Know the Travelers to Your Vacation Rental Destination

How much do you know about the visitors to your destination?  Not just your guests, but the general travelers to your destination area.  This information should play a vital part in your marketing efforts as it will tell you about your target market and what you should emphasize. Here is some information that I had the opportunity to review with a vacation manager from Florida.  These are 2007 numbers for Central Florida and Kissimmee. Among overnight visitors to Kissimmee (defined as Osceola County) in 2007:61% had been to Central Florida before
57% had been to Kissimmee before  Among those who had been to Central Florida before, this is the breakdown on number of past visits toKissimmee:
1 Visit              24%
2-3 Visits          23%
4-6 Visits          16%
7+ Visits           30% 
For an additional 7%, it was the first time to Kissimmee, even though they had been to Central Florida before. Among those who had been to Central Florida before, the time since last visit was:
Less than 6 months      
14%7 months to 1 year       
10%1-2 years                      
18%2-3 years                      
21%3-5 years                      
19%6-10 years                    
7%More than 10 years         So why is this so interesting?  It tells you some important information about the frequency of repeat visitors to Kissimmee.  It tells you in what time increments they are likely to return.  The better you can understand your target market, the better you will be able to tailor your marketing campaigns, message, and special offers. I encourage you to work with your local organizations to track and document such important information to everyone whose business relies on travelers to your destination.