{"id":235566,"date":"2012-04-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-27T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/san-diego-attracting-tourists\/"},"modified":"2012-04-27T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-04-27T07:00:00","slug":"san-diego-attracting-tourists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/san-diego-attracting-tourists\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego attracting tourists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>ConVis to spend millions marketing the region as an affordable destination<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>By Johnny McDonald | Downtown News<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Although the latest gas prices weigh heavily on tourism traffic, for some, San Diego continues to be economically reachable. The Convention and Visitors Bureau (ConVis) makes sure visitors know that the city\u2019s attractions provide an affordable option.<\/p>\n<p>From February through June of this year, ConVis intends to spend $6.2 million in advertising and promotional incentives to promote San Diego as a tourist destination, said Kerri Kapich, ConVis senior vice president of marketing. She said 62 percent of all overnight visitors come from California, Arizona and Nevada.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are definitely sensitive to\u00a0all the situations: gas [prices], higher plane expense and the cruise ship decline,\u201d said ConVis President and CEO Joe Terzi.<\/p>\n<p>However, he said, despite similar gas concerns during the 2008 recession, San Diego did not feel the effects as much as other locations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe didn\u2019t see a major impact for day-type traffic with our attractions,\u201d he said of the 2008 gasoline-price spike. \u201cRight now, people are rethinking what they\u2019re doing and being more cautious, but I\u2019m not sure $4.50-a-gallon gas will change people\u2019s behavior significantly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Terzi said, \u201cOverall analysis shows we\u2019re a destination where people can get to fairly easy and that we\u2019ll do better. Still, airline costs are kind of out of whack and might be a bigger concern.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>British Airways and Japan Airlines recently added direct flights to San Diego from the U.K. and Japan. San Diego is the 11th most visited city in the United States for overseas travelers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe do special promotions, mostly through the online travel agencies, that offer special values for price discounts,\u201d Kapich said. \u201cThese promotions often target travelers researching popular fly destinations such as Hawaii and other key competitors. We give them an option.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Saying the reason many come to San Diego is for the beauty and biodiversity, Kapich also listed Balboa Park, Coronado and the Gaslamp Quarter as popular tourist attractions.<\/p>\n<p>Kapich said a total of 153,000 San Diegans are employed in travel- and tourism-related jobs, including large-scale destinations like the San Diego Zoo and Sea World. \u201cWe\u2019re running a major partnership with Sea World, sharing media expenses,\u201d she said. As additional incentives, Kapich said hotels sometimes offer a package deal, which sometimes includes a pre-paid gas card.<\/p>\n<p>ConVis received three 2012 Excellence in Tourism Marketing awards at the Visit California Outlook Forum that took place February in Sacramento. ConVis was selected as Best in International Marketing, Broadcast Advertising and Integrated Marketing.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ConVis to spend millions marketing the region as an affordable destination By Johnny McDonald | Downtown News Although the latest gas prices weigh heavily on tourism traffic, for some, San Diego continues to be economically reachable. The Convention and Visitors Bureau (ConVis) makes sure visitors know that the city\u2019s attractions provide an affordable option. From [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":235564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"San Diego attracting tourists","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11552,11600],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-opinion","category-sdnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}