Making Every Decision Count: How Temecula Valley Uses Visitor Intelligence to Navigate Market Shifts with Confidence
In an era when traveler behavior shifts overnight and budget scrutiny is constant, how do you plan with confidence and act with precision? For Visit Temecula Valley, the answer lies in operationalizing visitor intelligence across its marketing strategy - distilling behavioral signals from noise and making educated, just-in-time decisions that stand up to scrutiny.
Visitor Intelligence In Action:
Staying The Course In A Time Of Uncertainty
When many destinations were pulling back investment from Canada due to perceived declines in travel, Temecula Valley paused to validate the trend.
“We considered reallocating our Canadian marketing spend like many others, but the intelligence revealed a different story. Website visits were rising. Visitation was steady. That gave us the confidence to stay the course.”
- Annette Brown, CMO, Visit Temecula Valley
By leaning into their intelligence platform, the team avoided a potentially costly misstep and preserved a strong international feeder market, aligning with broader state-level trends to welcome Canadian visitors.
Seeing Opportunity Early: Identifying Emerging Markets
In early 2025, Temecula’s team noticed new opportunities from Denver and Salt Lake City - two cities not historically on their radar. Through regular monitoring of behavioral movement and lodging data, the visitor journey signals became clear: these were not one-off visits.
With that clarity, Annette and her agency reallocated about 4.5% of their leisure campaign funds toward these new markets with Google ads and the full media mix —and within weeks, visitation began to rise. Equally important: they pulled back investment from markets no longer performing, optimizing every dollar and maximizing their budget.
“We weren’t targeting Denver or Salt Lake before. But when we saw early growth patterns, we shifted spend and saw immediate returns.”
- Annette Brown, CMO, Visit Temecula Valley
Results
| “Zartico’s data has become a cornerstone of our collaborative strategy with Visit Temecula Valley. By leveraging insights on visitation and revenue by origin market, we’re able to work hand-in-hand with the DMO to make smarter, data-driven decisions around campaign optimizations and budget allocation—ultimately driving more efficient marketing outcomes and increased visitation.” - Greenhaus Agency |
Turning Insight Into Trust: Engaging Stakeholders
Each quarter, Annette meets with her board and committees, not just to report performance, but to align on what’s next. Whether presenting to winery partners or sharing visitor trends with the Winegrowers Association, she customizes insights to help others make smarter decisions too. The data also showed a clear distinction in the true visitor journeys with diverse audience personas for each local winery.
“Zartico has become our go-to source of truth. The more intelligence we share, the more engaged our stakeholders become. They’re asking better questions. They’re using the insights in their own businesses for targeting.”
- Annette Brown, CMO, Visit Temecula Valley
Retail and restaurant spend percentages, top visitor origins, visitor journeys, market-specific behavior, it’s not just about informing strategy, but building a shared understanding that drives alignment and confidence.
Planning Ahead: Using Visitor Intelligence As A Strategic Foundation
As Annette begins her annual strategic planning cycle each July, she turns to visitor profiles and trend analyses. By layering movement, lodging, and market performance data with her agency’s insights, she develops a grounded plan that reflects current realities and future opportunities.
“I use Zartico as the foundation for our strategic planning. Everything we need is in one place - from visitor trends to lodging data - so we’re not guessing. We’re building smarter campaigns, earlier, with stakeholder buy-in from the start.”
- Annette Brown, CMO, Visit Temecula Valley
Key Takeaways
How Temecula Valley operationalizes essential visitor intelligence:
- Validated continued Canadian investment through visitor behavior data
- Identified and capitalized on emerging markets (Denver, Salt Lake City)
- Shared customized insights with stakeholders across the region
- Built stakeholder trust and improved board alignment with regular intelligence updates
- Used data as the foundation for strategic planning and agency collaboration
This is what modern destination leadership looks like: smart, responsive, and grounded in insight by acting on real visitor behaviors.
Ready to turn guesswork into precision?
Schedule a demo and discover what’s possible with Zartico.