SHOWCASING SANTA CLARA
Marketing CEO explains how the city is positioning itself to be a tourist destination
From Taylor Swift's Eras Tour to Beyonce's Renaissance Tour, it's been a big couple of months for the city of Santa Clara.
Fans flocked from around the country to see some of the biggest names in music and many hotels were sold out — a rare occurrence for the dead of summer.
With concert season over at Levi's Stadium, we caught up with Discover Santa Clara CEO Christine Lawson to see how the tourism group is continuing to draw in travelers who might otherwise make San Francisco or neighboring San Jose their main destination.
Q What exactly does Discover Santa Clara do?
A Discover Santa Clara is the official destination marketing organization for the city of Santa Clara and really our mission is to promote and drive economic impact to Santa Clara as the Silicon Valley destination of choice for meetings, conventions, business travel and leisure travel and really to ensure that travel benefits our partner hotels, our partner venues and also city businesses at large.
Q
How is Discover Santa Clara drawing people to the city?
A
From Discover Santa Clara's perspective, our team is dedicated to
really executing direct sales and marketing strategies that are aimed at raising awareness about Santa Clara's vibrant culture and our diverse attractions. Whether someone is coming here for a business trip or a convention or attending an event at Levi's Stadium or just coming to the city to explore and unwind, our job and commitment is to ensure that we're consistently showcasing what the city has
to offer.
We're really actively deploying a diverse strategy that combines from a sales perspective, targeted sales calls and participation in trade shows so that we are attracting meetings and conventions to our convention center that also then drives overnight visitation to our partner hotels and overflow needs to our venues.