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A marketing campaign designed to draw Bay Area, Southern California, Oregon and Washington visitors to the eaves of Del Norte appears to be paying off.

Transient occupancy taxes increased by a total of roughly 28 percent from April 1, 2019, when the new Visit Del Norte County, California website was launched, through Dec. 31, 2019, Lynette Braillard, founder of LuLish Design, told the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors on Feb. 11.

The new website has received more than 22,000 visits, over 30,000 page views and 237,000 impressions from people searching for places to visit on the North Coast.

“Our website visitors are coming from California, Oregon, Canada, Washington, Texas, Virginia and Illinois,” Braillard told supervisors. "For social media marketing, we’ve had over 331,000 impressions.”

The increased TOT revenue as a result of this marketing strategy does not include the extra allocation that goes to the Crescent City Harbor District through Measure C, Braillard said.

Braillard has been working with the Crescent City-Del Norte County Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau since she was with Bend-based Vertigo Marketing. The marketing campaign both organizations came up with incorporates paid advertising in print and digital media, search engine optimization, social media, public relations and email marketing, Braillard said.

Her firm along with the Del Norte County Visitors Bureau are also coddling relationships with travel writers traveling to the area courtesy of Visit California. Since then, a photo of Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Parks introduces the North Coast section of Visit California’s 2020 vacation guide.

Del Norte County attractions such as Battery Point Lighthouse and the Drive-Thru Tree in Klamath have also been featured on Bartell’s Back Roads, a show that airs on Sacramento’s ABC 10, and Fodor’s Travel Guide.

In a presentation to the Crescent City Council on Monday, Cindy Vosburg, the chamber’s executive directors, talked about how the Visitor Bureau’s efforts tie in with the endeavor to capitalize on NBC Sports coverage of the relationship between Del Norte County and Rikuzentakata, Japan during the summer Olympics in Tokyo.

“Where we’ll be in 18 months will be very exciting to see,” Vosburg told the City Council.

According to Crescent City Mayor Blake Inscore, who sits on the Visitors Bureau committee, the community decided to “invest in tourism” in 2006. Del Norte County contributes $62,340 to the Visitors Bureau annually. Crescent City kicks in $61,000 to market the area and the Crescent City Harbor District puts up $6,000.

“Clearly that investment is working,” he said. “People are coming here. (We) see numbers going up, TOT, there’s a lot of potential people who want to come here… It’s something I’ve been a part of for a number of years and to see where we are today is very encouraging.”

During her presentation before the Board of Supervisors, Braillard said Visit Del Norte County targets adults ages 25 through 64 who are outdoor enthusiasts. Targets include the Bay Area, Oregon along the I-5 corridor and in Bend, Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego, the Seattle metro area and British Columbia, Canada.

Braillard and Visit Del Norte County representatives are also part of the North Coast Tourism Council, which also includes Mendocino, Lake and Humboldt counties. Through that partnership, local tourism representatives travel to trade shows. Upcoming shows will be held in the Bay Area, Portland and in Las Vegas, Braillard said.

“These shows put us in (touch) with the writers and tour operators and also consumers looking for more information,” she said. “We drive everything to the website and on the website, we have every single tourism-related business. Every single hotel-motel, bed and breakfast, restaurant. It’s a tourism marketing engine.”

At the Board of Supervisors meeting last week, District 1 representative Roger Gitlin asked Vosburg about the Visit Del Norte County’s international reach.

“It seems I’m meeting more and more people from Australia, New Zealand, the UK — lots of Europeans,” he said.

Through working with the North Coast Tourism Council, Visit Del Norte representatives are able to target international tour operators, Vosburg told Gitlin. In September, a writer from Germany stayed at SCOPA By the Sea, a local bed and breakfast, and floated down the Smith River.

“From feedback, our area was the area she enjoyed the most,” Vosburg said. “She's writing now. We don’t have much funding with the money we get now to do direct marketing to the international groups, but what we can do is team up with North Coast Tourism Council and Visit California who gives us grants for international travel marketing. We can’t do it alone, but we do it in groups.”

According to Vosburg, Visit California has a $100 million budget and uses much of those dollars to target international travelers.

Through Visit California, the North Coast has been featured in Autocar India, which Braillard described as the AAA of India.


“When looking at website statistics, currently India is now the No. 2 country as far as traffic coming to our website,” Braillard told Gitlin.

Gitlin’s colleague on the Board, District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard also mentioned the Go for the Gold campaign and what coverage on NBC Sports could do for Del Norte County. He asked Vosburg to give a similar presentation “when the time is right” to show if that marketing campaign has been fruitful for the area.

“Your presentation really does a lot to justify those investments,” he said.

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