Tourism-Reliant O.C. Groups Try Cooperation to Increase Volume
After years of competing against each other, players in Orange County’s fragmented tourism industry are linking up to promote the county as a vacation play-land and win back market share lost in the turbulence of the early 1990s.
The Orange County Tourism Council, scheduled to elect its officers on April 18, will become the newest segment of the Orange County Business Council, the county’s largest business development organization.
The new tourism group is the outgrowth of years of discussion and a 1994 county-sponsored “Tourism Summit” on how to position Orange County to compete with heavily marketed destinations such as Las Vegas and San Francisco.
Tourism heavyweights will figure prominently in the new organization, which will be led by William Ross, vice president of public affairs at Disneyland.
The group’s mission is to forge a cohesive marketing identity for the county and raise $1 million for advertising by the end of 1996, according to Jack Lindquist, the retired Disneyland president who helped form the new tourism council.
“We have to start thinking regionally,” Lindquist said. “It’s an idea whose time has come.”
The collective approach is a radical departure from the rugged individualism that has characterized the Orange County tourism industry in the past.
While industry leaders in markets such as Las Vegas pooled their resources for national advertising blitzes, Orange County’s 31 cities and myriad of attractions chose to go it alone in promotion and marketing--essentially competing against each other for tourist dollars.
That approach worked fine while the Southern California economy was booming, said Ken Moore, president of the Business Council’s Economic Development Consortium. But in the early 1990s, the Gulf War, recession, natural disasters and civil unrest in Los Angeles sent the local tourist trade reeling.
Tourism has since rallied and visitors last year spent a record $5.1 billion in Orange County. Still, California’s overall share of domestic tourist dollars has slipped in recent years, and the local industry can no longer count on visitors automatically returning when they have so many other alternatives, Moore said.
“Orange County is a product, and we have to market it that way,” Moore said. “We have to operate more like a business.”
The consortium he heads will coordinate activities for the new Tourism Council.
The council plans to fund its advertising war chest through voluntary assessments on a variety of local businesses including hotels, attractions, restaurants, retailers and transportation providers. The group also will seek public funds from cities such as Anaheim and Huntington Beach that benefit the most from tourism.
Organizers acknowledge they face a tough fund-raising climate. The local effort is being launched just as the state is pushing its own plan to raise $25 million through an industry self-assessment to fund California tourism marketing. Small tourism players may be reluctant to contribute twice for regional marketing.
Likewise, Orange County municipalities may balk at devoting taxpayer dollars for tourism marketing at a time when they are being forced to cut basic services from their budgets.
Even so, the organizers hope to convince local tourism businesses that it’s an investment in their own economic future, Ross said.
“Raising money is always a challenge,” he said. “But we have a wonderful opportunity to strengthen our tourism industry if we can . . . develop a focus on Orange County.”
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Tourist Trade
Orange County’s tourist tally reached an all-time high in 1989. Although Southland riots, fires, earthquakes and an economic downturn hurt tourism in the early 1990s, record attendance at Disneyland boosted the total in 1995. Orange County annual visitor count, in millions:
1995: 39.0
Bringing in Bucks
Tourists spent an estimated $5.1 billion in Orange County in 1995. Percent of total spending, by segment:
Meals, beverages: 29%
Entertainment: 26%
Lodging: 25%
Shopping: 17%
Other: 2%
Note: Does not total 100% because of rounding
Source: Anaheim-Orange County Visitor and Convention Bureau; Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times
