After a year of building, the Coachella Valley finally has a dedicated, hyper-local market intelligence service. A note from the publisher on what it is, why it exists, and what it means for readers of GPS Business Insider.
For three decades, my job in this valley has often come down to one question, which I’ve asked a thousand different ways: what is actually happening here, and what does it mean for the decision in front of you?
I asked it as the owner and publisher of Wheeler’s Market Intelligence and the Wheeler’s Desert Letter for twelve years, when roughly 1,000 subscribers, most of them right here in the Coachella Valley, paid for an honest read on the regional economy every time it landed in their mailbox. I asked it when I was running the valley’s PGA Tour event (now The American Express) and serving as CEO of Desert Healthcare District. And I have asked it every week since GPS Business Insider launched.
Today I am announcing the answer I have spent the last year building. GPS Market Intel, a new division of GPS Business Insider, is open. It is the valley’s only dedicated local market intelligence and economic research service, and I want to explain plainly what it is, how it differs from what you already read here, and why I believe the region has needed it for a long time. It’s the culmination of my career in a place I fell in love with 32 years ago and still revere to this day. It’s my best work, and it’s designed to help people understand this incredibly diverse region based on facts and insights so they can make informed decisions – both strategic and tactical.
What has been missing
Everyone in this region is forced to make decisions off the same handful of numbers. Population and who is moving where. Jobs and unemployment. Retail sales. What is in the development pipeline and what just sold. The council member preparing for a budget hearing, the commercial real estate broker building a pitch, the entrepreneur buildng a business plan, the hospital planner sizing a service area, the lender on a credit committee and the developer choosing a site are all reaching for the same figures.
Until now, nobody published them in one place, on a schedule, with analysis and insights to what it means, for the whole valley, its subregions, and its individual cities. The national data platforms usually cannot tell Indio from Indian Wells; their maps stop at the county line or blur nine very different cities into one average. The public agencies publish good material, but each publishes its own slice, on its own calendar, in its own format. The work of assembling a real picture fell to whoever needed it, usually the night before they needed it.
GPS Market Intel exists to do that work. In monthly reports, annual reference publications and special subject matter reports, properly, for all nine cities and the unincorporated communities of Riverside County that complete the valley. This is one economy shared by nine cities, five sovereign tribal nations and one county, and it deserves to be measured accordingly.
The GPS Market Monitor
The center of the service is the GPS Market Monitor, a monthly economic and development intelligence report delivered mid-month, online and in a print-quality edition.
Every issue opens with two or three deep dives on key industry and/or economic sectors, examining what is changing, why it matters and what may happen next. It follows with a dashboard of the hyper-local indicators decision-makers should be watching regularly. It tracks the development pipeline highlights across the valley and the month’s notable commercial real estate transactions. It reports current labor force, unemployment, retail sales figures, housing analysis, tourism and hospitality data and more. And throughout, it does what I have always believed is the real product: it says what the numbers mean and how to use them.
Data by itself is a spreadsheet. Intelligence is the read on top of it. The GPS Market Monitor is built to deliver both, on a schedule you can plan around.
All-Access, and the reports behind the numbers
Subscribers who choose All-Access receive the Monitor plus the complete GPS Market Intel report library, available the day they join.
That library already includes special reports on a wide range of interesting and important issues such as the valley’s part-time seasonal resident economy; eye-opening details of the 55-plus age-restricted, gated community economy; the power constraints curbing development in some sectors; water policy and related challenges; regional governance and the arrival of new dynamics like massive logistics facilities and the challenges of data centers; and individual city demographics reports, with more in production. Each is a deeply researched examination of a single force shaping the region, written for people who have to act on it or want to understand it better. We will keep adding to this library throughout the year.
It also includes two annual reference reports. The State of Greater Palm Springs – Economic Review and Outlook, 2026/2027 Edition lays out the twelve forces shaping the valley’s next decade, from water and megawatts to housing, healthcare, logistics and the growing economic interests of the tribal nations, alongside nine industry sector chapters, a registry of major projects and a set of numbered predictions for the year ahead.
Demographic Profiles of Greater Palm Springs starts with an executive summary-style analysis of the critical demographic facts of the region as a whole and provides a full data profile of each of the nine cities. It’s the authoritative reference document that every staff report, business/strategic plan, grant application, report to headquarters outside the region, and board presentation in this valley needs. In it, we go deep with insights into what the data is telling us about who lives here full time and what it all means today and in the future.
What this means for The Insider Weekly
Nothing changes. GPS Business Insider remains free, and The Insider Weekly newsletter will arrive in subscribers’ inboxes every Friday as it always has. If you wonder whether this announcement means a paywall is coming for it, it does not.
The two platforms do different jobs. The Insider Weekly tells you what happened in this valley. GPS Market Intel gives you the numbers underneath it and tells you what they mean for the decision in front of you. Free is the story. Market Intel is the dataset, the trend line and the judgment call, published monthly. I expect most subscribers will read both, for exactly that reason.
Charter subscription pricing through October 31
Because this is a launch, and because many of you have read GPS Business Insider from the beginning, I am opening with Charter Subscriber pricing through October 31.
Charter subscribers pay for ten months and receive twelve, and they keep that charter rate for three years: the first year and the next two renewals. Under charter pricing, an individual All-Access subscription is $590 for the year, against a regular price of $708. The GPS Market Monitor on its own is $290, against $348. Team plans for up to four and up to eight people at one organization, and an Enterprise plan for whole organizations, are also available, and the charter terms apply to all of them.
You can see every plan and price on one page at GPSMarketIntel.com. You can also read a complete sample issue of GPS Market Monitor there before you decide; no sign-up required. I would rather you judge the work first than take my word for it.
A word about how this was built
GPS Market Intel is built on dozens of local, county, state and federal primary data sources; public agency agendas and decisions; GPS Business Insider’s own reporting; several specialized private data sources; and 32 years of watching this economy up close. It is written, edited and published here in the valley, by someone who lives with the consequences of getting it right.
The GPS Market Intel website is live now. Click here to view it. If you have any questions about any aspect of it, call or text me. My number is (760) 861-4242, and I answer my own phone.
I have wanted to build this for a long time. It is ready. I hope you will put it to work.
Bob Marra is the CEO/Publisher of GPS Business Insider and GPS Market Intel. He has been studying, writing and giving presentations about business, economic and public affairs news and issues and the local economy in the Greater Palm Springs/Coachella Valley region for more than 20 years.
