All Aboard for San Diego Opportunities
San Diego’s Economic Development Corp. normally isn’t in the tour business.
But the EDC-sponsored buses leaving the Hotel del Coronado parking lot this afternoon will be doing just that as officials give an insider’s look to a group of select tourists--200 corporate real estate executives and site planners with the clout to choose new plant and office locations for their companies.
The tours will bring members of the Industrial Development Resource Council, which is meeting at the Hotel del Coronado, to downtown (including Horton Plaza, the Gaslamp Quarter, the central business district and the waterfront), the San Diego Zoo, the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and a Tijuana maquiladora, or twin plant for manufacturing. Conference attendees also will get a boat tour of San Diego Harbor.
EDC, a private, not-for-profit corporation, is relying on corporate donations to cover the $150,000 cost of the convention, which includes golf and tennis outings, Monday’s dinner and reception at Sea World, and a nightly hospitality suite at the Hotel del Coronado.
“We’d like to have them for two days of industrial tours, but that’s not possible,” said EDC Vice President Jane Signiago-Cox, who acknowledged that “we wanted them to have a good time, so we arranged tours that show off San Diego.”
The fact that the Industrial Development Resource Council selected San Diego is “a credit to Jane Signiago-Cox and (EDC President) Dan Pegg,” said Christy Campbell Walters, director of the California Department of Commerce, who added that municipal competition for the meetings is fierce. “They deserve a round of applause for their efforts.”
Walters said the state’s industrial development effort is running at “three-quarters speed” and predicted that “we’ll be ready to move (full speed) next year.”
Although the Commerce Department has a $6.5-million advertising budget for tourism, it has only $1.5 million to advertise California’s business attractions, Walters said. That places California “about fifth or sixth” among the states that are actively courting business, Walters said.
“We’ve moved from the bottom quartile to the top quartile” since Gov. George Deukmejian took office three years ago, Walters said.
Although Walters said that the state has improved its industrial development program, she acknowledged that California still trails in a few classifications. New York, for example, has a longer track record when it comes to glitzy show-type productions that catch industry’s eye. North Carolina “garnered a very impressive ranking for their educational training programs,” Walters said.
Although the Commerce Department tries to attract out-of-state companies, two-thirds of the department’s efforts are focused on companies that are already in California. That approach is forced by the fact that California, with its rich industrial base, is subject to “raiding parties” from other states, said Walters, who added that “Arizona has gotten the most attention for its raiding parties.”
During the first nine months of the year, 515 companies announced plans to locate or expand major industrial operations in California, said Walters, who added that 415 similar announcements were made during all of 1984.
Sponsors of convention-related events include: Ernest W. Hahn Inc., the downtown tour; Kaiser Development, the zoo tour; The Naiman Co., the Scripps Institute tour, and Trammell Crow Co. and The International Center, the maquiladora tour.
Pardee Construction sponsored a tennis tournament on Saturday, and Business Properties Brokerage Co. sponsored a golf outing.
The Koll Co., John Burnham & Co., Collins Development, Great American First Savings Bank, Grubb & Ellis, Home Federal Savings & Loan Assn., Hotel del Coronado, Pacific Southwest Airlines, Rohr Industries and the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau sponsored Monday night’s session at Sea World.
PSA also offered half-price fares through Nov. 13 to convention attendees who want to tour the state in search of promising industrial and office locations.
