Norma Tofanelli | Aug 11, 2015 on: Tourism Issues

Visit Napa Valley 2014 Visitor Profile
Visit Napa Valley 2014 Economic Impact Report

Wonder why the roads are clogged?

• 2014 visitor count up 11% and tourism jobs (mostly hotel and restaurant low paying) = 11,776
  
• Low income, high housing costs = most of those 12,000 employees commute
  
• Low-wage jobs, commuting employees and lots of day-trippers: 2.21 mil of 3.39 mil visitors per year

Direct-to-consumer:

• Nearly one in three lodging guests joined a wine club (29.7%).
  
• The majority of intercept respondents reported high likelihood to purchase and take home wine. Day trip and VFR visitors were asked their likelihood of purchasing wine to take home. Two-thirds of these visitors were “Likely” (25.6%) or “Very likely” (42.6%) to buy wine to take home.
  
• Two-thirds of lodging guests surveyed bought wine to take home (66.5%).
  
• In 2014, Napa Valley visitors spent an average of $482.71 per day in-market. The bulk of this spending is attributed to wine bottles purchased at wineries ($130.64), followed by Restaurants ($124.97). Reported visitor spending usually covers more than one visitor. The average daily spending reported in the previous question covered an average of 2.2 persons.
  
• Napa Valley lodging guests commonly travel with one other person. Lodging guests were asked how many people stayed in their lodging room. Over three-fourths of lodging guests shared their room with one other person (77.8%). The average lodging room accommodated 2.2 persons.

NB Business Journal: Report: Napa tourism generates $1.6B
Visit Napa Valley website: Research & Statistics page
George Caloyannidis' letter on the DTC boondoggle.

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Update 8/11/15:

Ving Direct: Vine Notes: Data dispel wine direct-sales myths, Part 1 (Myth No. 3: People are buying lots of wine when they visit you in Wine Country.)

Is the use of our resources and the traffic mess worth it? The article above says no - they use old Napa County visitor data (in 2012 the take was $10/visitor/winery) which prompted me to update with 2014 data - interesting.

Visit Napa Valley 2014 data:
Average visitor spends $482.71 per day "in-market"
(reported spending covers more than one visitor - actually covers 2.2 visitors)
Wine bottles purchased at wineries = $130.64
And Average visitor went to 3.3 wineries per NV visit

So:
130.64 / 2.2 visitors = $59.38 wine purchases at winery per visitor
59.38 / 3.3 wineries = $17.99 per visitor per winery

All this for $17.99 wine sales per visitor?

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Bill Hocker adds:

In re-looking at the 2014 visitor profile one statistic that jumped out was a question to visitors about how to enhance the Napa Valley experience:
5% wanted more wineries. 30% (6 times more than any other response) felt it was great as it is. Who will the county and the wine industry listen to?