A new campaign aims to attract visitors to see Monterey County—for more than a few days.

As this newsletter hits inboxes, Labor Day weekend visitors are deplaning at Monterey Regional Airport or driving in on the highways and checking into the county’s hotels and inns, ready to explore and relax over the holiday weekend.

Pam Marino here, fresh off of reporting on the latest news that will be impacting the tourism industry, which brought in $3.1 billion in economic impact according to estimates by Dean Runyan and Associates. It’s the county’s number two industry behind agriculture.

The news I reported in Thursday’s paper is about how the now-former Monterey County Convention and Visitors Bureau has a new name and a new marketing campaign with a goal of increasing visitor spending—which will mean more tax revenue for municipalities—while creating less impact on the environment and residents. 

The MCCVB is now simply See Monterey. The new name was officially unveiled by CEO Rob O’Keefe and his team on Thursday afternoon at the bureau’s annual meeting at the Monterey Conference Center. The name change is more about ditching the alphabet soup of an acronym. Also gone is the 10-year-old tagline, “Grab Life by the Moments.” It’s now “Find Your Way Here.”

There were over 150 people in attendance yesterday, including elected officials and staff from cities and the county who have a vested interest in hearing See Monterey’s new marketing strategy.

The combined investment into the bureau by those municipalities for the 2023-24 fiscal year is $4,265,520, according to See Monterey’s 2023-24 Business Plan. The bureau uses these contributions to promote the county’s hotels and attractions across a wide array of advertising channels in print, social media, blogs and television/streaming. The spending by visitors translates into sales and hotel tax revenues that are used to pay for things like paving roads, police and fire, recreation departments and libraries.

See Monterey will take in another $7,276,810 from revenue generated by the Monterey County Tourism Improvement District—plus $50,200 from private sources—for a grand total of $11,593,530 that will be spent on marketing and increasing valuable group sales. 

That $11.59 million will hopefully translate into an impact that will exceed the $3.1 billion of last year, as well as the pre-pandemic number of $3.2 billion.

The $7.2 million from the TID is no small thing and is key to See Monterey’s marketing strategy moving forward. A renewal of the district earlier this year among hotel owners, cities and the county led to an increase in the amount per room, per night assessment that hotels pay into the district. Last year the district’s revenue was over $4 million, which means there is $3 million more to use this coming year on marketing.

“The TID assessment renewal was a big one,” said Amrish Patel, owner of the Green Lantern Inn in Carmel and incoming chair of the See Monterey Board of Directors. “That has given us the budget and resources to be able to truly compete with other destinations.”

Those destinations include places like Napa, Sonoma, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Palm Springs. Historically, those places outspend Monterey County. “All that business that we want, they want too, and they’re going after it fiercely,” O’Keefe said. 

It’s not marketing to increase the number of visitors, O’Keefe said. The focus is on increasing the number of nights that they stay at hotels. One extra night per visit could translate into $877 million a year in sales. (More details on See Monterey’s marketing plan are available in the 2023-24 Business Plan.)

Here’s to the visitors who will be visiting our county this weekend. I hope they have a good time while being respectful of the county’s natural resources and those of us who reside here—and that they leave behind some money after they return home.