Salinas City Council says yes to its welcome center, with tough questions.

You’ve probably heard local business leaders talk about Monterey County’s two leading sectors, the agriculture and hospitality industries. They are often presented side by side, but the $3.1 billion tourism industry makes up a much smaller piece of the pie than the $11.7 billion ag industry.

Of course, many of the millions of tourists who visit Monterey County each year may have no clue about the scale of the ag industry. These two worlds are delineated along geographic and cultural lines sometimes derisively referred to as “the lettuce curtain,” the invisible separation between the Monterey Peninsula (the tourism center) and the Salinas Valley (the agricultural capital).

There is really no reason it needs to be this way, and there are a few voices in the tourism world who are making that case consistently. Perhaps the most vocal is Craig Kaufman, director of the Salinas Valley Tourism and Visitors Bureau and California Welcome Center in Salinas. He sees a bright future for tourism in Salinas that is not in competition with the Peninsula. “In order for us to leverage the economic engine on the Monterey Peninsula, the wonderful job they have done [with tourism], we need to be able to lure them 35 miles inland,” Kaufman says. He talks about the mission of See Monterey, the county’s tourism bureau, to extend visitor stays – making a day-tripper into an overnight visitor, or a one-night stay into a two-night stay. That extra day of travel could be spent in Salinas – tourists just need a little bit more signage and guidance, especially compared to the inundation of information pushing them to destinations like Cannery Row.

It’s a grand and worthwhile vision, and the leaders at See Monterey agree with it. (The bureau’s motto is “one more night,” which CEO Rob O’Keefe says should earn Phil Collins knighthood. Judge for yourself in the music section on p. 29.)

“If you’re coming here to drink wine, we want you to go to the Aquarium; if you’re coming here for the Aquarium, we want you to go to Salinas,” O’Keefe says.

That’s the vision. How the Salinas bureau executes on all of that is a different story.

The story has been unfolding since it formed in 2008 and began operating in a shopping center. In 2013, Kaufman landed California Welcome Center designation, bringing in support from the state. In 2020, just before the pandemic tanked tourism, he moved into a city property next to the train station. And the lease for the property expired on July 1 of last year.

Fast forward to last Tuesday, March 24, when the bureau came to Salinas City Council asking for a few things: $200,000 in cash and a two-year lease (replacing an existing lease that expired on July 1 of last year) for $1/month, down from the previous $2,104/month – plus free rent for the past year.

“We are not doing a good job and that’s why we have asked for more money from the city, to allow us to do our job,” board member Don Chapin told City Council. “We need to hire people, we need better marketing, we need better brochures, we need to have pop-up tents so we can go to the Rodeo and car shows so we can tout Salinas and get more people into this city.”

Chapin promised there are $1.7 million in private commitments pending the city’s seed money to initiate a public-private partnership. “Tourism is a big deal,” he said. “I don’t think Salinas has taken it seriously enough.”

Council members had some tough questions, but ultimately they agreed – as do I – that tourism is a big deal and indeed, Salinas has not pursued it seriously enough. They voted 6-1 (with Andrew Sandoval dissenting) to approve the agreements.

Council also approved an audit of declining tourism improvement district revenue, collected from hotels, a percentage of which funds the center.

Kaufman has a grand vision to promote the heritage and history of the region, starting with the under-utilized Anza Trail, a 1776 expedition currently celebrating its 250th anniversary. “We are the fourth-largest economy in the world, and the most populous nation in the state. We are a success story, no matter how much people badmouth California,” he says.

He’s ready to share that success with the world.

SARA RUBIN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@montereycountynow.com.