CVB survey: Desert Storm reels in $855K
Results reveal big impact for Havasu’s economy

By Tony Waggoner
Thursday, June 4, 2009 9:32 PM MST


Lake Havasu City continues to impress its visitors with special events like Desert Storm. The city’s Convention & Visitors Bureau surveyed this year’s four-day boating event and party.

Results of the survey proved the “storm” had a substantial economic impact for the city, Char Beltran, president of the CVB said. Between participants and attendees the event brought in more than $855,550. Beltran said the tax dollar percentage of that amount would be somewhere in the $40,000 range.

Only visitors from outside Lake Havasu City were surveyed.

The number of participating boats was down from last year, but Beltran said it’s important to recognize the amount of money made with fewer boaters. Participants made up for more than $570,280 of the overall revenue generated, with fewer than 50 boats entered.

While Beltran said she really didn’t know what to expect from the event, she was impressed with the overall impact, considering the economy.

“It was an extremely strong showing,” Beltran said. “I was very pleasantly surprised.”

Many of the event attendees were local. In fact, Beltran said about 75 percent were from Lake Havasu City. She said this means the $285,271 came from only about 25 percent of attendees.

And fuel wasn’t the only thing boater participants and attendees used their money for. The survey revealed 40 percent of participants stayed in hotel lodging within the city, while 22 percent of attendees did the same.

A majority of attendees and participants stayed a day longer than the four-day event.

Desert Storm continued to reach across state lines. Almost 80 percent of attendees to this year’s event were from out-of-state, while nearly 90 percent of participants reported they were not from Arizona.

A majority of out-of-state attendees had an average spending of around $121 a day. Twenty-eight percent reported spending an average of more than $200 a day, though.

Boating participants spending per day was considerably higher. The typical boater spent approximately $713 per day, according to the survey. Many boating participants came with sponsors. The average daily spending for sponsor parties was around $558.

Beltran said it is best for the CVB not to try and compare events like Desert Storm and Winter Blast, noting the two events are so different in size and shape it would be like apples to oranges.

One hundred percent of the people surveyed said they would consider returning next year for Desert Storm. Beltran said this might be the most impressive thing about the survey and give credence to why the survey was conducted.

“It is a really good snapshot,” she said. “That is why the research is so critical. It’s pretty significant.”

The CVB has also just launched a new Web site at www.golakehavasu.com. Beltran said the new Web site allows the CVB administrative capabilities it did not have prior to the upgrade and really focuses on contacting people from other states and statistically measuring the responses of those who are contacted.

“We needed a more comprehensive statistic program,” Beltran said.

Design for the Web site was done by local Web designer Diana Moore and took about 10 weeks to get up and running.

Beltran says the CVB is looking forward to working with the site’s new capabilities.

“We’ve got a lot of things we want to do with it,” she said. “We are definitely pretty excited.”

You may contact the reporter at twaggoner@havasunews.com.