Study: Leisure ‘nearly half’ of area’s travel biz

 / COURTESY PWCVB
/ COURTESY PWCVB

PROVIDENCE – Leisure travelers comprised roughly 43 percent of the Providence-Warwick area’s tourism business over the past five years, according to a first-time study commissioned by the Providence-Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau and the city of Warwick.
Kristen Adamo, vice president of marketing and communications for the PWCVB, unveiled that and other findings from the study Tuesday by DPA, a division of Digital Research Inc. of Kennebunk, Maine, at a member meeting attended by about 30 hospitality representatives at the Omni Providence Hotel.
Other key findings included an economic impact of $149 million spent by 445,000 leisure travelers staying in hotels, with an average travel party of 2.6 people and an average length of stay of 2.8 days.
Adamo said that she and other Rhode Island tourism experts “thought we knew the balance” of visitors skewed toward traditional meeting and convention business, but the fact that “nearly half” of travelers are coming for leisure activities such as visiting attractions and dining out will help inform future marketing efforts.
“It validated our theory that leisure travel is growing in the Providence-Warwick area,” she said.
Terrence Strong, director of sales and marketing for the Omni, and Paul Adams, senior account director for the Providence Marriott Downtown, said that leisure travel is a market that, perhaps, can be expanded.
“The leisure market is what keeps the hotels and restaurants busy on Thursday nights and weekends so it’s a very important piece of business,” Adams said.
The study also found most visitors come from New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey – not much of a surprise to Strong, Adams, Adamo and representatives for companies such as the International Tennis Hall of Fame and the Roger Williams Park Zoo, which both had representatives at the presentation.
One revelation that did surprise Jeremy Goodman, the zoo’s executive director, was the observation that most leisure travelers are not coming with children.
“That might change our strategy as to how we market to certain groups,” Goodman said, since marketing typically bills the zoo as a family destination. But it also might lead zoo marketers to figure out how to draw in more adults with children, he said.
A sample of nearly 33,000 visitors was made available to the consultant through marketing lists obtained by the PWCVB. However, only 103 visitors and 211 nonvisitors participated in the online survey, which formed the basis for the report.
For the 2014 fiscal year, 15 of 23 hoteliers participated in online and telephone surveys, the report said.
Adamo said the small sample is a concern, but after consulting with DPA, she is confident that the findings constitute a reliable indicator of travel patterns.
The cost of the study, shared by the PWCVB and the city of Warwick, was not immediately available.

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