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STR Tracking for Sonoma County

Things to Note: STR is comparing “Weekly Year Over Year” 49 of the county’s 112 hotels report to STR The average from other destinations includes: Napa, Palm Springs, Monterey, South Lake Tahoe, and Vallejo/Napa Valley For more information on how data is calculated due to hotel closures, please refer to this document.

Smith Travel Research (STR) is the recognized leader in hospitality industry benchmarking around the globe. Powered by the world's largest hotel data sample, they deliver confidential data, accurate and actionable insights, and comprehensive solutions to empower decisions. Discover how STR collects data, how it is calculated, and a glossary of terms, by clicking here.

Sentiment Snapshot  According to Destination Analysts, a proportion of Americans shifted from feeling the pandemic would get worse in the next month (53.7% down from 61.5%) to feeling things would be about the same (30.3% from 23.8%). Still, relatively few think things will improve (16.0%). When survey respondents were asked how they expect the severity of the coronavirus situation in the United States to change in the next month, they stated they believe the situation will:

Destination Analysts Key Findings to Know From the 8/3 Destination Analysts' Travel Sentiment Report

Concerns about personally contracting the virus have been elevated among Millennial travelers over the past month. The proportion of American travelers that say they would be happy to see an ad promoting their community for tourism when it is safe has receded to 29.1% from 35.8% at the end of June. Right now it appears the regional effects and response to the pandemic will have a lingering impact on destination brands. Nearly one-third of American travelers say they are less likely to visit the American destinations that they most associate with Coronavirus-related issues, even after the pandemic ends. American travelers are also more polarized in their travel readiness state of mind. While 48.5% report having leisure trip plans during one or more months in the remainder of the year, sadly, 51.5% do not currently have any leisure trip plans in 2020. Those who do not have trip plans this year are, unsurprisingly, more concerned about the virus, but interestingly less likely to be travelers that typically visited National Parks and other types of public lands prior to the pandemic. Among those that will be traveling in 2020, plans for their next trip are largely well-formed, with beaches, National Parks and other rural areas most cited as the destinations. Over one third of American travelers with school-age kids say they are more likely to take family trips this fall if their children do not have in-person education; 21% feel less likely.

Website Insights for sonomacounty.com

Looking at the week of July 24-30, traffic to sonomacounty.com is stable compared to the prior week, with organic traffic up 2.3% over last week. Top content that people were engaging with: coast/beaches, the coronavirus info page, Life Opens Up summer campaign page, and editorial about outdoor activities, nature parks, coast, Russian River, Lake Sonoma and redwoods, glamping and camping, wineries, gardens, and road/bike trips. Our blog saw high traffic volume for new experiences in Sonoma County, black owned businesses, outdoor movies, and sunset spots. In terms of city geo locations for website visitors we see our key drive markets on top of the list: San Francisco is the top source for website visitors with a share of 18%, Sacramento is #3, Oakland #5, San José #6, and Los Angeles is #7. We saw two out-of-state cities in the top 25: New York and Chicago.