Bratton addresses wine country tourism leaders

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (February 16, 2005) — Destination Analysts^TM founder, David Bratton, spoke today to about 135 leaders in the Sonoma County hospitality, wine, food and recreation industries at the Santa Rosa Tourism Summit held at the at the Hilton Sonoma Wine Country Hotel. The event brought together local leaders to hear from tourism industry experts on trends that will impact how the regions' tourism marketing dollars should be spent in the future.

Bratton presented recently developed demographic and psychographic profiles of the wine country visitor. "The typical San Francisco visitor who heads north to Sonoma wine country is Caucasian, married, on average 53 years old, well educated, lives in a big house and prefers wine to beer."

Approximately 20 percent of San Francisco's 4 million hotel guests will take at least one day trip to wine country while in the Bay area. Interestingly, both San Francisco leisure and business or convention visitors are equally likely to come up to wine country," Bratton told the group. "The region's tourism feeder markets may not be as limited to the Bay Area and California's central valley as you might think. New York, Chicago, Washington and Boston contribute significant numbers of visitors. These are the main places of residence of San Francisco visitors who come up to wine country."

For more information on Bratton’s presentation contact Destination Analysts^TM. More information on the event can be found at Santa Rosa's Press Democrat's website.

About Destination Analysts^TM: Based in San Francisco, California, Destination Analysts (www.destinationanalysts.com (www.destinationanalysts.com) is one of the travel industry’s premier boutique marketing and research consultancies. Destination Analysts^TM was established in 2003 to pioneer affordable, technology-based market research and marketing solutions for tourism and lifestyle-related businesses. The company’s portfolio has quickly grown to include Jackson Wine Estates, the Fiji Islands Visitors Bureau, the United States Forest Service, and DDB-Seattle. The needs of our clients are carefully analyzed and are the centerpiece of everything we do. David Bratton, founder of Destination Analysts, says it best, "Our entire reason for existing is to help our clients thrive, and our goal is always to provide them with affordable and innovative methods to make their marketing soar."