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Survey: Tourists like food, history; hate weather, parking
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
Visitors to the Charleston area find the dining scrumptious and the history and old Southern charm delightful. But the weather is uncomfortable and the parking is a pain.
Those are some of the results found in a visitors’ survey conducted by the College of Charleston’s Office of Tourism Analysis and presented Sept. 12 to the Charleston Area Convention & Visitors Bureau and to the hotels, attractions, catering and event planning companies, restaurants and retailers in the bureau’s travel council.
The 35-page report provides the demographic characteristics of Lowcountry visitors and shows where they came from, by what mode of transportation they arrived, the purpose of their trip, what they liked and disliked about their visit, what influenced them to visit the Charleston area and other such information.
In addition to summarizing the visitors that the local tourism industry is reaching and trying to reach, the survey reveals how well industry professionals are marketing the Lowcountry.
“It shows us how successful we are conveying what we want to convey,” said Perrin Lawson, deputy director of the Charleston Area Convention & Visitors Bureau.
The survey is based on 1,242 questionnaires completed by visitors who contacted the bureau for information about the area.
It took about three months to collect the data, said John Crotts, director of the College of Charleston’s Hospitality and Tourism Management Department, home of the Office of Tourism Analysis.
Typical tourists
Parties visiting the Lowcountry usually consist of two adults, about 77% of whom are married; 55.4% of the region’s visitors have some college education and 62.8% are employed fulltime. The median income of visitors is between $75,000 and $100,000, and the median age is 49.3 years, according to the survey.
About 52% of those surveyed put food at the top of the list of things they most enjoyed about the Charleston area. Charleston’s history and “old city charm” ranked second at 33%, the friendliness of local citizens and employees came in third at 23.3%, heritage attractions took fourth place at 22.9%, and heritage tours and rides rounded out the Top 5 of the “most enjoyed things” list at 22.5%.
On the down side, the region’s weather led the list of what visitors liked least, scoring about 18% among those surveyed. Parking came in second at 14%, disappointing service was next at about 12%, traffic came in fourth at 11.2% and prices scored fifth in the “least enjoyed things” list at 9.2%.
About 57% of the visitors arrived by car. Sixty-three percent came from the South Atlantic region, comprising North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia and South Carolina.
This conforms to the regional “drive-to” market the local tourism industry has targeted, Crotts said.
However, visitors also came from as far west as California.
Most visitors stay about three nights, according to the survey. The survey does not include the amount of money travelers spent during their visit to the area.
Nearly 59% of those surveyed said they did not consider visiting any destinations other than Charleston. The roughly 40% who did consider traveling to other cities put Savannah, Ga., at the top of their list. Other destinations considered were Myrtle Beach, Hilton Head and Beaufort, S.C.; Asheville, N.C.; Atlanta; and New Orleans.
The Internet proved a key tool in providing information to travelers considering a trip to the Charleston area. The Charleston Area Convention & Visitors Bureau’s Web site, www.charlestoncvb.com, drew the most inquirers at nearly 76%, according to the survey.
Dennis Quick covers hospitality and tourism for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.
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