Summer business grows … fingers crossed for winter
MLT Executive Director John Urdi talks summer air service, TOT, and TBID.
Mammoth Lakes’ summer air service continues to stabilize, while summer Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) and TBID continue to rise, according to Mammoth Lakes Tourism (MLT) Executive Director John Urdi. Urdi spoke to each trend at the Nov. 4 MLT Board meeting.
In a follow up interview with The Sheet, Urdi explained how MLT’s summer air service strategy for the past several years has refocused flights around weekends rather than mid-week. As a result, the summer air service subsidy came in at about $800,000, $100,000 less than last year.
A quick Subsidy 101 from Urdi: “What happens is we have minimum revenue guarantee with the airlines, and if we don’t make that money from the passengers, we owe the money to the airline.”
August’s subsidy alone was only $30,000, as opposed to August 2014’s $110,000. “What that means is we had more people flying at a higher rate, which meant that we paid less out [to the airline],” Urdi said. Meanwhile September this year was $79,000, down from last September’s $104,000.
“There were not as many enplanements [this summer], but I think we’ve restructured them [the flights] better,” Urdi said. “We’ve been doing really well with the four days a week schedule.”
Enplanement (passenger) numbers for this summer weren’t final as of deadline, but Urdi guessed they would be about 15,600 total for inbound and outbound passengers, including about 7,800 inbound passengers. Last summer saw 15,883 enplanements, 7,942 of them inbound.
“Next summer we are going to run the same four day a week schedule,” Urdi said. He added that MLT is also working on plans to address summer visitors’ needs to bring less portable equipment than winter visitors—bikes and kayaks rather than skis—with them when they fly. “We’ll see how we can address that better and have more visitors flying in,” he said.
As for winter air service, that begins on Nov. 19. L.A. flights will increase on that date from four days to seven days a week.
“Winter service is booking a little slower,” Urdi said. “L.A. is booking ahead for November through January; San Diego is pacing ahead of last year; Denver is slightly behind, and San Francisco is terrible. It’s a market that won’t come here if there’s not snow.”
The recent storms may change that trend. “The L.A. numbers spiked up, and San Diego spiked up,” Urdi said. Nevertheless, “L.A. has been booking the right path, but after four years of drought, people are waiting to see that what we have is real before they make the bookings.”
Urdi said that if air service continues to remain stable, MLT is considering Seattle as another potential market. “But right now, we’ve right-sized our markets,” he said. “We’re still having a lot of those discussions [about potential markets], but I think we’ve brought air service down to a manageable level.”
MLT Board member Erik Forsell commended MLT for its changes to air service. “You’ve done a great job thinning it out,” he said.
Urdi also noted that air packs went on sale on Sunday, Nov. 1. “We’ve seen the number of air packs [purchased] increase this year,” he said.
Board member Paul Rudder wondered how many air packs are sold locally as opposed to outside of the community. “We definitely want to find out,” said Urdi. He said MLT will be studying the percentages based on zip code, although he pointed out that the data could be skewed, considering the number of second homeowners that might be using the air packs.
“We’re still roughly 18 percent local air service [overall],” he said.
As for summer TOT and TBID, this year saw another increase in both.
TOT last July was $1.17 million; this year it came in at $1.32 million. Last August was $1.26 million; this August $1.27 million.
“It’s interesting to see that with a complete lack of a holiday weekend in August, we still out-performed last year,” Urdi said.
Board member Sean Turner reminded Urdi that there is something of a holiday weekend in August: Bluesapalooza.
TOT last September was about $614,000; this year Urdi said it was about $730,000, a 19 percent increase. Meanwhile Urdi guessed October would come in at around $400,000 this year, as opposed to roughly $380,000 last year.
“Fall foliage is starting to pay off,” he said.
Overall, TOT increased $274,801 this year over last. “And now, with this new snow, I think November is going to come in very, very strong as well,” Urdi said. “I think we’re going to have one of the strongest Novembers in a while.”
Meanwhile TBID was $222,000 ahead of projections, and $48,000 ahead of last year.
Now the challenge is “how to get at least four months per year to be one million dollar months,” Urdi said. “October is our biggest opportunity.”
Matthew Lehman’s suggestion at the Nov. 4 meeting: “October could be a month for artists. Photographers; watercolorists ….”
Urdi proposed a Turkey Trot run modeled after the annual Footloose Freedom Mile.
Another suggestion from Lehman: capturing uncollected TOT from illegal rentals. “You’ll watch these [TOT] numbers jump substantially,” he said.
“Maybe we’re having a million dollar month, we just don’t know it,” agreed MLT Board member Paul Rudder.
