By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX -- With most people now seeing COVID in the rear-view mirror, tourism in Arizona is starting to coming back.
And now the state agency charged with promoting it may have a new hurdle: The nightly national news reports about how hot it is here.
New figures from a study commissioned by the Arizona Office of Tourism find that overnight visitors spent $28.1 billion last year. That's up about $4.5 billion from the year before.
Even discounting rampant inflation, Dean Runyan Associates said that's means a $1.3 billion increase in real dollars, about a 5% increase.
But the state continues to struggle to get travel back to pre-pandemic levels. The report says when inflation is factored in, the true quality of good and services purchased by travelers still lags 2019 levels by about 6.3%.
Inflation also is reflected in the data about the total tax revenues generated from tourism. The nearly $4 billion generated in 2022 is just 7.2% above what it was three years earlier, far less than the 8.0% inflation between just 2021 and 2022.
And while the report says tourism directly generated 179,000 jobs last year, that still is below the number of people working in the industry three years earlier.
Still, Lisa Urias, the agency's director, thinks all that deficit will be erased this year.
Part of what guarantees that, she said, was the fact that Arizona hosted the Super Bowl. Add that to typical years, said Urias, and the state should be back on track.
But there's something else that her agency is now having to deal with that could affect the desire of people to come here.
It seems the national media, having discovered that it's hot in the summer in Arizona, is paying particular attention to the records being set, not only on individual daily highs and the number of days in a row the thermometer tops 110, but also the number of nights the mercury does not drop below 90.
"It is disturbing,'' she said.
But Urias, who was at a conference this past week where climate change was a focus, said it's important to remember that it's not just Arizona that's affected.
"Europe is on fire, too, right now,'' she said.
"It's crazy,'' Urias continued. "But it's something we're all going to have to adjust to and figure out how to manage.''
She said, though, even with all the national attention to the triple-digit numbers, she doesn't believe that will cause long-term damage to the message that people should visit Arizona.
It starts, she said, with her agency focusing its message on the fact that the state is more than just the Phoenix area that has been making the evening news. There's Flagstaff and the rest of northern Arizona.
"We do a lot of campaigns to help promote those regions as well,'' she said. And Urias said the state also provides direct grant dollars to local communities to do their own advertising.
"They know their markets,'' she said. "They know who's coming to Arizona'' as well as those already living here who might be looking to get away.''
"People get away from the heat, say, for a couple of weeks or a week and spend money,'' Urias said. "That counts, too.''
On the other side of the equation, Urias said that her agency doesn't waste its money on trying to convince those from the rest of the country that they should visit the desert in the summer.
"We don't push real hard in Phoenix in the summer,'' she said. "People will just say, 'Oh, no, you can't go to Phoenix in the summer.' ''
But Josh Coddington, the agency's public information officer, said spending to promote Arizona does not dry up entirely in the summer.
"We also want to at least stay in touch with them, or at least have a presence because the summer's going to end and people are going to travel,'' he said.
"We want to stay in people's minds because if they don't see our Arizona ad when they're searching for a vacation they might see somebody else's,'' Coddington said.
The new report shows that a large portion of what's behind the tourism numbers for the past few years is that spending by international tourists in particular took a big hit during the pandemic, plummeting in 2020 to just 10% of its pre-COVID figures. And while there has been some recovery, it still amounts to just 9% of total spending.
Of those who came, Mexico and Canada were the largest share of foreign visitors, followed by the United Kingdom, France and Germany.
One of the biggest losses, Urias said, was in visitors from China, blaming that in particular on the pandemic. But she said she remains optimistic that will come back.
"We're all maintaining our presence and trying to make sure that we are open here, that we welcome them,'' Urias said. "But it's definitely a lag.''
COVID may not be the threat it once was.
But what has replaced it in some ways are the current frosty political relations between the United States and China. Urias said she's hoping to steer clear of that.
"Tourism tries really had to kind of stay out of the fray,'' she said. Still, Urias said, it's often difficult to keep the issues separate.
"I don't think it precludes Chinese visitors from coming to the U.S.,'' she said. "At least, we hope it doesn't.''
Preparations are being made, however, to deal with such issues.
"We definitely do look at other emerging markets for us in Asia and elsewhere,'' Urias said. "We've been exploring Indian markets and Korea, Japan.''
And the state has been active in recruiting visitors from Australia.
The biggest share of tourism dollars, however, are from a domestic audience.
About 30% of those came from Arizonans themselves looking for vacations close to home, with the balance from visitors from the other 49 states.
Among those, the largest share by far was Californians. That was followed by Texas residents, then New Yorkers, Floridians and Colorado residents.
Urias said the state has been proactive in promoting Arizona in certain target markets, including Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Dallas.
So where did all the money go?
The report finds at the largest share -- about $6.1 billion -- went to hotels, motels and short-term rentals. But eating out was not far behind at slightly less than $6 billion.
Still, the tourists were not always headed to restaurants. Another $1.2 billion was spent at grocery stores.
Local transportation like car rentals and gas added another $4.4 billion, with $2.7 billion spent on entertainment and recreation and retail sales -- think about all those souvenirs and more -- added another $3.1 billion.
And all that, in turn, generated tax dollars. The report figures that visitors dropped $2.4 billion into state and local coffers in 2022.
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On Twitter: @azcapmedia
Tourism spending in Arizona (in $billions)
1998 -- $11.9
1999 -- $12.7
2000 -- $13.7
2001 -- $13.2
2002 -- $13.2
2003 -- $14.1
2004 -- $15.2
2005 -- $16.9
2006 -- $17.9
2007 -- $18.2
2008 -- $18.1
2009 -- $16.6
2010 -- $17.8
2011 -- $18.8
2012 -- $19.5
2013 -- $19.9
2014 -- $20.8
2015 -- $21.0
2016 -- $21.2
2017 -- $22.7
2018 -- $24.4
2019 -- $25.6
2020 -- $14.9
2021 -- $23.6
2022 -- $28.1
-- Source: Dean Runyan Associates, through Arizona Office of Tourism
County by county figures for 2022 (in millions):
County / Total travel-related employment / Local taxes generated in millions*
Apache / 1,360 / $4.4
Cochise / 3,490 / $16.5
Coconino / 13,280 / $91.0
Gila / 3,140 / $12.8
Graham / 830 / $3.4
Greenlee / 90 / $0.3
La Paz / 1,250 / $7.7
Maricopa / 97,160 / $773.0
Mohave / 7,090 / $879.6
Navajo / 4,310 / $19.3
Pima / 21,710 / $80.5
Pinal / 7,680 / $35.2
Santa Cruz / 2,030 / $8.9
Yavapai / 9,810 / $68.1
Yuma / 6,260 / $27.6
*Does not include state sales taxes
-- Source: Dean Runyan Associates, through Arizona Office of Tourism