Spring Has Sprung!

Spring in Salt Lake, when it’s sunny and 75 one day and snowing the next. But what a great and fun time of year, whether you’re still skiing or more than ready for spring and all it brings: getting your yard and garden in shape, dining al fresco at any one of our incredible restaurants (or your own backyard), the incredible lineup of outdoor summer concerts, riding or hiking in our very special “backyard,” or any other warm-weather pursuit and interest.

If you’re still making turns, you know that Snowbird is having a great spring with a few storms bringing the powder we’d wished we had earlier this winter. Regardless, we all owe a special nod of thanks to our incredible resorts for putting forth yet another spectacular winter despite Mother Nature not blessing us with our typical bounty. (Of course, we still received more snow than most resorts get in their ‘fantastic years,’ but we’re spoiled with The Greatest Snow On Earth.)

Spring is also our official kick off of the always-popular Visit Salt Lake Connect Pass, one of the coolest attraction passes out there, giving entry to 16 of Salt Lake’s top and most popular attractions. Ideal for both visitors and locals alike, the pass is sold in increments of 1-, 2- and 3-days as well as the 365-day pass, with each iteration allowing one entry per attraction. For more information on the Connect Pass, go here.

I’m also excited to announce the launch of our vastly-improved website, www.visitsaltlake.com, later this month. We’ve been working hard on the site and can assure you it will be incredibly user- and partner-friendly. Its launch is just in time for our busy summer convention season, something I trust you and your teams are gearing up for as it appears to be another great one, and we depend greatly on the experience each and every one of our attendees receive while in our community.

For that, your continued support and so much more, thank you!

Scott Beck
President & CEO

Upcoming Conventions: The Financial Forecast

Visit Salt Lake has developed occupancy forecasting models by using STR Analytics daily hotel data. STR Analytics produces a ‘Daily Trend Report’ (DTR). The DTR is a report of hotels’ daily percentage occupancy, average daily rate, and resulting RevPAR. Visit Salt Lake has purchased a subscription to DTR for Salt Lake in two sets. One for total Salt Lake County (approx. 18,000 rooms), and the other for the Salt Lake County Convention District (“SLCD,” approx. 6,400 rooms). By simple interpolation, we derive the data set for Salt Lake hotels that are located outside the SLCD (approx. 11,600 rooms).

VSL has DTR information from January 1, 2012, to the present. Hotels in the SLCD are located in the downtown area, and 98% of their hotel reservation systems are directly linked to STR Analytics. This enables STR to produce its DTR with a high degree of accuracy and provides reliable insight into the effects of events in Salt Lake. Approximately 80% of the hotels inside Salt Lake County but outside of the SLCD link their reservation systems to STR Analytics. The other hotels participate in surveys conducted by STR.

The graph above shows hotel occupancy forecasts for July 2018. Occupancy forecasts are estimated by the number of convention attendees, day-of-week, seasonality, and location.

There are two graphs for each forecasted month:

Hotel occupancy inside the SLCD
Hotel occupancy outside the SLCD

The graphs also show historic year-over-year occupancy rates, convention dates, and claimed convention attendance.

SEE MORE DETAIL

Red Butte Outdoor Concert Series!

While walking along Salt Lake’s Bonneville Shoreline trail overlooking our little urban gem nestled in the mountains, you will hear a strange noise this summer. Yup—the hills are alive with the sound of the Red Butte Garden Concert Series. In an incomparable setting, the Red Butte Concert Series is one of our summer must-do’s. Between top-name acts like Sheryl Crow, Death Cab For Cutie, The Gipsy Kings, and more, and the insanely beautiful backdrop of Salt Lake’s Wasatch Range, Red Butte’s Concert Series offers up aural pleasure with a heaping dose of nature. Add the fact that you can bring in your own cooler (yes, that means your favorite red, bubbly, or oat soda, and food) and this concert series is hard to beat.

Looking for a way to reach more visitors and convention attendees? As a VSL member, you can promote any discount, deal, or special offer on our website by adding coupon offers to your member profile at no additional cost.

Coupons appear on our homepage, several additional webpages throughout our website, and on your listing so they're essentially free advertising. Best of all – we track how many views your coupon gets. Target convention attendees by creating a "Show Your Badge" coupon wherein if attendees have a specific convention badge, they get a discount or complimentary goodie of your choosing.

Coming Soon! Your member coupon will be accessible in Visit Salt Lake’s “Show Your Badge” pass. A pass that will be offered to all city-wide and large groups through a mobile platform. “Show Your Badge” pass participating convention groups will be able to send out a link to their registrants to load all of the coupon offers from Visit Salt Lake and have them available in a easy-to-use, web-based smartphone application. Convention attendees will show the coupon offer to the business and the businesses will be able to redeem the discount or offer on the attendee's smartphone.

Also, don’t forget to add high quality imagery to take full advantage of your listing. Images should be 1800 x 675 and the Member Portal will automatically resize as needed. Once uploaded these images can be selected for the coupons you create.

If you have any questions on how publish a coupon or special offer, or adding photos, feel free to reach out to Miranda Maisto.

Featured Member Highlight

The "New Pioneers - American Dream" Award is given out by the Salt Lake Chamber to celebrate and recognize the important contributions immigrants make every day in Utah. This award was recently bestowed upon one of our long-time members, beloved restaurateur and preeminent host, Valter Nassi, the proud owner of Valter's Osteria. Valter was born in the village of Monte San Savino, Italy, and has been in the restaurant business for more than 47 years. He has trained all over the world - Italy, Switzerland, London, Paris, England, Kenya, and New York City. We are extremely lucky that after experiencing all these exotic cities, he chose to permanently locate to, as he calls it, "Salt Lake My City."

Congratulations Valter! This recognition epitomizes the "positive impact of immigrants and how they have helped shape Utah's history." You certainly have become a local institution, and we consider ourselves very fortunate to have you and your larger than life personality in our community.

Meet Our New Members!

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