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# Tourism spending tops $1 billion
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/tourism-spending-tops-1-billion/
- Published: 2008-01-19T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T18:02:37.000Z
- Author: Kevin Herrera
- Tags: Community, Downtown, #archive-import, Homeless

*International visitors are down, raising concerns*

DOWNTOWN When it comes to tourism in Santa Monica, there’s some really good news, and then there’s some bad news.

The good news is, for the first time in the city’s history, visitors spent more than $1 billion on goods and services during the past year. That translated into a little over $39 million in tax revenue to help pay for police, fire fighters, community programs and other services during the 2006-07 fiscal year.

The bad news is representatives with the Santa Monica Visitor and Convention Bureau (CVB) are concerned about their ability to sustain the spending given the increase in tourists from the U.S.,who tend to pinch pennies,stay for fewer days and drive their own cars instead of using the Big Blue Bus, contributing to the congestion that makes residents’blood boil.

“Day visitors are not our target audience,” Misti Kerns, president and CEO of the CVB, said in an interview Thursday after releasing an economic impact report conducted by Lauren Schlau Consulting and CIC Research Inc.

“We are trying to capture overnight visitors because they spend more, stay longer and use public transit,” Kerns added. “We’re losing our share of being the main destination. We’re becoming one stop of many. We need to take better care of the people who are here and encourage more to come and stay in Santa Monica.”

That is where the CVB’s “I Am Santa Monica” campaign comes into play. The bureau is working with Santa Monica College, local businesses and City Hall to develop a hospitality course that will teach local employees about Santa Monica and what it has to offer. Once they finish the course, employees at hotels, restaurants and retail stores will be better able to answer questions from visitors on the homeless issue, smoking in public or where to catch the bus to go to Main Street or Montana Avenue to shop.

“When a visitor asks about how to get to the Getty (Center), we can show them the way but also suggest checking out Bergamot Station,” Kerns said. “For a small city, we have a lot going on.”

Kerns hopes to have the “I Am Santa Monica” class up and running by March.

The sharp rise in both per-capita and total spending was attributed to hotel guests who paid significantly higher hotel daily room rates. Occupancy levels were also a contributing factor as well as the sheer number of visitors to the city.

Hotel room rates increased by 9.9 percent in the last year, with the average room going for $275.73 a night. That could also be the reason for fewer international visitors and shorter stays as travelers look to be frugal.

The total number of visitors coming to Santa Monica in 2003 was 4.68 million. In ‘06-‘07 there were 5.78 million visitors, an increase of 23.5 percent, according to the economic impact report.

The number of jobs supported by tourism jumped considerably as well, from 8,122 in 2003 to 16,030 in 2006-07, a whopping increase of 97.4 percent.

Not surprising is the amount of money spent on shopping and lodging. In 2006- 07, visitors spent over $467 million on shopping and gifts, and another $279 million on lodging. Meals were right below that at just over $217 million, followed by daily transportation and parking at $84.8 million, and beverages at $67 million.

The majority of domestic travelers came from California, New York, Florida and Arizona. The majority of international visitors were from the United Kingdom, Japan and Australia. For the first time, mainland China appeared in the top 10, a market that needs to be targeted soon or else Santa Monica risks losing out to other destinations, Kerns said as she made a pitch for more funding from City Hall.

Currently the CVB’s budget is $2.6 million. The non-profit destination marketing agency would like to bump that up to $3.2 million so that investments can be made in traditional markets overseas and emerging markets such as Ireland, where the CVB has hired a marketing manager to work part-time on increasing Santa Monica’s presence, Kerns said.

“We need to invest and stimulate these markets and keep that balance (between international and domestic travelers),” Kerns said. “Asian markets have huge potential but we are already behind. We’re pleading for more money.”

Many would think that because the U.S. dollar is weak compared to the euro and other foreign currency that international visitors would be coming in droves, but the study shows otherwise, alarming CVB officials. At other destinations, the opposite is true, with international visitors climbing, said Jeff Karnes, regional vice president of New World Travel, which focuses almost entirely on international tourism.

“Foreign traveling is up about 30 to 35 percent in my region,” which is the western United States, Canada and Hawaii, Karnes said. “We anticipate that number to go up.”

A lack of diversity in terms of lodging is hurting the local market, Karnes said. Other destinations have made renovations to their hotels and offer more affordable places to stay. Santa Monica has great four-star and five-star hotels, but few hotels and motels catering to three-star travelers. Travel packages are still expensive because of rising costs for fuel, making travelers look for affordability over luxury.

Increased security at airports could also be a factor for the decrease in international visitors, Karnes and Kerns said.Applying for visas can be cumbersome and expensive as well.

“People are staying for less money in hotels outside of Santa Monica and are taking the Big Blue Bus into Santa Monica for a few bucks and spend they day there and leave,” Karnes said.

Because the dollar is weak overseas, more Americans are choosing to vacation closer to home, another reason for the increase in domestic visitors, Karnes said.

“I think the forecast in ‘08 is good for Santa Monica,” Karnes added. “Things will definitely improve.”

That’s good news for the CVB and the city as a whole.

“We are not looking to attract more visitors because we are pretty much at capacity right now,”Kerns said.“Attracting more people is not what we want. What we want is to restore that balance that we had.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 19, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/011908.pdf?ref=smdp.com)