Anaheim Visitors Bureau Marks Anniversary

Happy birthday to the Anaheim/Orange County Visitor & Convention Bureau, which celebrates 35 years of operation this month.

The agency got its start in 1961 as the Anaheim Area Visitor & Convention Bureau, operating out of a small Anaheim farmhouse with five staff members. Back then, the bureau’s mission was to find a way to generate year-round business for the city’s 2,500 hotel and motel rooms.

Today the bureau boasts a staff of 40 that, among other things, is still trying to fill those hotel rooms--all 18,000 of them. More than 487 million people have visited Anaheim since 1961, depositing about $74 billion into the local economy over the years.

Now that takes the cake.