Marketing Sheffield - Visitor Economy Data Collection

As a destination, Sheffield requires the ability to monitor and evaluate the strength of the visitor economy. We also need to be able to compare – primarily across the Core Cities group – the city’s performance as a destination.

As a Destination Marketing Organisation (DMO), we do not control the visitor economy, but can influence growth by understanding performance, audience, perceptions and market changes.

Monthly occupancy data for serviced accommodation (hotels) is commissioned from the industry recognised lead data provider STR. This data provides benchmarking, analytics and market place insights; occupancy, ADR and REVPAR rates and year to date comparative data. It uses source data from a relatively large sample size of the city’s hotel stock.

In recent years, we have seen an uplift of short-term letting accommodation becoming available across the DMO area. This is beyond the traditional ‘self-catering cottage’ type accommodation and is influenced massively by the range of city centre and suburban apartments and AirBnB type lettings.

The distribution channels used to reach market audiences are global and are influential in positioning Sheffield as a destination.

We do not currently have any mechanism for evaluating the contribution made to the visitor economy via occupancy at short-term letting accommodation; or the effect they have on the serviced accommodation market in terms of providing additional capacity at peak times, or displacing occupancy where availability enables audience choice.

We are looking to commission a monthly data report, which will provide similar information to that we receive from STR. This new commission needs to concentrate on short-term letting accommodation and allow us to manipulate the data to compare and contrast geographical areas within the Sheffield postcode region. Data which provides market insights into geographical sources for our audiences will be an additional benefit in enabling us to geo-target marketing activity.

The data must be drawn from a robust and relatively large sample size and also provide historical data (ideally at least the last 2 years) to enable market comparisons.

Please detail how your proposed solution(s) available would meet our requirements outlined above in full. In particular we make reference to the following;

• Please confirm how you would provide your monthly data reports.

• What your data source is.

• Please detail how you will data must be drawn from a robust and relatively large sample size and also provide historical data (ideally at least the last 2 years) to enable market comparisons.

Please email proposals to sourcing@sheffield.gov.uk