Oxnard to Shut Down Tourism Bureau : Economy: The conventions’ office is scheduled to close June 28. It is the latest casualty of the city’s budget problems. Hotel operators say millions of visitor dollars could be lost.
In the second major blow to Oxnard’s efforts to become a tourist center, city officials announced Monday that they will be forced to shut down the Conventions and Visitors Bureau on June 28.
Last month, the Mandalay Beach Resort and Hotel, the city’s most luxurious seaside hotel, filed for bankruptcy in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, although hotel officials insist that the resort will remain open.
Oxnard’s hotel operators called the bureau’s demise a tragedy--especially since next-door neighbor Ventura has approved a $400,000 tourism budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins July 1.
The bureau is another casualty of the city’s budget problems, brought on by overly optimistic revenue projections. The city’s financial forecast did not materialize when developer fees and sales tax revenue fell far short because of the recession.
Oxnard has had to make drastic cuts in city services and eliminate about 70 jobs to overcome a projected $4-million operating deficit over the next two years.
Before cutting off funding altogether, Oxnard slashed the tourism bureau’s budget from $400,000 in the 1989-90 fiscal year to $60,000 in 1990-91.
Bureau officials and hotel operators said Oxnard stands to lose millions of tourism dollars as a result of the bureau’s closure. But they said it might take years for the full impact to be felt since major conventions--the mainstay of Oxnard’s tourism trade--are booked years in advance.
The city’s announcement came after a last-ditch effort to save the bureau by transferring it into private hands fell through last week.
The city had formed a committee of business people to try to persuade local businesses, including hotels, to fund the bureau. But business representatives said they could not afford to take on the city’s responsibility to promote itself as they fight the current recession.
“Our feeling was that we were being taxed sufficiently already,” said Victor Marzorati, managing director of Casa Sirena Hotel.
City officials said they are trying to reach an agreement with the Oxnard Chamber of Commerce to have a receptionist there answer tourism-related inquiries. They said they hope to revive the bureau as soon as they straighten out the city’s finances.
“At this point, it appears that the major hotels will have to do the marketing to bring people into this area,” said Jim Faulconer, the city’s community development director. “We hope they promote not only their hotels, but Oxnard as a destination.”
But hotel representatives said they cannot afford to add to their advertising budgets.
The tourism bureau opened in 1975, after city officials decided Oxnard had the potential to become an ideal weekend getaway destination for city dwellers in Southern and Central California, bureau director Millie Norman said.
Over the years, the bureau promoted such local attractions as the Fishermans Wharf, the Ventura County Maritime Museum and the annual Strawberry Festival--sending representatives to tourism shows nationwide, buying ads in travel publications and courting a variety of social and religious organizations that regularly hold conventions and retreats.
Last year, the bureau conducted two massive sales campaigns in Los Angeles and Bakersfield.
“We went out to the major corporations and canvassed . . . with 10 salespeople from the local hotels,” Norman said. “We went door-to-door and left brochures everywhere promoting Oxnard, and we did manage to book a few retreats.”
Last year, about 1.5 million tourists visited Oxnard, spending about $95 million, including $1.6 million in bed tax revenue, bureau figures show.
Hotel operators said the repercussions from the bureau’s closing will be felt even outside the city’s tourism industry.
“The bureau closing is definitely a negative, not only for the hospitality community but for the city’s economic community as a whole,” said Bob Burk, sales manager of the Radisson Suites Hotel.
“Tourism dollars are not only spent on hotels. One out of three are spent outside the industry, in retail and all sorts of things,” he said.
Oxnard’s troubles are compounded by the fact that neighboring cities continue to invest heavily in tourism, Burk said.
“It places us at a competitive disadvantage,” he said. “If you pick up trade publications or the L.A. Times, or if you go to tourism conventions, Ventura has a presence and Oxnard will not.”
Hotel operators also said that by closing the bureau, Oxnard has placed in doubt its commitment to the local tourism industry.
“At the time the hotels were built in Oxnard, everybody made investments confident of having some entity to promote Oxnard as a location,” Burk said. “It’s disappointing that we no longer have that entity.”
