Publishing Pair to Write the Tourism Book on Ventura County

Steve Fox traveled through Ventura County hundreds of times during the 25 years he lived in Los Angeles. But it was always through Ventura County, not to it.

When Fox finally did visit the county, he liked what he saw. And now, four years after moving to the county, Fox wants to play a role in getting others to travel this way.

Fox and business partner Don Wilkinson own CPS Communications, a Ventura publishing and communications firm that in June is scheduled to release the inaugural edition of the Ventura Visitor tourism guide.

The 40-page, semiannual publication, which will be published again around Thanksgiving, is part of a network of Visitor magazines owned by Regional Visitor Publications of Eureka. The magazines, with an annual circulation of about 1.3 million, cover Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, Marin, Monterey, Sonoma and San Diego counties, as well as the southern portion of Oregon.

CPS Communications purchased the publishing license from the parent company. The Ventura firm also has licenses for magazines covering Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, which Fox and Wilkinson expect to produce within the next two years.

Fox and Wilkinson also publish the San Buenaventura Chamber of Commerce business directory and other publications for local clients, and they own two-thirds of Internet Innovations, through which they create Web sites for clients such as Ventura County National Bank.

Wilkinson also publishes the Ventura County edition of Homes & Land Magazine.

Like the other magazines in the Visitor chain, the new Ventura version will promote the cities, attractions and other points of interest in the region through articles, an events calendar, maps and advertising.

“We are trying to promote the entire county,” Fox said. “We think it is going to be a very, very hot area in the coming years and we want to help make that happen.”

CPS Communications will distribute 100,000 copies of each edition of Ventura Visitor to about 1,000 locations--the vast majority of those in Ventura County, the remainder in Bakersfield, the western San Fernando Valley, the Santa Clarita Valley and Malibu, as well as to relocation divisions of corporations outside the area and to film studios in Los Angeles.

Ventura Visitor will be publicized in the other Visitor magazines and on a Regional Visitor Publications Internet site, which Fox and Wilkinson are creating.

“We’re hoping to put the county on the map in terms of tourism,” Fox said. “There’s a great deal here. Santa Paula has the beautiful vintage airplanes and quaint downtown. Ojai has the shops and the craft places and the world-class spas. Ventura’s downtown, I think, is well on its way to becoming a delightful place. There’s the harbors, the Channel Islands.”

Larry Jensen, general manager of the Fillmore & Western Railway Co., a Fillmore-based dinner-theater train, said Ventura Visitor should bring his town up to speed with tourism promotion.

“It puts us on par with what Oxnard and Ventura are doing to promote themselves,” said Jensen, who has purchased an ad in the publication. “This is saying, ‘Maybe you should take a look at downtown Fillmore. Maybe look at the train. There are things to do, reasons to spend an afternoon or weekend in Ventura County.’ ”

According to the California Department of Commerce, tourism brings in about $750 million annually to Ventura County., the third-largest industry behind the military and agriculture.

Jensen, a former member of the Tuolumne County tourism bureau’s board of directors, said the promotion of Ventura County as an entire region is key to luring overnight travelers.

“Because there has not been a countywide voice, everybody has been promoting their own little thing,” he said. “All we’ve seen is what independent visitors bureaus and chambers of commerce can do with their limited resources. This is one voice that speaks for the county and that’s powerful.”

Carol Lavender, director of the Greater Oxnard & Harbors Tourism Bureau, figures it’s about time. She’s spent the past six months or so promoting the idea of a countywide effort.

“I feel no one city can keep a visitor interested and keep a visitor overnight and looking at attractions the next day,” Lavender said. “Whatever is going on in the county is beneficial to all of us.”

The battle between cities over the tourism dollar is highly competitive, Lavender said, but Ventura County’s tourism leaders ought to look at the bigger picture.

“A hotel has to sell a destination, a destination has to sell the county,” she said. “We must market some of the interesting things happening here and, let’s face it, they’re not all happening in Oxnard.”

Bill Clawson, director of the Ventura Visitors & Convention Bureau, is willing to admit they aren’t all happening in his city, either.

“Visitors to the area don’t see city limit signs. They’ll stay in a hotel in one town, eat at a restaurant in another and not really know the difference,” he said.

“Of course, we’d like them to stay in Ventura, but if they stay in Ventura and visit the railroad in Fillmore, or the [Unocal] Oil Museum in Santa Paula, as long as it enhances their stay here, we’re all for it.”