Oxnard Campaign Aims at Boosting Tourism

Hotels and restaurants at Oxnard’s Channel Islands Harbor are backing a promotion campaign aimed at halting a three-year slide in tourism-related business at the harbor.

Revenues at the county-owned facility have declined for three straight years. If the downtrend continues, the county’s income from leases and boat-slip fees is expected to slide another 16%, to $2.7 million, in the current fiscal year, said Blake Boyle, deputy recreation-services director of the county’s General Services Agency.

The Channel Islands Harbor Assn. of Lessees, the county and the city of Oxnard will spend $93,000 on an advertising campaign aimed at attracting one-day visitors from Los Angeles. The drive, slated to run through June, will be conducted by the Murphy Organization, an Oxnard advertising and public relations agency.

Michael Koutnik, owner of the Whale’s Tail restaurant and chairman of the Oxnard Chamber of Commerce tourism committee, said the campaign is the first such effort since Oxnard’s Convention and Visitors Bureau was closed in 1989. “If it pays off, it could be the impetus for developing a new bureau,” he said.

The effort might be expanded this summer to include advertising in Bakersfield, the Antelope Valley and other areas, harbor business leaders said.

In addition to the Whale’s Tail, businesses paying nearly half the cost of the drive are the Casa Sirena Marina Resort, Mandalay Beach Resort, Oxnard Hilton Inn, Radisson Suite Hotel at River Ridge and Charley Brown’s at Fisherman’s Wharf.