“The Arizona market is vital for us,” smiles David Peckinpaugh, president and CEO of the San Diego Convention Bureau over lunch in the Gaslamp Quarter. “The Arizona traveler is very loyal and are often repeat visitors year after year. Obviously, we love that.”
During the summer, it is hard to tell if there are more native San Diegans or visitors from the Grand Canyon State. Look around at restaurants, bars, beaches, malls, attractions—take note of how many license plates are from Arizona and it becomes clear that San Diego is like a second home. It is a fact not lost on marketing executives in the region. Peckinpaugh likes to push what they call “active relaxation.” It’s a vacation with adventure and activity built right in. With a year-round mild climate, an eclectic mix of hip bars, nightspots, restaurants and attractions, you have the perfect mix for enjoying the area. “Wherever your passions lie,” Peckinpaugh adds, “we’ve got it.”
Besides summertime, the San Diego CVB has two big marketing pushes: spring and fall. Sixty percent of visitors to San Diego are within driving distance. Besides Arizona, target visitors come from Nevada and other locations in California. “Arizona is one of our big targets during the fall and the spring,” Peckinpaugh says. “Summer sells itself, we don’t need to market the area that much during the summer to Arizona or Nevada. The weather does that for us.”
But fall and spring is a different story. Resorts and other attractions create specific packages and deals during these times to lure the Arizona traveler. Tourism officials reported a record summer season last year. Rising fuel costs were a concern, Peckinpaugh adds, but not so much that it hurt travel.
According to San Diego CVB estimates, nearly 28 million tourists visited the region in 2006. Total visitor spending in San Diego County toped $6.1 billion, up 4.6 percent from 2005. The outlook for 2007? A gain of nearly 6 percent.
“We enjoy record travel numbers,” he says. “We are very grateful.”
www.sandiego.org
Very Conventional
Lessons from San Diego’s Convention Center
The San Diego Convention Center, located along the coast and in the heart of the thriving Gaslamp Quarter, has been the biggest key to the area’s revitalization. Much like the Phoenix Convention Center, in the midst of a $600 million expansion project, the San Diego center has expanded and been added to over the years. The most recent expansion, though, has kicked-off a huge wave of hotel and residential vibrancy in the heart of downtown.
“The convention center has been the engine driving everything,” says David Peckinpaugh, president and CEO of the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau. “This engine creates compression and spurs hotel, residential and retail growth. It has been the biggest component driving growth in the Gaslamp Quarter.”
In late 2001, the San Diego Convention Center doubled in building size to 2.6 million total gross square feet. Today, the San Diego Convention Center ranks 21st in size among the 375 convention facilities in North America. |
t’s the perfect loving relationship: Zonies love San Diego and San Diego returns the favor in spades. As summer beckons in the near future and with it the warm weather, many Arizonans dream of vacation on the West Coast. In fact, most don’t just dream, they act. For many, San Diego is an annual rite of passage and tourism officials in San Diego couldn’t be happier about this love fest. 
