Promising Summer for Tourism<title>  <META content="Santa Monica Local News and information, housing, council meetings, police, schools, rent control, business, hotels, living wage, The Lookout, santa monica news, daily online news, surfsantamonica.com, california, los angeles, beaches, housing, politics, sports, real estate, westcoast, Santa Monica pier, Pacific Ocean, tourist, promenade, Westside, entertainment, community, parks, apartments, promenade, sound studios, rent control, entertainment, shopping, surf, surfsantamonica.com, santa monica surf, movie industry, film, sound, games, bollyball, rollerblading, santa monica mountains, westwood, brentwood," name=KEYWORDS> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1400" name=GENERATOR> </HEAD> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#000000" vlink="#333366" alink="#000000"> <table width="801" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td width="801"><table border="0" width="800"> <tr> <td width="145" height="51"> <a href="http://www.surfsantamonica.com/"></a> <a href="/index.html"><img src="/ssm_site/images/images-logos/2007LookoutLogo2.JPG" alt="The Lookout news Logo" name="Logo" width="271" height="30" border="0" id="Logo"></a> </td> <td width="442" height="51"> <img src="/ssm_site/images/images-logos/horizontal%20line.JPG" alt="Logo horizontal ruler" width="516" height="14"> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <TABLE border=0 cellPadding=0 cellSpacing=0 borderColor=#333333 borderColorDark=#cccccc bgColor=#DBDBDB> <TBODY> <TR valign="top"> <TD width="88" height=23> <P align="center"><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><FONT size=-1><a href="/ssm_site/the_lookout/news/News-Lists/NL-Main.htm"> </a></FONT></FONT><a href="/ssm_site/the_lookout/news/News-Lists/NL-Main.htm"><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=-1> Archive</FONT></a></P></TD> <TD width="94" height=23> <div align="center"><a href="http://www.weather.com/weather/local/90405?lswe=90405&lwsa=WeatherLocalUndeclared&from=whatwhere"><font size="-1" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Weather</font> </a></div></TD> <TD width="82" height=23> <div align="center"><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=-1><A href="/ssm_site/the_lookout/columns/FrankGruber/FrankGruber_What_I_Say_Home.htm">Columns</A></FONT></div></TD> <TD width="108" height=23> <div align="center"><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=-1><a href="/ssm_site/the_lookout/news/News-Lists/NL-SpecialReports.htm">Special Reports</a></FONT></div></TD> <TD width="76" height=23> <div align="center"><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=-1><A href="/ssm_site/the_city/the_city.htm">The City</A></FONT></div></TD> <TD width="96" height=23> <div align="center"><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=-1><A href="/ssm_site/commerce/commerce.htm">Commerce</A></FONT></div></TD> <TD width="82" height=23> <div align="center"><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=-1><A href="/ssm_site/the_lookout/news/LINKS.htm">Links</A></FONT></div></TD> <TD width="86" height=23><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=-1><a href="/ssm_site/the_lookout/news/News-1999/Mar-1999/03_13_99_Fateful_Outlook.htm">About Us</a></FONT></TD> <TD width="94" height=23><FONT face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size=-1><a href="/ssm_site/the_lookout/news/News-2007/2007_Contact_Us.htm">Contact</a></FONT></TD> </TR> </TBODY> </TABLE> </td> </tr> </table> <br> <table width="855" height="686" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" frame="above" rules="none"> <tr> <td width="601" height="686" valign="top"> <table width="500" height="547" border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" rules="cols" style="border-right: 1px dashed #666666;"> <tr> <td width="549" height="547"valign="top" >  <table width="536" border="0" cellpadding="10"> <tr> <td width="512" height="46"> <h2>Promising Summer for Tourism</h2> </td> </tr> </table>  <table width="541" height="2072" border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td width="521" height="2072" valign="top"> <p>By Ed Moosbrugger</p> <p><em>July 13 </em>-- Santa Monica’s visitor industry was strong and steady entering the peak summer tourist season, with prospects for more of the same with a little boost from a video game industry business event.<br> <br> Local hotels had been expected to show moderate revenue growth after a strong 2006 and that’s what they are getting.<br> <br> “Tourism in Santa Monica has been very healthy this year,” said Misti Kerns, president/CEO of the Santa Monica Convention & Visitors Bureau.<br> She expects the same for the summer.<br> <br> “As a beachside community summer has historically been our peak season,” Kerns said in mid June. “This year’s outlook is strong as well. Many of our hotels are already booked for July and August.”<br> <br> Santa Monica hotels entered summer on solid ground. For the first four months of 2007, the occupancy rate was 82 percent, well above the Los Angeles County rate of 77.2 percent and the highest for any submarket within the county tracked by PKF Consulting. Santa Monica’s occupancy rate was even with a year earlier.<br> <br> Meanwhile, the average room rate in the city jumped 9 percent to $264.98, indicating that demand is strong enough to command solid rate increases.<br> <br> Revenue at the Best Western Ocean View Hotel on Ocean Avenue is up about 10 percent this year and “it looks like it is going to be a hot summer,” said General Manager Robert Farzam.<br> <br> The E3 Media and Business Summit this month (July 11-13) should help.<br> The event, presented by the Entertainment Software Association, is expected to bring approximately 3,000 people to Santa Monica, with an estimated economic impact of about $7 million, Kerns said.<br> <br> “E3 is helping rates and occupancy,” Farzam said.<br> <br> Meanwhile, Downtown Santa Monica hotels are acting to keep themselves strong.<br> The Hotel Shangri-La on Ocean Avenue, for example, closed its doors in December for a major renovation and plans to reopen in spring of 2008, said General Manager Dino Nanni.<br> <br> The Farzam family, who owns the Best Western Ocean View, is also moving forward with its plans to replace the Pacific Sands and Travelodge motels on Ocean Avenue with a larger, moderately priced motel.<br> <br> Such investments seem likely to pay off.<br> <br> “Our hotels are so healthy now,” Kerns said.<br> <br> But while the overall outlook is solid, a potential trouble spot may be developing. A declining percentage of Santa Monica’s visitors are international travelers.<br> <br> Santa Monica is “seeing a slight downturn in the percentage of international arrivals,” Kerns said. That’s of concern because “this customer tends to stay longer, use public transportation and walk,” which creates less traffic impact, she said.<br> <br> Trends in international markets are especially important to Santa Monica because “we are far more dependent on foreign travelers than many other destinations,” Kerns said.<br> <br> The possible shift in the market showed up in quarterly reports for summer and fall of 2006 that will form part of the basis for the triennial Santa Monica visitor industry economic impact report expected to be released by the bureau this fall. The new quarterly reports will help the bureau assess seasonal patterns.<br> <br> Lauren Schlau, whose firm is doing the research for the bureau, expects the trend of a lesser percentage of international visitors to carry through for the remaining two quarters of the study.<br> <br> “This is a whole Los Angeles problem,” Schlau said. “This has long- term implications.” For one thing, she said, more international flights are bypassing Los Angeles International Airport.<br> <br> On the plus side, the weak dollar makes travel to the United States attractive. On the down side, issues such as visa problems, insufficient marketing, customer service and language are barriers.<br> <br> “The U.S. reputation is not as positive as it has been in the past,” Kerns noted.<br> For Santa Monica to maintain a favorable balance of international visitors “a larger investment in our top producing markets as well as the emerging international markets will be needed,” Kerns said.<br> <br> For budget reasons, Santa Monica CVB has been targeting English speaking countries and is expanding its marketing to Ireland this year.<br> <br> Fortunately, the declining percentage of foreign visitors doesn’t necessarily mean that tourism is down.<br> <br> “Visitorship has grown,” Kerns said. “It has grown more on the domestic side.”</p> <p>It will take more analysis to determine what impact shifting markets will have on Santa Monica.<br> <br> With summer looking good, the visitors bureau now is focusing on encouraging more fall/winter visitation.<br> <br> The survey by Schlau indicated that a fall visitor actually spends more time and money than a summer visitor while in Santa Monica, offers more of a business focus vs. leisure, and entertains more, Kerns said. There is also a much higher repeat visitation than among summer travelers.<br> <br> Reflecting the importance of keeping visitors happy so they will return, the bureau will launch a customer service and diversity training program at Santa Monica College in partnership with the City, Chamber of Commerce and SMC.<br> <br> Pilot classes are expected in the fall.</p> <p><em>Editor's note: This article also ran in the Bayside Beat, the monthly newsletter of the Bayside District Corporation</em>. </p></table>  <p></p></td> </tr> </table> </td> <td width="200"> <center> </center>  <table width="73" height="95" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td width="73" valign="top"><a href="http://www.readersjewelers.com/"><img src="/ssm_site/commerce/ReadersFineJewelers/ReadersFineJewery2.jpg" width="159" height="135" border="1"></a></td> </tr> </table>  <p align="left"> </p>  <h3 align="left"><font color="#666666" face="Courier New, Courier, mono"><em>"Many of our hotels are already booked for July and August.”<br> Misti Kerns</em></font></h3>  <p align="left"> </p>  <h3 align="left"><em><font color="#666666" face="Courier New, Courier, mono"><br> “The U.S. reputation is not as positive as it has been in the past.” </font></em></h3> <h3 align="center"> </h3>  </div> <p align="left"> </p>  <h3 align="center"><font color="#666666" face="Courier New, Courier, mono"></font></h3>  <p align="left"> </p> </td> </tr> </table> <table width="700" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td width="691"><!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"><table width="660" border="0"> <tr> <td valign="bottom" width="115" height="34"><a href="http://www.surfsantamonica.com/the_lookout.htm"><img src="/ssm_site/images/images-logos/icons-lookout.gif" alt="Lookout Logo footer image" width="115" height="26" border="0"></a> </td> <td valign="top" width="356" height="34"><font size="-1"><br> Copyright 1999-2008 surfsantamonica.com. 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