TEAM SAN JOSE
Semi Annual Update to the CED
Committee
April 27, 2026
1 Attachment A
CONTENTS
1. FY 2025-26 Mid-Year Performance Measures
2. FY 2025-26 Mid-Year Benchmark Metrics
3. Hotel Performance – 2026 Events
4. Sales
5. Marketing & Communications
6. Outreach to Businesses
2 MID-YEAR
RESULTS
3 Estimated Direct
Visitor Spending
Future Hotel Room Nights
Booked (Citywide)
Theater Occupancy
Gross Operating Revenue
Gross Operating Results
Customer Satisfaction
Response Rate
$38,417,564
81,898
100%
$22,559,225
$2,720,585
100%
33%
YTD ACTUAL GOAL VARIANCE
$33,338,946
65,000
95%
$21,996,322
$378,939
95%
$5,078,618
16,898
5%
$562,904
$2,341,647*
5%
4 FISCAL YEAR 2025-26
MID-YEAR PERFORMANCE MEASURE RESULTS
* - Overage mainly due to cancelled tech event.
DASHBOARD
METRICS
5 TSJ Theaters
TSJ Convention
Facilities
269,577
160,821
ATTENDEES DIRECT SPEND
$12,192,375
$26,225,189
VENUES
ESTIMATED ECONOMIC IMPACT
By Venue Type
YOY DIRECT SPEND
-5.3%
29.2%
6 HOTEL & WEBSITE
Occupancy
Average Daily Rate
Revenue Per
Available Room
WEBSITE UNIQUE VISITORS ・ sanjose.org
FYTD
FYTD YOY
68.4%
$169.78
$116.19
811,738
-15.5%
FY 2025-26 FYTD YOY
1.3%
5.6%
1.9%
HOTEL INFO
7 SOCIAL MEDIA
Facebook Likes
Instagram Followers
LinkedIn Followers
YouTube Subscribers
Pinterest Followers
TikTok Followers
31,190
41,076
540
4,037
1,728
679
NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIBERS
206,846
Threads Followers 7,409
8 OWNED DIGITAL MEDIA
FUTURE CITYWIDES
BOOKED
Count
Rooms
12 58,394
LEAD GENERATION
FYTD %FYOY
140.0%
99.9%
MARKET SEGMENTATION OF FUTURE
CITYWIDE ROOM NIGHTS BOOKED
FYTD %FYOY
Event Leads Entered
Room Night
Leads Entered
642
565,450
-1.2%
-10.0%
9 SALES
HOTEL
PERFORMANCE
2026 EVENTS
10 • 85.3% Occupancy +21%
• $287.81 Average Daily Rate +9%
• $241.94 Revenue per Available Room +30%
• Change largely driven by transient demand
SUPER BOWL LX (COMPARED TO SUPER BOWL 50)
SUPER BOWL HOTEL OCCUPANCY SHIFTS
TOWARD LEVI’S STADIUM ON GAME DAY IN 2026
Submarket occupancy for Super Bowl week in 2016 and 2026 Source: CoStar, February 2026
LEVI’S STADIUM HOTELS JUMP IN
PERFORMANCE COMPARED TO 2016
Percent change of key performance indicators,
2026 Super Bowl Sunday compared to 2016
Source: CoStar, February 2026
• 90.4% Occupancy +0.1% vs STLY
• $339.84 Average Daily Rate +19.7% vs STLY
• $307.33 Revenue per Available Room +19.8% vs STLY
NVIDIA GTC 2026: 3/15 – 3/19/2026
• 79.6% Occupancy +12.3% vs STLY
• $200.31 Average Daily Rate +21.6% vs STLY
• $159.38 Revenue per Available Room +36.6% vs STLY
MARCH MADNESS: 3/24 – 3/28/2026
SALES
16 SJCC Business Trends • 18 of 35 booked groups and 31k of 70k booked room nights are new business
• Show dates: 63 in calendar 2023, 74 in 2024,
91 in 2025, 93 YTD in 2026, 61 in 2027 (vs
28 STLY)
Citywide Contract Launched • 1st city in the U.S. to do so • Ease of doing business • Brand preference for attendees UPDATE
17 Customer engagement • More events (67) than ever before 18 JULY – DECEMBER 2025
MARKETING &
COMMUNICATIONS
PAID MEDIA
PERFORMANCE
Leisure Revenue
19 20
• The objective of the FY25-26 Leisure media plan is to grow incremental revenue across all visitor spend categories. We focused on travel endemic and partners who can provide key production data indicating real, measurable economic impact for San Jose. This fiscal year goal is to maintain revenue performance, targeting a total of $44 million in incremental annual revenue. • The media mix for this plan is made up of digital programmatic, travel endemic, paid social and paid search. Visit San Jose launched new creative this fiscal year, through a partnership with Chopsticks Alley, that highlighted local artists and promoted their curation of San Jose’s unique food, art, and culture scenes.
• We have measured increased revenue encompassing hotels, flights and in destination spend.
August through December delivered an overall revenue of $22M, and nearly 34K incremental room nights in San Jose hotels.
Source: Tableau
LEISURE PAID MEDIA PLAN OVERVIEW
July - December 2025
IMPRESSIONS
REACH
HOTEL REVENUE
TOTAL REVENUE
Flight + Hotel + In Destination
Revenue Combined
39,616,187
13,205,396
$4,611,994
INQUIRIES
HOTEL BOOKINGS
FLIGHT BOOKINGS
2,540,407
12,908 or
17,495
$21,975,864 TOTAL ROAS
Return on Ad Spend $42.96
Notes:
• Production data is available from the following sources per metric:
• Hotel Revenue: Expedia, ADARA Impact, TripAdvisor
• Hotel Bookings: Expedia, ADARA Impact, Sojern
• Flight Bookings: ADARA Impact, Sojern (Sojern data reflects SJC flights + San Jose specific hotel searches versus the whole DMA as of July 2025.) • Flight Revenue: Expedia (only)
• Total ROAS: Total revenue between: (Adara (Hotel Revenue), Expedia (Flight + Hotel Revenue), TripAdvisor (Hotel Revenue + Attractions + Food/Bev + Other + Retail + Transportation), Sojern (estimated economic impact) divided by total digital paid media spend (i.e. removing Visit CA print). • Total Revenue: Adara (Hotel Revenue), Expedia (Flight + Hotel Revenue), TripAdvisor (Hotel Revenue + Attractions + Food/Bev + Other + Retail + Transportation), Sojern (estimated economic impact, based on a user’s average spend in market), Epsilon (in destination transactions of those who were impressed by the campaign) • Production data is only a reflection of paid media.
• Impressions, reach and engagements is inclusive of paid media, paid social and paid search.
JULY– DECEMBER 2025 CONSUMER PAID MEDIA
Production Reporting Spend Produced
21 (33,560 room nights)
PAID MEDIA
PERFORMANCE
Meeting Planners
22 23
• The main objective of the FY25-26 Annual Meeting Planner plan is to drive new meetings business and group hotel bookings by converting meeting planners through paid digital media strategies. • Our goal for the fiscal year was to deliver over 5M campaign engagements with key meeting planners. • This was achieved through measuring landing page visits, video view completions, paid social engagements, webinar leads and paid media leads – all driven through our paid media efforts. • The media mix is made up of digital programmatic, meeting endemic digital (display, email, newsletters, webinars), paid social and paid search. These efforts are supported by meetings-specific creative content and in conjunction with Visit San Jose’s owned B2B channels including website, eCRM, and social media efforts.
• In FY25-26 we shifted focus from including predominately lead-generation tactics to incorporating more one-on-one access opportunities for the Visit San Jose Sales Team though increased show activations.
The goal is to generate the most qualified leads possible with prospective sales leads at key conventions.
Source: Tableau
MEETING PLANNER PAID MEDIA OVERVIEW
July - December 2025
Total Campaign Engagements Total RFP Completions
Total Campaign Reach
Meetings Leads
Total Campaign Impressions
19,999,516 6,666,505
5,916,960 60 1,506
Notes:
• The FY25-26 Meetings goal is to secure more than 5M engagements, which has been achieved within the first 6-months of the fiscal year due to campaign efficiency. • Impressions, reach and inquiries are inclusive of paid media, paid social and paid search. • Meetings leads sources are inclusive of 1) RFP submissions via GA, 2) webinar leads via media/offline media leads, 3) website meetings email signups, and 4) website modal meetings signups.
• Overall impressions are lower compared to the last 6-months due to a shift in FY strategy. In FY25-26, we moved away from a primary focus on lead generating tactics towards engagements and one-on-one access opportunities for Visit San Jose's sales team to reach a more qualified audience. 24 Source: Tableau, Google Analytics
JULY– DECEMBER 2025 MEETINGS
Paid Media Reporting
OWNED MEDIA
Social
25 Facebook
Instagram
LinkedIn
YouTube
Pinterest
TikTok
30,901
36,632
486
3,562
1,497
678
PLATFORM DEC 2024 DEC 2025 YOY
31,910
41,076
540
4,037
1,728
679
Threads 7,409
80,607 86,659
0.94 12.13
11.11 13.34
15.43 0.15
8.14 7.51
6,851
26 ORGANIC SOCIAL MEDIA
July - December 2025
• Organic followers increased across all Visit San Jose social platforms, +7.5% YoY. • Growth in followers and engagement is attributed to our strategy of focusing on need period campaigns, including the holiday season, which typically see an uptick in leisure activity but not necessarily room nights, due to increased local attractions such as Festival Fright Nights at the Winchester Mystery House, Christmas In The Park, and holiday performances at the San Jose Theaters.
27 Noteworthy Highlights:
• Alebrijes Takeover in San Jose -
50,690 views (across all platforms)
• SJ26 Banner Installation –
Defying Gravity - 48,981 views
(Instagram only)
• San Jose Coffee Carousel -
44,370 views on IG, FB, and Tik Tok
• Invisible Skies Sign Up Push -
23,592 views across all platforms
ORGANIC SOCIAL MEDIA
July - December 2025
OWNED MEDIA
eCRM
28 29
EMAIL: LEISURE
• From July to December, 20 campaigns were
launched totaling over 1.9 million emails sent.
• 10,625 new leads were added between July and
December from paid search, paid social, Visit
California, and on-site sources like fly-in banners.
• Dedicated emails included support for multiple
local events including National Women’s Soccer
League, Invisible Skies sign ups, Lunar New Year,
SJ Jazz Summerfest, and more.
• Each dedicated email and newsletter supported
various restaurants and hotels.
• Total Leisure Database as of 12/31/25: 118,535
30 • From July to December, 7 campaigns were
launched totaling over 85K emails sent.
• 3,020 new leads were added between July and
December from media leads and on-site sources.
• Newsletters are now on a regular cadence,
sent towards the end of the month to promote
upcoming booking deals at local
businesses and theaters.
• Total Meetings Database as of 12/31/25: 22,119
EMAIL: MEETING PLANNERS
31 • Visit San Jose marketing department refreshed and
strategized the San Jose Theaters email messaging in
October 2024 for increased promotion of local
hospitality industry partners.
• From October through December, 7 campaigns
were launched totaling over 380K emails sent.
• Newsletters now include special call-out boxes to
promote local restaurants and hotel packages.
• Total Theaters database as of 12/31/2025: 65,439
EMAIL: SAN JOSE THEATERS
32 EMAIL: INDUSTRY PARTNERS
• In November, our 60-day calendar evolved into San
Jose’s first Hospitality Industry database.
• The database is composed of hospitality leaders
gathered through a signup list from our Bi-Annual
Summit for Hospitality (BASH), other events and onsite registrations via the industry page. • The growing database included 539 sends for Email
1 and increased to 728 sends for Email 2.
• The purpose of the deployments is to inform local
businesses about upcoming events and
opportunities.
• Total Industry database: 753
EARNED MEDIA
Public Relations
33 These 7 Wine Varietals Are About to Be Big in 2026,
According to Sommeliers
Online
Reach 5.7M | Ad Value $52.7K
The 10 Destinations Everyone Will Be Booking in 2026,
According to Travel Experts
Online
Reach 406.9K | Ad Value $3.7K
16 Best Places to Travel in 2026 for
Memory-Making Adventures
Online
Reach 3.8M | Ad Value $35.9K
11 Cities Rewilding the Future
Online
Reach 3.2M | Ad Value $29K
PR HIGHLIGHTS
• Placed 26 stories in local and national outlets
• Reached 183.5M viewers
• For an Advertising Value of over $1.3M
• Compared to the first half of 2025, ad value increased by 541.5% due to very successful national placements around the events of 2026 through New York Media event. Multiple hits in national leisure lifestyle publications increased the estimated ad value drastically.
• Major themes included:
• Positioning San Jose chefs as subject matter experts in technique or culinary experience
• Hayes Mansion as a Bay Area getaway escape
• SJ26 sports news in Super Bowl and FIFA announcements • San Jose as a top 2026 U.S. travel destination
34 POSITIONING SAN JOSE
with other “Best-in-World” destinations in national media 35 SJ26 MARKETING:
Fly, Stay, and Play
36 38
• Delivered paid media strategy based on the goals to
increase revenue in flights and hotels.
• Identified key media partners to deliver and measure
real incremental revenue generated.
• Leveraged the 2026 branding with partners to adapt
creative to specific partner and campaign needs,
including graphic design, image selection and
copywriting.
• Throughout the campaign flight, the team continues
to monitor and optimize performance, to ensure
greatest return possible.
FLY, STAY & PLAY EXECUTION
39 • From September through February, we secured over
130 hotel room night bookings and 703 searches as
a result of the paid media campaign.
• Total revenue captured was $13,089. In terms of
flight activity, there were 53 bookings and 1,470
searches.
• The campaign delivered 35M+ impressions and
generated over 1.9M engagements.
• Symphony reported an estimated 104K observed
visits from those who have been impressed through
our campaign from the beginning of September
through late February.
CAMPAIGN SUMMARY
September 2025 - February 2026
40 PAID MEDIA & PAID SOCIAL CREATIVE
41 PAID MEDIA & PAID SOCIAL CREATIVE
42 PAID SEARCH & WEBSITE PERSONALIZATION
• Sitelink promoting https://sj26.sanjose.org:
• 396,386 impressions
• 111 clicks specifically to it.
• Sitelink promoting https://www.sanjose.org/playsj26:
• 165,378 impressions
• 14 clicks specifically to it.
• Super Bowl Sitelink (now paused):
• 244,199 Impressions
• 436 clicks specifically to it
• March Madness Sitelink:
• 128,228 Impressions
• 39 clicks specifically to it
43 OCA 2026 CO-OP PARTNERS
For 12 cultural partners:
• Developed strategy
• Identified media vendors
• Brokered media purchases
• Developed creative including design, image
selection and copywriting
• Monitored performance to optimize return
• Generate performance report
COMPLETED LIVE NOW IN PLANNING SOON TO BE PLANNED
San José
Museum of Art
Cinequest
San José Day
MACLA
o San José Jazz Summer Fest
o CATS
o Levitt
o Fountain Blues Fest
o Office of Cultural Affairs
Opera
Symphony San José
School of Arts and Culture
at Mexican Heritage Plaza
44 SJMA REPORTING
Campaign Flight: 1/12-2/21
Goal: Drive awareness and attendance of SJMA's Lunar New Year Event and encourage membership sign-ups.
Paid Social:
• Impressions: 502,027
• Clicks: 2,805
eTarget:
Campaign Name
San Jose
Cultural Affairs
Deployment Date
Fri Feb 13, 2026
STATISTICAL TRACKING REPORT
QTY Ordered
500,000
Opens
148,698
Open Rate
29.7%
Clicks
13,936
Click Rate
2.8%
45 CINEQUEST REPORTING
Campaign Flight: 2/24-3/21
Goal: Drive ticket sales by showcasing the festival's diverse programming and experiences.
Paid Social:
• Cinequest saw a total of 435 purchases.
• The campaign also delivered 3,509 link clicks.
• The CTR fell slightly short of our goal, mainly due to the fact that we saw more people were likely to purchase after viewing the ad and visiting the site later than directly clicking and then purchasing.
• The creative to the right was the top performing ad and drove most of the purchases.
eTarget:
Campaign Name
San Jose FY25/26
Cinequest Co-op
Deployment Date
Wed Mar 4, 2026
STATISTICAL TRACKING REPORT
QTY Ordered
500,000
Opens
158,412
Open Rate
31.7%
Clicks
14,148
Click Rate
2.8%
COLLABORATIVE
MARKETING INITIATIVES
46 47
LEAD COLLABORATIVE MARKETING EFFORTS
for 2026 Brand Unity
Created and distributed separate partner toolkits (for each sporting event) with variety of templates for square, IG grid and vertical 9x16 stories with the trio sports and color ways.
Crafted and executed VTA partnership and asset execution.
Creative generation and production execution of brand throughout partner real estate assets and screens.
SJ26 App logo creation and promotional animation.
Redesign, printing and installation of all graphic elements, interior and exterior of Visitor Center/ Locker Room.
Partners Include:
• San Jose Downtown Association
• San Jose Sports Authority
• San Jose State University
• Valley Transit Authority
• San Jose Council District 3
• San Jose Mineta International Airport
48 LEAD COLLABORATIVE MARKETING EFFORTS
for 2026 Brand Unity
● Industry Standards
○ CTR goal of 0.40% is a blend of industry standards for Social (0.90% FB benchmark) + Digital (0.08%-0.12%) + Native (1-3%). ○ CPE is based on estimated amount of engagements per partner dependent on media spend, impression volume and tactic. It’s calculated by spend divided by engagement (digital video views, clicks contributing to site traffic and engagement with custom units). We want CPE to be as low as possible to demonstrate efficiencies through media buying power and optimizations. ○ CPI is based on estimated amount of inquiries per partner dependent on media spend, impression volume and tactic. Note that only portion of our media (Convert tactics) is optimized toward inquiries to drive a further vacation planning action. ● Glossary
○ Engagements = Website pageviews/interactions, off-site ad unit interactions (previously defined as "Inquiries") ○ Impressions = How many times the an ad was delivered to users. ○ Total Revenue = includes Flight and hotel revenue combined. ○ ROAS = Return on Ad Spend. This is calculated based on amount of spend divided by total revenue. ○ CPM = Cost Per 1,000 Impressions.
○ CTR = Click Through Rate.
○ CPE = Cost per engagement. Site visits to partner landing pages, social media video completions and post activity all count towards engagements to demonstrate success against creating engagement with content and moving consumers to seek out vacation planning information. ○ CPI = Cost per inquiry. Inquiries - pageviews/website engagements, off-site engagements, video completions ○ CPLPV = Cost Per Landing Page View.
○ CPC = Cost Per Click.
○ Link Click = When a user clicks the link in an ad or post. ○ Landing Page View = When a user who clicks a link successfully views the landing page after it loads. ○ Reactions = Interactions with social media posts/ads such as Like, Love, Care, Haha, Wow, Sad and Angry. ○ Reach = Total number of people exposed to messaging.
○ Impressions = How many times the an ad was delivered to users. ○ Frequency = The average number of times each person saw your ad. ○ Engagement Rate = The total number of engagements divided by the number of impressions, then turned into a percentage. ○ RFP = Request for Proposal (an online form used to request more information for planning a meeting/event to be held in San Jose) 49
DEFINITIONS
TSJ Outreach to
Local Businesses
Per the updated contract, Team San Jose convenes two BiAnnual Summits for Hospitality businesses (TSJ BASH).
Fall 2025 BASH: 224 Total Attendees (47% growth from Spring 2025)
The community impact email list grew from 500 contacts at the start of FY 2025-26 to 765 contacts post-event.
The next TSJ BASH is Thursday, June 4th, 2026, at 4pm.
In addition to the summits, TSJ has continued outreach in downtown through partnership with the City and SJDA and has worked extensively with the neighborhood business
associations throughout the city.
TSJ Outreach to Local Businesses
THANK YOU
52