Rising to the Challenge

By Juliet McShannon
Staff Writer

April 5 -- Misti Kerns arrives for her meeting, coffee cup in one hand, arms laden with files and manages to smile warmly and extend a hand in greeting. Although on a tight schedule, she is dead on time.

As Executive Director of the Santa Monica Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB), Kerns is no stranger to juggling responsibilities and balancing the needs of visitors and residents. And with the City’s budget crunch, she must now do it on a reduced budget.

“We are not government, nor private sector,” Kerns says. “Funding comes from the general funds of the City’s budget, which means there is less to spend on promotion.”

But Kerns is determined to see the positive with her “glass half full” approach. “From a client/sales aspect it can be an advantage, because we can work directly for the client.”

State budget cuts have had a snowball effect on the tourism industry and shaped the CVB's approach towards promotion strategies.

“State budget cuts have affected us," Kerns says. "Hotels are not making money, and those bureaus dependent upon the transient occupancy tax are not getting it. Everyone has had to pull back.”

To meet the funding challenge Kerns has decided to work with, rather than against, her larger competitors in San Diego, Mammoth, San Francisco and Palm Springs.

“From a bureau standpoint they may be bigger, but we in Santa Monica have a fantastic destination to promote. It is a coalition that works for everyone.”

The bureau has also been working to renew until 2007 the City’s contract with the American Film Market (AFM), which has been a Santa Monica fixture for 15 years.

The market, which drew more than 7,000 participants during its February 25 to March 3 run, provides a big economic boost to Downtown hotels, restaurants and other businesses.

“It is a perfect piece of business for Santa Monica,” says Kerns. “I can’t think of any other convention that comes to a city, empties out the majority of furniture in a hotel, and theoretically turns it into an entire office building hosting 7,000 people in local hotel rooms.”

This year the AFM is taking place twice, returning to Santa Monica in November, before transitioning permanently to that slot.

“The AFM works here because this is a community that will work together to try to ease any strain that it could cause, and I don’t think it causes a strain on the residential base.”

The CVB also continues to target its overseas tourist market, with citizens of the United Kingdom, Germany and New Zealand continuing to prove stalwart travelers. Kerns is currently in partnership with the U.K to facilitate greater tourist exchange between the United States and Britain.

To make up for the loss of overseas visitors in the wake of 9/11, the bureau is also targeting an expanded drive market, Kerns said.

“What used to be a forty-five mile radius has extended beyond that, even as far as western Canada, which I know sounds outlandish, but is very true.”

Still, the CVB has been wary of doing a regional outreach, since Santa Monica’s infrastructure may not be able to accommodate more regional traffic.

“We have kept our long term strategy, which is to target our long-haul customers and to remind local people to stay local, to offer discounted rooms,” Kerns says.

Kerns’ background in the hospitality industry has been a key to her success. Born in Ohio, Kerns later moved to California and “fell into” the hotel business, cutting her teeth at the Canyon and the Wyndham hotels in Palm Springs.

“I’ve had good mentors at the hotels I’ve worked at,” Kerns says. “People willing, if you were willing to work hard, to take the extra time to train you.”

Kerns worked her way into the management side of the industry and in the 1980s moved to Santa Monica. Recruited by Loews on the Beach Hotel, she worked there for seven years, before moving on to become director of sales and marketing at the CVB.

Kerns successfully applied for her current position in 2001, when former CVB executive director, Beverly Moore, left to start up Marina Del Rey’s new Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Her next appointment looming, Kern pauses momentarily, and as if thinking aloud, sums up her philosophy.

“This is my community. I live here. I work here and I enjoy being here. This is my favorite destination, and I try to convince others of that... and why.”