News & Features
From the Idyllwild Town Crier weekly newspaper, 05.27.10 edition.

Temecula BID reps come to Idyllwild

By Marshall Smith, Staff Reporter

Temecula Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau President Kimberly Adams and Chairman Dennis Ferguson counseled local business leaders on the challenges and opportunities in forming a business improvement district (BID), at the Caine Learning Center on Wednesday, May 19.

What the Temecula directors made clear is why so many tourist destinations are adopting the BID model — money from cities and counties for assisting tourism marketing is drying up. Ferguson highlighted that six years ago business owners in Temecula were facing the same quandaries as are Idyllwild owners now, albeit with a somewhat better economy. Temecula owners were struggling to manage their businesses and find the time and money to design and create effective marketing campaigns that would keep them in business. Businesses functioned as separate marketing entities instead of having a coordinated branding and marketing campaign.
Ferguson said the BID mechanism they chose provided a workable and ultimately very effective solution — a pass-through assessment paid by overnight tourists on their hotel room bill necessitating no out-of-pocket costs for local owners; and a predictable annual budget for tourism promotion of the whole district, professionally administered by tourism experts hired and overseen by a locally elected board. It was, he said, a “win-win” mechanism. Their budget grew from $120,000 in the first year to more than $1 million for fiscal 2010?–11.

Ferguson and Adams stressed that there are many ways to effect an assessment, from the bed assessment they chose, to a business license surcharge (a model the Downtown Palm Springs BID will discuss at the meeting on May 27, to one they recommended for Idyllwild) — a Big Bear “resort district assessment” in which every register sale for retail and restaurants is added to the bed assessment to create a comprehensive model that might be a better fit for a smaller town.

Counties or municipalities collect BID assessments. Locally elected boards and directors direct and administer assessments collected by the county. County or city oversight is limited to seeing that legal guidelines are used in spending BID dollars. Adams stressed that she implemented a policy of having a board representative from each of the valley’s discreet industries in order to adequately represent all business community interests.

Ferguson recounted that Temecula Valley’s wine country provided the impetus for creating a local BID. “It came to life from a small contingent of wine country people who came to the area, fell in love, decided to stay, and then needed to promote what they loved,” he noted, a comparison he found apt regarding Idyllwild. “At that time [about 6-1/2 years ago] Old Town [Temecula] was struggling and the wine country was challenged to promote itself. With Idyllwild, you have [like the wine country] a stunning visual palette to market.” Ferguson noted that like Idyllwild, when Temecula Valley started its BID, few knew where or what Temecula was as a tourism destination.

“We had no challenges from lodging customers regarding the assessment,” said Ferguson. “Nothing changed. Not one complaint.”
“The district is cooperative marketing,” said Adams. “Prior to the BID [town businesses] had spent years going in circles.” She advised Idyllwild BID proponents to go one-on-one to local business owners to get support and think both about the small and large businesses and how they might benefit from a BID. “Find out what each business wants,” she advised.

“You have to do this if you are going to compete in destination marketing,” said Ferguson. “But first understand the big picture. Don’t go to the minutiae at the beginning.”

Bryan Tallent, former Chamber of Commerce director and IBRT supporter said, “Other communities all around us are doing it and for each dollar they’re taking in [with a BID], we’re loosing those dollars by not doing this.”

Marshall Smith can be reached at marshall@towncrier.com.
    

Web Site designed by the Idyllwild Town Crier © 1995-2010
by Idyllwild Publications

WEBMASTER