Associate Membership of the North Coast Tourism Council

Visit California, the official marketing organization for the promotion of tourism in California, with a budget of over $110,000 M and offices in 14 international locations, has divided the state into 12 regions for marketing purposes. Four are gateways and eight are rural. We are in the rural region called the North Coast Tourism Council. The region is comprised of the counties of Mendocino, Lake, Humboldt and Del Norte. As such you can become one of our associate members of the North Coast Tourism Council.

Visit California provides a maximum of $60,000 annual funding for each region subject to a 1 to 1 match from the region. The primary purpose of the region is to do international promotions. None of the counties has the funding to go it alone internationally but in combination we can make a difference. Most international visitors do not know or care where the county line is located. They are interested in a Northern California experience.

The region has this web site and a social media presence including the Explore California’s North Coast Facebook Page. The current budget contains funds to drastically transform both into vehicles for pushing traffic to the web sites of county and associate members.

As examples, activities and events to promote the North Coast in the past year have included Visit California sales missions to France, Mexico, Australia and Canada as well as attendance at IPW, Go West, ABA, NTA, RTO in Los Angeles and New York and the Visit California Outlook Forum. There is a German sales mission planned for later in the year and one to the UK and Ireland in the summer. All these events are paid for entirely from north coast funds. We are also developing a strategic marketing plan for the entire region.

Now you can join our marketing efforts by becoming an Associate Member. Associate members can include hotels, attractions, wineries, breweries and others.

Benefits and cost

Each associate member will receive the following:

• Their logo, URL and a 25-50- word listing on the web site, along with a photo and a listing as a featured destination.
• Periodic facebook posts concerning their business
• Their logo and URL on the Redwood Highway Map, the primary collateral given out to international tour operators and used by the Visit California international offices to promote our region “beyond the gateway”.
• At least semi-annual inclusion of a story about the member in the newsletter.
• Inclusion of associate member information in the flash drive given to tour operators and other travel trade decision makers
• Priority for FAM trip hosting and site visits
• Personal promotion of member businesses at all trade events and sales missions – as opposed to the current blanket marketing of jurisdictions and the region. Distribution of rack cards or other collateral at trade events, both domestically and internationally
• Personal outreach to key tour operators and receptives promoting member businesses
• Creation and distribution of a new one sheet highlighting associate members
• Providing associate members with trip reports and dissemination of international market updates created from Visit California research data.
• Assistance in converting sales leads into contracts as appropriate

Timing

Associate memberships are already available and several organizations have already stepped up.

Cost

The cost will be $250 monthly or $3,000 annually. If you wish to be included in the program please contact Richard Strom.