Businesses Can Climb Aboard the America’s Cup Bandwagon : Promotion: For fees ranging from $2,400 to $250,000, San Diego companies will be listed in a directory to be published for the 1992 event.

The San Diego Yacht Club’s defense of its America’s Cup title in 1992 is expected to generate $1 billion for the local economy. But area businessmen who are interested in getting their share of the windfall will have to pay to play, according to event organizers.

Local businesses will have to pay fees ranging from $2,400 to $250,000 to be listed in a directory of goods and services that will be distributed to racing syndicates and sponsors. To make these somewhat costly fees more palatable, they have been divided into three payments spread out over three years.

The fees paid by businesses will be their ticket to membership in America’s Cup Services, a marketing arm of the nonprofit corporation formed to manage the yearlong event for the Cup’s defenders. The group has planned an extensive publicity campaign to promote the regatta along with those San Diego-area businesses willing to support the race with their dollars.

The America’s Cup Organizing Committee will use the $1.5 to $4.6 million it expects to earn from these fees to help offset ACOC’s estimated $10-million budget for operating expenses.

The ACOC has budgeted an additional $10 million that it hopes to receive from the San Diego Port Authority to stage the race and provide public venues.

“We really needed a way to raise the private income source,” said Dal Watkins, the president of the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“In order for us to put on a good show . . . it has to be a little bit” from everybody, added Tom Vincent, the president of the Greater San Diego Hotel-Motel Assn. and the general manager of the San Diego Princess Hotel.

Watkins and Vincent are on the committee that directs the ACS.

The central component of the organization’s publicity campaign is a comprehensive glossy San Diego directory that Parker Pike, ACS membership and hosts program director, describes as “a catalyst for business.”

The directory will include maps, calendars and profiles for those interested in attending, sponsoring or participating in the America’s Cup event.

The sole criterion for joining ACS is paying the membership fee, and a committee spokesman said that applicants will not be screened. Fee-paying businesses will be listed alphabetically and by category in the ACS directory.

Businesses that purchase some of the more expensive memberships will be granted space for advertisements. “They will have the implied endorsement of this organization,” Pike said.

The $2,400 membership program is set up for what ACS calls “host merchants,” which will only be listed in the directory. ACS will also sell 100 restaurant memberships at $10,000 and 100 charter memberships at $50,000.

Restaurant members will receive a one-sixth page black and white advertisement for their fee. Charter members will be given space for a full-page, four-color ad.

Those who purchase ACS’s ten $250,000 associate memberships can choose their position for a two-page, full-color advertisement in the directory.

ACS plans to print and distribute 500,000 directories in three different editions beginning in November, Pike said. The third and largest edition will be published in November, 1991.

In addition to the directory, ACS members will receive promotional assistance from an 800-number referral center being established by the organization to field calls from the media, travel agents, tourists, syndicates and sponsors.

All ACS members, regardless of the type of membership they purchase, will also be allowed to use the America’s Cup logo for their own publicity purposes.

The regatta will begin with the five-day First International America’s Cup Class World Championships in San Diego next May. Defender and challenger selection trials will begin the following January and will run through April.