for those individuals and families who opted to take a value-packed vacation closer to home.
Tourism, San Diego’s third largest industry, began to return to normal.
Our 2001 statistics registered a decline, of course (the first one is more than 8 years of steady, record-breaking growth) but remained relatively stable considering the impact of the September 11 tragedy. Despite those catastrophic events, San Diego still hosted more than 14.8 million overnight visitors in 2001, visitors who poured $5.1 billion into the regional economy.
In addition, our local visitor industry provided jobs to 177,000 San Diegans who worked in fields directly related to tourism, including lodging, food service, attractions and transportation.
There were actually some bright spots in San Diego’s 2001 tourism picture. One was business at the San Diego Convention Center, which enjoyed double digit increases in delegate attendance and spending last year. Since the events of September 11th, only one convention was cancelled. In fact, in November 2001, the Center recorded its highest ever number of peak hotel room nights on record for any November since its opening in 1989.
In addition to the overall business generated by San Diego’s visitor industry, there is the added benefit of the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT), the “bed tax” levied on all hotel rooms throughout the county. (This is in addition to tens of millions of dollars in other general fund revenues like sales tax, property tax, rents, etc. generated by visitor spending.)
This year, the TOT is anticipated to generate approximately $140 million for local municipal governments throughout San Diego county. By comparison, in 1988 these receipts totaled a “mere” $36 million; in 1995, $72 million. It’s easy to see the astonishing rate at which TOT revenues have grown over the last few years thanks to the success of our visitor industry.
So what happens to these tax dollars, paid by tourists and convention delegates, not local San Diego taxpayers? A significant portion of the TOT is used to supplement the general funds of cities throughout the region and underwrite basic municipal services, such as road repair and park maintenance.
These revenues also help fund cultural events, arts organizations and community-based programs throughout the county. In addition, the TOT provides funding to hire police officers for our neighborhoods, train firefighters and promote economic development.
All San Diegans benefit. The TOT helps to maintain many of the amenities that are enjoyed not only by tourists, but also by San Diego area residents, such as Balboa Park, Mission Bay Park, and the Trolley.
The TOT is also the source of funding for the expansion of San Diego’s enormously successful Convention Center. There is no doubt it is an excellent return on investment, as evidenced by an +8% overall increase in delegate attendance year-to-date.
In addition, a major project currently in the news will be financed primarily with TOT revenues—the downtown ballpark that will help revitalize an entire section of San Diego’s downtown, generating myriad business opportunities along the way.
National Tourism Week may just seem like media hype to some, but to those of us who know the value of our daily visitors, it becomes yet another reason to celebrate our good fortune. Not only do we live in a destination so sought after by tourists from around the world, but those same visitors also provide us with revenues, taxes, and commerce to support our exceptional quality of life.
As San Diego’s visitor industry continues its efforts to return to normal business levels, this week’s celebration will take on a special significance. We will join hands with the nation in grateful thanks that our visitor industry appears to have survived a devastating blow and that tourism will hold its own as one of America’s largest employers (7.8 million people directly employed, 19 million total jobs), America’s third largest retail sales industry ($584 billion in total expenditures) and the world’s number one industry!
