Victoria’s tourism industry is off to a flying start and out-pacing results of a strong 2014, according to figures released by Chemistry Consulting.
Tourism Victoria says it is building on the momentum with its most recent campaign. The destination marketing organization’s “Victoria Beyond Words” campaign exceeded expectations after being launched April 1.
Tourism Victoria said the campaign, which created new words such as “funnerocity” to describe the experience of visiting Victoria, surpassed its online traffic goal by 67 per cent. The landing website page received about 35,000 visits in the first month.
“[The board] is pleased to see the innovative sales and marketing tactics staff is using to build year-round business,” said Dave Cowen, chairman of Tourism Victoria.
Through the first three months of this year, indicators in virtually all categories were well above the levels set in 2014.
Hotel occupancy was up 7.7 per cent to 58.8 per cent through the first three months of the year, while revenue per available room increased $11.88 to $64.58. The average daily room rate increased $6.74 to $109.87.
B.C. Ferries traffic was also up considerably with vehicle traffic up 5.4 per cent to 344,408 by the end of March and passenger numbers up 4.4 per cent to 1.02 million.
Bus traffic on the ferries was the only indicator trending down, as it fell off 14 per cent to 1,935 in the first quarter of this year.
Victoria International Airport had a four per cent increase in traffic in the first quarter to 383,502 passengers.
The Victoria Conference Centre had a massive March, with 8,553 delegate days, to drive its first quarter numbers up 110 per cent to 27,794 delegate days compared with the first quarter of last year.
Tourism Victoria Visitor Centre also reported a 176 per cent increase in sales in April over the same month last year. Year-to-date there has been a 280 per cent increase over 2014.
