The San Francisco Travel Association adopted DMAI's Event Impact Calculator in 2013 to better estimate the economic impact of events on the local economy. The tool calculates estimates spending in categories like lodging, food, and retail based on event details. It also estimates tax revenue and jobs supported. The Association uses the tool to demonstrate event value to stakeholders and identify events that generate more room nights than contracted blocks. It collects data on attendees to inform the tool's inputs. The tool's reports help educate partners on events' tourism contributions.

1. DMAI’s Event Impact Calculator
San Francisco Travel
Association
an Francisco as a travel
destination is a city with
as many enviable traits as
one in the DMO industry can
desire. For a relatively young
city, San Francisco boasts not
only a compact, urban setting
with a wealth of history, culture,
landmarks and charm, but
also great international access,
moderate climate and proximity to
the great outdoors.
It’s no wonder then that San
Francisco welcomed 16.9 million
visitors in 2013. For a city that
has less than 840,000 residents,
that’s about 20 tourists for every
man, woman and child living in
San Francisco. Travel and tourism
remains one of the largest private
sector industries for San Francisco,
accounting for one out of every
seven jobs in the city.
The meetings and events sector
specifically represents about 11.7%
of the city’s tourism economy,
with the San Francisco Travel
Association booking a record
1,150 meetings in 2013, which
accounted for about 2 million room
nights. That year, the organization
also explored the opportunity to
further inform their understanding
of exactly how meetings and
events contributed to different
sectors of the local economy and
government. The benefits they cited
were primarily three fold, as Nicole
Halmer, Senior Director of Market
Strategy and Research at San
Francisco Travel explains.
“We wanted to demonstrate the
direct and total economic impact of
an event and be able to break down
spend by category, like lodging,
transportation, food and beverage,
attractions, retail, et cetera,” said
Halmer. “We wanted a tool to
demonstrate to local government
the tax revenues a particular
event might generate, and use
S

2. DMAI’s Event Impact Calculator San Francisco, California | User Case Study
In cases where the registration list analysis shows higher numbers
of overnight attendees, it demonstrates the compression the event
generated above the contracted room block.
“ Nicole Halmer, Senior Director of Market Strategy & Research
San Francisco Travel Association
[the information] as a value-add
for our meeting planners who are
interested in the total impact of
their event.”
San Francisco Travel adopted
DMAI’s Event Impact Calculator
in July 2013. Previously, the
organization had used a more
straightforward calculation to
estimate direct spending based on
the number of attendees and room
nights; which led to using the same
attendee spending per room night
and total direct attendee spending
for any and all events.
While it served to provide a broad
estimate of the meetings and events
sector, the method was deemed
outdated and the organization
searched for a suitable replacement.
Destination Marketing Association
International’s industry standard
for understanding the economic
impact of meetings and events
presented San Francisco Travel
with the ability to estimate room
night demand, taxes generated,
jobs supported, delegate spending
and return on investment at
present values for a diversity of
events of varying sizes, dates and
types – from tradeshows to youth
amateur sports.
After nearly a year of use, Halmer
and her colleagues are “very
satisfied” with how the Event
Impact Calculator has worked for
San Francisco Travel and finds
more than one application for the
tool. “We use the calculator as one
of many key parameters to make a
decision – mostly to demonstrate
the value of events to stakeholders,”
Halmer explains. “But also in cases
where the registration list analysis
shows higher numbers of overnight
attendees, it demonstrates the
compression the event generated
above the contracted room block.”
Indeed, with event attendees
increasingly turning to
accommodations outside of the
traditional block of hotel rooms,
many destinations like San
Francisco are able to estimate and
account for these room nights and
associated spend, where previously
they would have been left on the
table.
Because the calculator requires
important inputs from the
destination to drive its estimated
economic impact, Halmer
collaborates with a diverse team
of sales and marketing staff at
San Francisco Travel to collect,
input and disseminate accurate
information for the calculator.
Their usual data collection and
analysis procedure proceeds as
follows:
1. Collect attendee registration
lists from meeting planner from
their last meeting, requiring
city, ZIP code, state, and
country code data.
2. Analyze registration list to
identify percentage of national
and international attendees.

3. DMAI’s Event Impact Calculator
3. Analyze registration list to
identify number of attendees
that would drive in for the day.
4. Based on registration list
analysis, estimate the total
number of overnight attendees.
5. For room block data inputs,
use either historical data from a
previous event in San Francisco
or pick-up data from another
city. If San Francisco Travel is
running a post-event analysis,
Halmer’s team uses audited
pick-up reports from housing
offices.
6. For ADR inputs, use STR data
and compute the total ADR
for the rooms contracted at the
various hotels.
7. Ask meeting planner to share
their hosting costs to the extent
that they are comfortable, for
example: total rent paid, total
food and beverage (at the
convention center and hotels),
audio visual (at the convention
center and hotels), security,
internet, and others.
8. Use most recent visitor profile
data to determine occupancy
per room and modes of
transportation.
Using this eight-step process,
Halmer gathers inputs that
significantly drive the Event Impact
Calculator’s model – including
number of overnight attendees,
average room rate and persons
per room – with a high degree of
confidence.
The resulting report includes a
multitude of numbers relating
to various sectors of the tourism
economy, different levels of
government tax receipts, and direct
and indirect or induced spending.
San Francisco Travel currently uses
four primary numbers to share
with media and through press
releases:
1. Direct business sales,
2. Total business sales,
3. Room nights generated, and
4. Total number of attendees.
The organization also shares the
full report with city government,
hotels and meeting planners, thus
fulfilling their initial intention of
educating their many stakeholders
and customers about the impact of
meetings and events in their terms.
Looking ahead, Halmer hopes to
streamline the data collection and
analysis process; and establish
some baseline ratios after sufficient
sampling.
“Using the calculator does require
analysis up front. Once we have
analyzed a large enough sample
size of registration lists, we will
establish defaults for overnight
versus day visitors, for instance,”
said Halmer. “We have not yet
interfaced the calculator with
our CRM, so it’s largely a manual
process. I wish it would run
automatically in the background
every time a new lead is entered.
At the moment, it is a separate
transaction. I would love to hear
from a DMO that uses Ungerboeck
as their CRM that has successfully
integrated the calculator with an
interface.”
The Event Impact Calculator has
an open application programming
interface (API). Currently, iDSS
and Simpleview are two CRM
solution providers that have
written to the interface. DMAI is
in discussion with Ungerboeck
to develop their interface. For
additional information on how to
San Francisco, California | User Case Study
activate this interface, consult your
CRM account manager. •

4. Nicole joined San Francisco Travel
Association in June 2012 as Senior
Director of Convention Strategy.
Nicole is responsible for developing
and updating convention market
strategies and convention busi-
ness outlook as well as analyzing
and providing regular updates on
citywide and self-contained group
performance including market
share and market segments.
Prior to joining San Francisco
Travel Association, Nicole worked
as a Corporate Regional Director of
Revenue Management in San Fran-
cisco, where she was responsible for
responsible for implementing hotel
revenue management objectives
across her managed portfolio of 27
hotels, ensuring yield management
techniques maximize revenues by
selecting the most profitable mix of
demand for the given capacity both
in rooms and food & beverage.
Prior to joining the hotel industry
in 1999, Nicole conducted research
as a molecular biologist at UCSF
and the VA Medical Center.
About Nicole Halmer
Senior Director of Market Strategy & Research
San Francisco Travel Association
DMAI’s Event Impact Calculator San Francisco, California | User Case Study