Sedona tourism office reports $4.56 million winter impact, proposes staggered summer advertising and CTV tests

City tourism staff briefed the Sedona City Council on winter campaign results and a proposed summer marketing plan, reporting attribution metrics, lodging impacts and plans to refine visitor‑management tools. Communications Director Lauren and tourism analyst Andrew presented the results and strategy.

Why it matters: the tourism office’s paid campaigns are designed to increase off‑season demand, influence visitor behavior (shuttle use, stewardship) and generate bed‑tax revenue that funds local services. Councilors weighed campaign returns against resident impacts and visitor‑management needs.

Campaign results and methods Lauren reported the winter attribution campaign (Nov. 26–Feb. 28) produced 88,000 users to Scenic Sedona from attribution ads and an estimated $4,556,351 in hotel and destination spending, which the presentation translated into a 67‑to‑1 return on ad spend (ROAS) using an assumed average daily rate (ADR) of $321 and a visitor spend estimate of $190 per day. The campaign also produced an estimated $1,748,808 in hotel revenue (5,448 room nights) from 2,854 tracked hotel trips.

Lauren described the attribution method as device‑level cross‑device association: ads are served out‑of‑market, devices that later visit Sedona geofenced areas are counted, and length of stay and nights are captured. Staff acknowledged the winter campaign excluded short‑term rental addresses from the attribution layer but said they will upload licensed STR addresses into the attribution dataset before the summer campaign so lodging capture should increase.

Booking windows, markets and proposed changes The tourism team reported booking windows differ by lodging type: STRs cluster in the 6–7 week range while hotels showed more bookings at four weeks or longer. To better match long‑haul flight markets’ booking timelines, the staff proposed staggering campaign flights so certain flight markets begin advertising four to six weeks before drive markets. The summer campaign budget in the proposed plan includes paid search, Meta ads, attribution web ads and a new test of attribution‑based CTV ads (Amazon/Hulu/other streaming) intended to increase ROAS in distant flight markets (New York, Minneapolis, Seattle and San Francisco).

Stewardship and always‑on work Staff described an “always‑on” stewardship program that places short educational videos and transit messaging (Love It Like a Local, how to use roundabouts and shuttle information) on the Sedona shuttle and in paid search targeted to users seeking local travel logistics. Lauren said these stewardship ads produced meaningful engagement in market and were used as part of reputation management to try to shape behavior.

Visitor‑management data and thresholds The tourism office showed preliminary work combining ADOT traffic counts, city travel‑time estimates and an “inconvenience threshold” concept to identify when travel times on major approaches begin to impair resident and visitor experience. Staff said thresholds will be tracked over time and correlated with lodging and campaign data to assess whether more advertising drives congestion beyond acceptable levels or whether engineering and demand management reduce pinch points even with steady visitation.

Council discussion and direction Councilors repeatedly supported testing CTV and staggered flight dates, subject to follow‑up on whether those tactics change ROI in the targeted markets. Several councilors asked staff to continue refining attribution (add licensed STR addresses) and to report back if the CTV tests can raise ROAS in the longer‑haul markets before removing those markets from future plans. Councilors also urged staff to pursue visitor‑management coordination with Public Works, the U.S. Forest Service and partners on trail capacity, shuttle routes and facilities such as restrooms and trash collection.

Ending No formal vote was taken. Staff will add licensed STR addresses to attribution feeds for the summer campaign, proceed with a limited CTV test and return with updated ROAS and congestion/threshold tracking for council review.