Experts Forecast an Upturn in Local Tourism This Year

Tourism in Ventura County has long been an industry in the shadows, eclipsed by neighboring counties with such landmarks as Disneyland, the Getty Museum and Hollywood as marquee attractions.

But with its miles of unfettered coastline, rugged interior and small-town feel, the county is emerging as a destination of choice for day and weekend travelers, and those on vacation.

In fact, tourism officials say 1999 may become one of the most successful years yet as more people begin sampling Ventura County’s smorgasbord of recreational morsels.

“This is going to be a good summer,” said Carol Lavender, executive director of the Oxnard Convention and Visitors Bureau. “People want to get away, and now they’ve got the time and the money to do it.”

As a destination, Ventura County offers a wide variety of activities and events in settings ranging from powdery beaches to picturesque summits to tree-lined thoroughfares hemmed in by specialty boutiques and restaurants.

This, along with stepped-up marketing campaigns by area tourism bureaus, accounts for the steady visitor gains and expansion of an industry that pumps close to $1 billion annually into the local economy and employs more than 24,000 people.

Hotel and motel room tax receipts in the county have climbed steadily through the decade, increasing from about $72 million in 1991 to almost $86 million last year.

Some are predicting that this year revenue will climb past $90 million as the county’s reputation as an activity-filled and economical destination spreads.

For residents of landlocked communities such as Lancaster and Palmdale, Ventura County offers a pleasant coastal getaway with accommodations that are cheaper than such rival spots as Huntington Beach, San Diego and Santa Monica.

In some of the county’s cities, hotel rooms are filling up substantially. Sales in Oxnard are up by more than 13% over the previous fiscal year, and in Ventura they are up by about 6%.

“A lot of work has been put into getting people to visit the area,” said Kathy Janega-Dykes, executive director of the Ventura Visitors and Convention Bureau. “We have a tremendous community with a lot of diversity that people are just starting to appreciate.”

City tourism bureaus have directed more of their resources toward marketing and have begun working together more often to sell the region, rather than individual cities, to people outside the county.

Some communities, such as Oxnard and Ventura, are working together to publish brochures highlighting the county’s coastal amenities and such attractions as Channel Islands National Park.

In addition, those bureaus and cities have been working to host more events to attract visitors.

Ventura became the host city for Powerboat magazine’s Ventura Grand Prix, a national open-water boat race that attracted more than 20,000 boating enthusiasts from around the country for a weekend last summer.

Simi Valley includes a Cajun Creole Music Festival on its menu of weekend jamborees, which attracted about 13,000 people over the Memorial Day weekend.

Accentuating tourism was one of the initiatives adopted a year ago by the Ventura County Economic Cooperative, a public-private partnership whose mission is to expand and strengthen the local economy.

However, a great deal more work needs to be done.

The industry still has difficulty retaining visitors for longer than a day, and there is still no broad-based effort promoting the county as a regional destination.

“There are still so many dollars to be had, but there really isn’t a strategy to go in and get them,” said Penny Bohanon of the Ventura County Economic Development Assn. “It’s a good time for all the cities to start coming together to help each other get people thinking about the county, not just Ventura or Oxnard.”

Janega-Dykes said a unified promotion campaign is among her goals, noting that she worked with Oxnard to devise new marketing strategies that will stretch beyond the city’s borders.

“We need to encourage more cooperative marketing,” she said. “We need to pull these people here and let them know what kind of things they can do in other cities.”

* ALL ABOARD

New CEO named for growing Fillmore & Western Railway. B6

* MORE BUSINESS NEWS: B6-9