State’s Share of Visitors Hits New Low

California continued to lose ground last year in the battle with other states for tourist dollars, state officials reported Monday.

While spending for tourism rose last year, the overall percentage of U.S. travelers vacationing in the Golden State dropped to 10.5%, its lowest ever, said John Poimiroo, deputy tourism secretary.

At the end of the last decade, the state was luring 12.3% of the nation’s vacationers, according to the report. State officials said aggressive marketing campaigns conducted by other states contributed to the erosion in market share here.

Despite the decline, tourists last year spent an estimated $57.8 billion in the state, up 4.8% from $55.2 billion in 1995. This helped fuel a 4.7% increase in tourism-related employment, to 689,000 from 658,000 in 1995. Sales tax revenue generated by tourism jumped 4.1% last year to $3.2 million.

But vacation hot spots such as Orlando, Fla., and Las Vegas have lured tourists away from the West Coast with flashy ad campaigns, said Tiffany Urness, research manager for the tourism division of the state Trade and Commerce Agency.

“Even many of the smaller states are becoming more sophisticated and launching more aggressive campaigns, and the combined effort is cutting into California market share,” Urness said.

State officials, complaining that California’s marketing budget has not been large enough to mount effective national promotions, are asking businesses that profit from tourism to tax themselves to generate more money for marketing.

If the businesses approve the state’s proposal in a June referendum, they would be assessed 4.5 cents for every $100 of tourism- related revenue generated by an establishment. The move could raise an additional $7.5 million for the state from more than 250,000 businesses.

However, that plan faces considerable opposition from both the powerful airline industry, which is opposed to mandatory fees, and from smaller hotel and attraction operators, which question how much extra business the expanded campaign will bring them.

Indeed, visitor spending has been increasing at a healthy pace on its own in the last two years as the economy has rebounded, they say.

Former Disneyland President Jack Lindquist said the tourist industry benefited last year from an economy that “was stronger than it had been in several years.”

Lindquist, an officer with the Orange County Tourism Council, said he favors the industry assessment, however, because California spends far less than other states to attract visitors.