Nudist resorts operate just like many resort cities. They market to the easiest customers to attract, "the locals" and wonder why they are only busy on weekends.
14 years ago, we specifically bought a resort that had big rooms, was very spacious and was geared for vacationers. Thus, about 80% of our business comes from out of state and/or out of country. We are busy 7 days a week, not just weekends like other places. There is nothing more boring than going to a nudist resort and finding out no one is around on Sunday thru Fridays because you booked a weekend getaway.
For instance over Thanksgiving, we have more guests from Canada here then we did from Southern California. And the Canadians were not coming here for our Thanksgiving holiday, they just wanted to getaway from the cold and snow.
I am a past president of the Palm Springs chamber of commerce. When I was president, I tried my hardest to teach other businesses that you have to cater to the vacation market, not the Saturday night getaway market. Unfortunately, a lot of businesses in the tourist industry did not listen and are now suffering as Southern Californians rein in their their weekend getaways.
Here is a story about tourism in Palm Springs which applies to many tourist destinations:
"Valley Tourist Hot Spots Seeing Downturn, Hoping for Local Turnout
It's the season for travel but tourist spots here in the Valley are just not seeing numbers like they used to.
"We've seen about a 10% drop in our attendance so far this year," says Kimberly Bowers with The Living Desert. She says the struggling economy is delaying what is usually the time things start picking up. Desert adventures, which offers jeep tours of the Coachella Valley have seen nearly a 20% drop in tourism...
"We've increased our advertising in the L.A. and San Bernardino areas and also here locally, we've also been doing some P.R. efforts and we also have a lot of special events coming up," says Lena Zimmerschied with Palm Springs Aerial Tramway.
"We'd like to see tourism in Southern California increasing as far as regional tourism is concerned. So with our feeder markets for example San Diego and Los Angeles hopefully seeing more people coming in from those areas as well," said Bowers.
The tourists we spoke with say they're traveling less than before this year and that could be a silver lining for the tourism business here in the valley.
We were usually going to go to Florida for the season and we decided to stay local because of that reason," says Cindy Colberg who is visiting from San Diego...
For the full story click here
Palm Springs needs to do what big cities like Chicago, New York, Las Vegas, etc do, market nationally and internationally. We have probably the best resort weather in the world, yet, businesses here are marketing to Los Angeles, and San Diego. They should be marketing to Seattle, Portland, Chicago, Vancouver, Calgary, etc. market to where the winter weather is cold with snow. Then make sure you take care of your customer so they want to come back. Then they would be busier.
This year will be our busiest year of business. We have found lots of guests have cancelled their Hawaiian, Caribbean, Mexican, European, and Floridian vacations and flown to our resort instead.
Palm Springs tourist officials need to realize that we are in competition for tourists around the world. And the one trump card we hold is we have the best weather anywhere since we are the sunniest city in the US. I wish they wouldn't spend so much money marketing to Southern California, but instead market to vacationers.
So if you have always wanted to try topless or nude sunbathing, give us a call at 800-786-6938. Visit our site at http://sunnyfun.com
Hope to see you in sunny Palm Springs!
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