Tourism groups overlook Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival

10:54 PM PDT on Wednesday, April 25, 2007

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Massive crowds of young people will converge on the Coachella Valley for this weekend's music festival, but whether they will turn into repeat visitors is anybody's guess.

No welcome signs, banners or promotions urge them to come back for another vacation.

All the area's tourism organizations, chambers of commerce and economic-development agencies agree that reaching out to the estimated 50,000 attending the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival might be a bright idea, but none think it's their job.

The concertgoers are going to spend money, with or without outreach, they say.

Or the destination will sell itself, persuading them to visit another day, they add.

But little in the way of a welcome mat is laid out for concertgoers who will likely buy breakfast, grab a midnight snack, tip waiters, pay for cab fare and fill hotels throughout the Coachella Valley.

"That smacks of an opportunity," said Kathleen Davis, president and chief executive officer of Florida-based Sports Management Research Institute, which conducts economic-impact studies for events.

"Maybe it's a small impact, maybe they're just day-trippers. Who knows if those day-trippers are intrigued by the real-estate market? Who knows if those day-trippers are in a corporation and want to come back for a meeting or convention?"

Knowing who visits and how much they spend, or if it would even be worth it to advertise to them while they're here, is an unknown without an economic-impact study, she said.

The Coachella event promoter, Goldenvoice, and local tourism organizations haven't studied the economic impact.

"That whole 18-to-24 age group. Those are our retirees in 30 years. In the next stage of their life they'll be buying condos ... they're the next wave of our targeted population," said Rick Daniels, executive director of the Coachella Valley Economic Partnership. "Plus we hope they have a good time out here and come back when there's not a music festival." And a little extra push to get them here could go a long way, he said.

"You're talking about the power and magic of marketing," he said. "It's probably only the most astute of business people that are finding a way to market to this group while they're in town. This is the biggest event in the valley. It really comes in here almost stealth."

The area's leaders tend to talk about young tourists as an almost mythical group that simply needs to vacation in the region to dispel any thought that Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley is just for the aged.

Money Is Spent

Joy Meredith usually sees them in downtown Palm Springs on the last day of the festival and in her store, Crystal Fantasy, which sells mystical gifts and candles.

"They definitely spend money. They're definitely interested in what I do for a living. They're not rowdy or anything," she said. "They're mostly young people wearing horizontal rectangular glasses looking kind of European, but they're not."

Communication among the valley's groups and businesses affected by tourism has been fractured in the past, she said.

Meredith, also the president of the downtown merchant's association, said the Palm Springs Convention Center has just this month partnered with the group to let it know when conventiongoers have time off to roam downtown.

Maybe next year there will be more partnerships for the music festivals, she said.

It may not be banners or proclamations or road improvements, but Jimmy Rodriguez welcomes fans back to his Best Western Date Tree Hotel off Interstate 10 and Monroe Street with a message on the hotel's sign, music posters and employees clad in Coachella T-shirts. "If you go to Palm Desert, Indian Wells, when they have the Bob Hope Classic, they put up all these banners on the lightposts," said Rodriguez, the hotel's director of sales and marketing. "It gets all the locals involved."

Banners promoting the Kraft Nabisco Championship golf tournament that ended in Rancho Mirage on April 1 were still hanging along Highway 111 this week.

"It really doesn't make sense," said Michael Green, president of the Palm Springs Hospitality Association and co-owner of the gay resort Triangle Inn. "Here you have a younger audience, which we know we need to be looking at," he said.

But he said the responsibility would likely rest with the regionally focused Palm Springs Desert Resorts Convention and Visitors Authority.

The Young and the Tourists

While Coachella fans look for things to do before the music starts at 2 p.m. each day -- or a place to eat and sleep after the final song is sung -- officials with the regional tourism authority will be wining and dining 24 travel writers and agents from across the world. Their mission is to persuade the writers and agents to persuade others to vacation in the Coachella Valley.

The tourism authority uses clips of the music festival in television promotions and mentions it when lauding the area, but the group doesn't do any direct outreach at the concert either through sponsorships or advertisements.

The authority has traditionally viewed its mission as bringing people to the region, not selling them on it after they arrive. By that point, the destination should be able to sell itself, said spokesman Mark Graves.

Compare that to the approach tourism officials elsewhere take with other large music festivals.

For six years the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau in Texas has handed out guides to concertgoers at the annual three-day Austin City Limits Festival, not to be confused with the weekly PBS show of the same name. There, tourism officials sponsor an area for the public-relations media to answer questions about the region and hand out maps, said Cynthia Maddox, the bureau's director of communication. On its Web site, the group sells vacation packages with concert tickets.

"I think the general public realizes that these music events are good across the board," she said. "The retailers certainly experience a spike in sales." The concert's organizer, Capital Sports & Entertainment, has estimated that it brings $26.1 million to the city.

'Different Age Category'

Indio's Chamber of Commerce has never discussed advertising businesses during the Coachella Valley music festival or making efforts to reach out to people at the concerts because they flood through the doors of restaurants and hotels before and after the show.

"When you have that kind of influx you don't need to offer them anything to get them through the door," said Sherry Johnson, the group's chief executive officer. Plus, "They have a little different age category here for the Coachella than those who are our typical tourists," she said.

Being young may not make them the typical tourists, but they could become repeat visitors nonetheless, said Robin Burns, co-owner of Classic Cabs in Palm Springs who tells her drivers to, "hop out like a limo driver, to act like a limo driver ... we're their first impression. We're sort of the ambassadors."

"Let's say this is a demographic that has lesser income because they're younger ... our summer rates are perfect for that demographic," she said.

During the weekend, concertgoers flood into the Denny's restaurant just off Highway 111 and Monroe Street in Indio when fans leave the venue. The restaurant doesn't need advertising and welcome signs to draw them in, said Susie Netzley, general manager. Nonetheless, she's hospitable and has let pleasant fans sleep in front of the restaurant on the lawn if they have a sleeping bag and didn't book a campsite or hotel in time.

"We're very grateful for them because they're very nice, they're very polite and they have money," she said. "I know a lot of the locals think they're a bunch of degenerates going to a rock concert."

Reach Kimberly Pierceall at 760-837-4410 or kpierceall@PE.com