The Santa Ynez Valley Hotel Association has already gotten the nod from the cities of Buellton and Solvang to form a special district that would raise money to draw tourists into the area.
But its plan hit a snag Tuesday, when the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors did not adopt a resolution that was required to include the unincorporated area of the Valley in the district. Supervisors voiced several concerns about the plan for the Santa Ynez Valley Tourism Business Improvement District, such as its impact on traffic and customers whose pocketbooks have been slimmed down by the recession.
Third District Supervisor Doreen Farr, whose motion to revisit the plan received unanimous board approval, worried that the district boundary would threaten agricultural land and said the county needed to review the final documents for the contract. Other concerns centered on the powers of the hotel association – which are partially unknown – and the county’s representation on the proposed district’s board of directors, which is weighted toward the cities.
Valley hoteliers have mulled the plan for six years, and it would cover hotels and motels in the towns of Santa Ynez, Los Olivos, Los Alamos and Ballard, as well as the cities of Buellton and Solvang, which is the lead jurisdiction for the special district and will be responsible for collecting and transferring funds to the hotel association.
County supervisors will revisit the subject on May 18. The city of Solvang may postpone adopting the plan on May 10 until county supervisors give their blessing; but if that doesn’t happen, the city council will move ahead with the district covering the two cities, Mayor Jim Richardson told the Journal.
The plan would exclude RV parks, timeshares and campgrounds, as well as the Chumash Casino Resort Hotel, which is on the tribe’s sovereign reservation. But the tribe’s 122-room Hotel Corque in downtown Solvang will participate.
If formed, beginning Aug. 1 establishments in the district would charge tourists $2 more per night for their rooms. The extra cash would go toward marketing, sales and promotional efforts to draw people to the area.
The tourist association would operate the special district and the affected lodging operators would have a vote in its decisions. The Valley would be following in the footsteps of 45 other jurisdictions that have set up districts to improve tourism.
According to the hotel association, 71 percent of the lodging establishments favor forming the district. In all, the district would include 34 businesses, nine of which are in the unincorporated part of the Valley, and would bring them an estimated $600,000 a year for five years, according to a study prepared by Civitas Advisers, a consulting firm based in Sacramento.
Farr said she understood how valuable tourism is for the Valley, but stated the county must strike a balance between the need for more revenue to the area, and the needs of the locals, who may be inconvenienced by more traffic to the area.
“The main issue is that this isn’t ripe yet for our final decision,” she told the hoteliers who came out in support of the plan. Fourth District Supervisor Joni Gray echoed her concerns. “I’ve been on this board for 12 years, and anytime there has been a proposal in the Santa Ynez Valley ... it’s almost been a food fight,” Gray said. “Everybody gets angry and mad, and it goes on and on and on.”
John Lambeth of Civitas said he has heard of no public resistance to the plan and that most of the issues raised by the supervisors would be resolved by the time the board discusses the subject again.
Specifically, he reassured Farr that in all of the other jurisdictions that had tourist districts, agricultural land was not hurt. Kathy Janega-Dykes, president/CEO of the Santa Barbara Conference & Visitors Bureau, said tourism has dropped dramatically in the area since she started working in the tourism industry 20 years ago.
She said tourist districts have delivered hefty returns on investments in other jurisdictions and that not establishing one in the Valley would put the area at a disadvantage.
Mike Hendrick, the Santa Ynez Valley Marriott’s general manager, said most of the hotels that would benefit from a tourism district would be small businesses that have suffered money woes, inflicted by the recession.
“This is going to give opportunity for smaller hotels in the area to cooperate with marketing campaigns and advertising co-opts that wouldn’t be available otherwise,” he said.
Santa Ynez Inn owner Douglas Ziegler said small hotels such as his are at war, adding that if more tourism dollars don’t infuse the area, he’ll have to lay off some of his 20 employees.
“We are being forced to be in combat against municipalities of other areas, such as Morro Bay, Paso Robles, San Diego and the 49 other districts that have already been formed,” he lamented. “We need to get on board or we are going to drown.”