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Thursday, May 17, 2012
Regional Focus: April 2007
Hometown Hospitality
Yuba-Sutter’s new tourism committee bucks fancy festivals in favor of rural charm
Story by Stephanie Flores
Longtime residents in Yuba and Sutter counties are used to the roadside fruit stands, hunting, fishing and historical quaintness that comes naturally with rural life. One of those residents, Bill Simmons, says with some advertising money, the counties could attract city dwellers looking for a glimpse of countryside living.
Simmons is the chairman of a revitalized tourism committee of the Yuba-Sutter Chamber of Commerce. He’s taken on the task of attracting visitor spending in two counties, armed with a little funding and a lot of volunteer work.
With no consistent revenue, the tourism committee had remained largely inactive in recent years. Simmons, the director of the Yuba County One Stop job center, and chamber Executive Director Laura Nicholson are hoping to advertise existing tourism draws in the area, but back away from too much event planning.
“This isn’t an issue of, ‘Do we do a prune festival or a Bok Kai festival?’” Simmons says.
The chamber has identified four existing tourism draws, which are agricultural, cultural, historical and recreational. The area is home to several outdoor sporting grounds, an annual Punjabi heritage festival that drew 12,000 people last year, historic landmarks and massive farmland acreage.
Simmons is looking to sell the tourism idea to local businesses and the community. One of the ways the chamber will gauge residents’ and tourists’ reactions is during an upcoming bowling tournament, which will be the largest the area has ever hosted.
Simmons, who served eight years on the Board of Supervisors for Yuba County, says he thinks elected officials will back the program once they understand the revenue and jobs that tourism can bring to the counties.
In 2004, Yuba County generated an estimated $71.2 million in travel spending, up from $41 million in 1992, according to a study funded by California Tourism, a nonprofit joint venture between the travel industry and the state. During that same time, Sutter County tourism grew from $43.8 million to $63.5 million. In 2004, Yuba had 1,070 jobs related to tourism and Sutter had 1,140.
“This isn’t an issue of, ‘Do we do a prune festival or a Bok Kai festival?’”
— Bill Simmons, chairman, Yuba-Sutter tourism committee
Tourism is a tough concept for residents to grasp, Simmons says. “You see, we live in it. It is no big deal to us. If we want to go fishing, then we go fishing. If we want to go to the lake, then we go to the lake.”
Outdoor sports are just one of the tourism draws the chamber hopes to promote. There are five licensed commercial hunting clubs in the two counties, according to the California Department of Fish and Game.
Along with the hunting clubs, there are several outdoor sporting guides in the area. Among them is North Valley Guide Services, based in Yuba City. Owner Dustin Parsons launched the business in January 2006 as a side job, but says the hunting business is so good, he expects eventually to go full-time. Most of his clients find him on the Internet and come from the Bay Area, Nevada and as far south as Modesto.
“Near the end of the duck season, the hunting trips were packed, but there was definitely room for growth in the beginning of the season,” Parsons says. There is also plenty of room to grow the fishing-excursions part of the business, he adds.
In 2001, sportfishing generated $4.9 billion for the California economy, with 43,130 jobs, according to a study by the American Sportfishing Association. However, Yuba and Sutter counties have had a small piece of the impact. In 2005, non-resident fishing licenses in those counties totaled 55, according to the state Fish and Game Department, compared to Shasta County with 304 non-resident licenses.
Another tourism draw for the counties is its agricultural roots. In 2000, of the 800,000 acres that make up the two counties, nearly half was farmland, according to maps from the California Department of Conservation. Although it’s a big business in Sutter and Yuba counties, tourism is in its infancy. There is no map showing the roadside produce stands, restaurants and other agribusinesses that sell directly to consumers, though this is something the chamber is looking to add.
Other areas in Northern California with rural and agricultural roots have had some success with maps and informational guides. The Sonoma County Farm Trails Map and Guide is celebrating its 35th year, says Program Manager Jayne Burns. Burns printed 100,000 copies of the 36-page magazine this year.
The guide began as a simple map to help farmers sell directly to consumers. The project was funded by participating businesses, which paid a fee for a spot on the map. Today, transient-occupancy tax revenue and the annual Gravenstein Apple Fair in Sebastopol help to fund the guide, which Burns says generates expensive printing costs.
You can start small in the age of the Internet, Burns says, with less startup costs. “If I was going to launch something new today, it would be a smaller printed brochure with a big website,” she says.
El Dorado County has grown its agricultural tourism by promoting its winery clusters and Apple Hill. That agribusiness map comes from ad dollars and hotel taxes, says Laurel Brent-Bumb, chief executive officer of the El Dorado County Chamber of Commerce. Aside from agricultural tourism, the chamber also contracts with the county to promote film and media in El Dorado County. The Yuba-Sutter chamber used to have a film-promotion committee, and Simmons says it could resurface again.
The Yuba-Sutter chamber hopes to gauge visitor interest in tourism with a substantial bowling tournament that begins next month. Organizers expect at least 6,000 bowlers and their families to visit during the 16-week tournament. The chamber is developing an exit survey that allows visitors to indicate if they would return again and what they liked and disliked about the area.
Nu Generation Lanes Inc., a 40-lane bowling center in Yuba City, worked for four years to bring the California State Open Championship Tournament to the community. Part of the tournament will be held at Tyme to Bowl Lanes in Oroville.
“This will be a process. Ten years ago, tourism wasn’t even on the radar.”
— Laura Nicholson, executive director, Yuba-Sutter Chamber of Commerce
Helen Means-Stinson, promotions manager for Nu Generation, had to lobby the California U.S. Bowling Congress to change some rules, including the size of bowling alleys that were allowed to bid. Originally, bowling centers had to have 32 lanes; the Oroville center has 24 lanes.
This is the smallest community the tournament will have seen, and the farthest north. Now that smaller bowling alleys can compete, Means-Stinson says, this opens the door for other small communities.
“I presented this bid on hometown hospitality, where we know your name and you come to our town to enjoy that,” says Means-Stinson.
Yuba City and Oroville beat out Modesto, Manteca-Stockton, Livermore-Dublin and Fresno for the tournament. Typically, the bidding takes at least two or three rounds as cities are eliminated by a group of 150 bowling delegates. Yuba City won the bid in the first round after a little help from the Yuba-Sutter Chamber of Commerce.
Means-Stinson approached the chamber executive director, Laura Nicholson. Nicholson persuaded some chamber members to each donate 150 items related to their business for gift bags for the 150 bowling delegates meeting in Sacramento for the bidding. For example, a casino donated 150 decks of cards, and another business donated 150 embroidered towels.
“We wanted to show the delegates that even as a small town, we would welcome them with open arms,” Nicholson says.
The area has never hosted a tournament this big, says Means-Stinson. Bowlers who live more than 100 miles away will likely stay the night with their families in local hotels, she says.
Simmons should like the idea of No Vacancy signs — one of the ways he is looking to fund promotion and advertising of tourism is through transient-occupancy taxes. Also, Simmons says his committee has to find an equitable way to fund a tourism program for the counties and the cities of Marysville and Yuba City. Though Yuba City has several lodging establishments, Marysville only has a handful of motels for non-residents.
“We’re looking for ways to sustain ourselves,” Simmons says. The chamber likely won’t look for a membership fee specifically from tourism-related businesses, he adds, because the chamber doesn’t want to take funding from its members’ bottom lines.
The chamber just received a third round of funding since 2003 from local jurisdictions to promote tourism. The nearly $44,000 in public money was funded equally by the two counties, Marysville and Yuba City. The chamber outlined a budget it would need for the bowling tournament survey, website development and brochure-printing costs, just to name a few.
New initiatives of the tourism committee are still in their infancy, Simmons says. He is looking to revisit some old initiatives, too.
For example, the county is looking into rejoining the Central Valley Tourism Association. First, Simmons wants to explore why the chamber stopped its previous membership and what could be gained from association membership.
The chamber also used to have a director of tourism, but eliminated that position to use the money for other things. One of the lessons learned from that position was the director spent too much time event planning, Nicholson says.
Nicholson says she’s confident tourism will gain traction once businesses realize the benefit. “This will be a process,” she says. “Ten years ago, tourism wasn’t even on the radar.”
