Sedona tourism staff cite softening demand, win council ad boost and roll out trail-mapping changes

City tourism staff updated the Sedona Tourism Advisory Board on local market trends, a new visitor guide, a City Council-approved advertising amendment and a digital trail-mapping partnership during a regularly scheduled meeting.

Andrew, a city tourism staff member, told the board that multiple data sources show a modest softening in demand and visitor spending in May and June 2025. He said June hotel occupancy and revenue were down in the local sample while short-term rental revenue rose because those units increased their average daily rates. "We are seeing decreases in the hotel market in June, but we're not seeing that same level of decrease in the short term rental market," Andrew said.

The update tied several different signals together: national TSA throughput and inbound-travel figures, local hotel reporting, scraped short-term-rental data (Airbnb/VRBO) and city traffic counts. Staff noted caveats for each data source: hotel panels do not include every property, short-term rental scraping may mark owner-blocked dates as unavailable, and card-based spend data will change later this year when the city moves to a new Visa-based feed with Symphony.

Why it matters: staff framed the briefing as an effort to move faster on tactics when near-real-time indicators show potential weakness. Lauren, a city marketing staff member, said the city asked the Sedona City Council for an immediate advertising injection after businesses reported declining revenue and traffic counts showed fewer cars in June. The…