Strategic Actions Based on Research

Annual Leisure Travel Study

This research includes annual detailed visitor information, estimated traveler expenditures and analysis, and an estimated return on investment (ROI) for the region's marketing expenditures. 

ROOST measures traceable leads who were interested in visiting the region for a calendar year. A 3rd party regional community and economic development research firm determines visitor information at the county levels and to gauges key regional marketing program statistics. 

The research is broken into multiple documents for specific regional or topic focus.

Surveys, Economic Impact, and more

ROOST routinely conducts everything from event economic impact studies and post-event attendee surveys, to targeted feedback on specific community initiatives, visitor intercepts, business surveys, and occasional focus groups or stakeholder interviews.

Our approach mixes quantitative and qualitative methods: online surveys (distributed by email, paid social ads, and local partner outreach), targeted intercepts and/or lodging data, vendor/business questionnaires, interviews or focus groups, and standard economic-impact modeling when estimating event benefits. Those mixed methods let ROOST measure things like visitor spending and local event impact, capture resident and business sentiment, and test reactions to proposed programs or policies. Findings feed directly into event planning, marketing ROI decisions, destination management work (including housing and short-term rental issues), and budget and policy choices.

New York State Tourism Economics

To quantify the significance of New York’s visitor economy, Tourism Economics releases a comprehensive analysis of visitor spending and its total economic impact on businesses, employment, personal income, and taxes. 

This annual study includes:

• A compilation of visitor statistics
• A compilation of industry data
• A compilation of state data
• An analysis of visitor spending by category
• Tourism economic impact