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# Head of Santa Monica Convention & Visitors Bureau knows her stuff
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/head-of-santa-monica-convention-visitors-bureau-knows-her-stuff/
- Published: 2007-08-13T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T02:33:53.000Z
- Author: Melody Hanatani
- Tags: local, Ocean Park, #archive-import, Homeless

*The face behind booming tourism*

OCEAN PARK The person behind Santa Monica’s booming tourism, Misti Kerns recently returned from a road trip to Montreal, promoting the city by the sea as the premier traveling destination in Southern California.

A career in hyping tourism in Santa Monica actually involves quite a bit of traveling in itself, something Kerns has learned since she became the head of the Santa Monica Convention & Visitors Bureau six years ago. “It’s the diversity of experience that can be offered here,” Kerns said of Santa Monica. “If you’re into the arts, you can do so much in the afternoon … if you’re a dining fanatic, we were just awarded by Zagat the best dining in Southern California.”

“The shopping — how lucky are we that we’ve got very diverse shopping districts,” Kerns added.

When Kerns pitches Santa Monica to other cities, she speaks as the president and chief executive officer of the Convention & Visitors Bureau, with the inside knowledge of a resident who has called Santa Monica home since the late 1980s.

She has spent her entire career in the hospitality industry, starting in 1981 when fresh out of high school, the Akron, Ohio native moved to Palm Springs with husband Chris and began working as a hotel restaurant hostess. Kerns slowly worked her way up the ladder and through different Palm Springs hotels, positions that included sales and marketing for food and beverages.

After more than seven years in the desert, Kerns was recruited to help launch the opening of Donald Trump’s Taj Mahal hotel in Atlantic City. About nine months later, she was in Santa Monica.

Kerns spent the next seven years with the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, one of her successes being that she had a hand in bringing the annual American Film Market conference to Santa Monica. In 1997, the director of sales and marketing position opened at the Convention & Visitors Bureau, which at the time was under the leadership of President Beverly Moore, who now runs the bureau for Marina de Rey.

Part of the reason why Kerns left the hotel industry is because she wanted a job that would allow her to spend more time with her growing family, after giving birth to daughter Kalei in 1994.

“It’s still hospitality on a grander scale,” said Kerns. “I had been in the community during a time when Santa Monica tourism was starting to grow more and I saw the potential, there was a lot of potential for this community as a (travel) destination.”

A few years later, Kerns became the second president in the bureau’s history.

As the head of the visitors bureau, Kerns sees her job as the manager of Santa Monica, the tourist destination.

Santa Monica’s tourism has slowly grown since 1983 — the year after the visitors bureau was founded — from 2.87 million to approximately 4.9 million in 2004\. While growth has been modest, spending by these tourists has dramatically increased during the same time period, from $207 million in 1983 to $840.5 million in 2004, Kerns said.

“Our job is very focused on sustaining tourism,” Kerns said. “We’re not always looking at growing the number of people coming here; we’re looking to grow the length of stay and money spent here.”

There are several factors that have hurt tourism in Santa Monica, most notably the Sept. 11 attacks and the homeless issue.

Tourism did drop off immediately following Sept. 11 and what was the number one market at the time for Santa Monica — Japanese tourists — is no longer the case. That group has since been replaced by travelers from the United Kingdom.

“Prior to 9/11, Japan was our number one market,” Kens said. “On Sept. 12, it wasn’t any longer and it still hasn’t gotten up in the top five.”

The homeless issue has affected tourism, but Kerns believes the situation has improved over the years.

Whether the homeless will affect a person’s vacation will depend on their mindset, whether they come from an area where the homeless population is prevalent, Kerns said.

“This community is a community that cares and feels a sense of responsibility,” she said. “At the same time, it’s wearing. It’s difficult to look at the situation that is a regional situation that we have at some level been labeled with.”

Tourism in Santa Monica has allowed an expansion in services to residents that other communities without a consistent tourism revenue stream aren’t able to offer, helping to keep everything from the school district to city maintenance running strong, Kerns said.

“Santa Monica as a community has grown with its tourism and the awareness as a premier tourist destination,” she said. “We’re the healthiest now that we’ve ever been in history in attracting tourism.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 13, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/081307.pdf?ref=smdp.com)