By Gene Williams and Ann K. Williams
April 17 -- In an effort to weather an economic downturn that has sent sales plummeting nationwide, Bayside officials are trying to lure more visitors to the usually thriving commercial heart of the city and rethinking ways to market the Downtown.
In addition to launching a Buy Local program to encourage Santa Monica residents to spend more of their money in town, the Bayside District Corporation has entered into a partnership with Shop America Alliance to help buoy the Downtown tourism trade, Bayside officials said.
And a Bayside marketing committee – with anticipated increased funding under the recently formed new assessment district – will be working to extend the benefits of new marketing strategies throughout the entire Downtown area, officials said.
Internationally known as a premier shopping and dining destination, Downtown shops and restaurants depend heavily on tourism to keep their doors open, said Debbie Lee, marketing director for the Bayside.
To keep the visitors coming back and to encourage new ones, the Bayside District Corporation has teamed up with Shop America Alliance – an exclusive travel trade association that promotes hundreds of top shopping centers, outlets, retailers, museum stores and shopping destinations to wholesale operators.
“Downtown Santa Monica has become a member this year to draw more attention and visitors to our area,” Lee said.
The association’s tour division, Shop America Tours, currently offers some 180 tour packages in 40 cities throughout the country, including nearby tours at the Getty Center, Beverly Center, Huntington Gardens and Old Town Pasadena.
Through the recent partnership with the Bayside, Downtown Santa Monica should soon be added to that list. Many of the tour packages cost less than $150.
“Shopping, dining and cultural travel are the top tourism activities in America,” said Rosemary McCormick, president of Shop America Alliance. “Shop America Tours and CultureToursAndMore provide unique and appealing shopping, dining and cultural experiences that guests enjoy at value prices.”
To date, Shop America has sold more than 30,000 tour packages, half of them internationally, according to the association. Tours are offered in English, Spanish and in Japanese.
The tours are sold through tour operators, hotels and travel partners including DiscoverAmerica.com, Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline, Marriot Hotels, VisitCalifornia.com and directly to consumers at ShopAmericaTours.com.
In addition to launching Bay Local and promoting tourism, the Bayside Marketing Committee is overseeing a long-range approach in promoting the Downtown economy.
In the coming months, the committee – made up of Bayside board members Barbara Bryan, Todd Flora, Rob Rader, Carleen Robison, Barbara Tenzer and Kelley Wallace – is set to share ideas and seek out advice from marketing professionals about “re-branding” the entire Downtown area.
And although a dollar amount hasn’t been set yet, committee members are expecting to get a substantially larger piece of the budget this time to make sure the new message and strategies reach a receptive public.
“Marketing sounds like such a cold word,” but its purpose is simply “to inform people about what’s new and exciting,” said Bryan, who owns the Interactive Café at 215 Broadway.
Downtown Santa Monica offers some unique values and experiences, she said, adding that the committee’s job is to communicate those values to prospective customers throughout the region and the world. “They won’t know unless we tell them,” she said.
Other committee members stress the need to build on the Bayside’s past success. “Downtown Santa Monica is a very strong brand and our work is to reinforce that brand,” said Flora, a manager of Corporate Citizenship at IBM Corporation.
Given the state of the current economy, Flora and other committee members think the anticipated boost in marketing dollars is coming at the right time.
“I think we deserve (more funding), because we’ve done a great job with marketing,” said Rader, a Santa Monican.
“Marketing is one of the core functions of the District, and it’s one of the things I think we’ve done best,” Rader said.
But past budget constraints haven’t made it easy, he added.
“Our entire budget for the holidays, the big shopping centers would spend that much in a week.” With resources spread thin, the committee in the past has had to pick and choose a few areas to focus on, he added.
“We were reactive, and we did a great job at being reactive. We pulled off some great victories, like ICE (at Santa Monica),” said Rader, referring to the outdoor skating rink open during the holidays.
Now it’s time to “take a breath and be more thoughtful about how we see ourselves in this competitive environment,” he said. “I’m very interested in making sure we promote the district as a whole.”
That means taking a “much more unified, comprehensive approach,” Rader said.
That could include more cooperative advertising to make buying ad space affordable for more small businesses, promoting partnerships with hotels on Ocean Avenue and other businesses recently incorporated into the District, and making sure people know that Downtown doesn’t stop at Fourth Street.
Flora would also like to see improved signage, colorful messages in the parking structures and banners that will “give folks that sense of presence, that even when they’re on Sixth street or Seventh street, that they’re still in Downtown Santa Monica.”
Bryan summed up the committee’s work.
“Everything needs to market itself,” she said. “It’s the only way you know what’s going on.”
