Bolstered by noticeable increases in local hotel/motel and sales tax receipts over the past year, a group of Ocean Shores business leaders last week announced details of another Ocean Shores Co-op Marketing Plan to help boost the city’s tourism advertising presence in 2015.
Last year’s “More than a Beach” theme and marketing plan involved $20,000 in city of Ocean Shores support, $21,000 raised from local businesses and $80,000 worth of scrip (gift or promotional vouchers) from local hotels to give away as part of travel packages.
“All the advertising projects focused on bringing more people to Ocean Shores,” said a report presented Feb. 11 in a dinner session at the Convention Center to unveil the 2015 campaign.
“Ocean Shores used to be able to market pretty heavily out there,” said Mike Doolittle, owner of Playtime Family Fun Center and the Peppermint Parlor, and one of the leaders of the co-op plan. “There was once quite a big budget to do a lot of work to get people to come to Ocean Shores.”
But the city in more recent years has had to shift funds formerly used to pay for marketing and advertising, Doolittle said, to pay for the escalating costs of the Convention Center itself. “Most of that marketing money sort of dried up,” he said.
Last year, a new effort was launched by a grassroots group of business leaders, and local businesses and hotels were able to come up with the co-op plan and get the City Council to agree to a portion of the costs as well.
“Lo and behold, that’s how it started because so many people thought it was a good idea,” Doolittle said. “I’m even more excited for 2015 because I feel like we are gaining a little momentum.”
The idea — like last year — is to continue to promote Ocean Shores in the Seattle-Tacoma-Everett metro market. In 2014, Ocean Shores ads were on Metro bus panels going into the summer tourist season, and other advertising included features on radio stations and print publications. The campaign also included digital billboards on the Interstate-5 corridor and a website to promote Ocean Shores: vistoceanshoreswa.com.
Members of the co-op steering committee include Doolittle, Ron Lambert of Bennett’s Fish Shack, Dianne Hansen of the Dusty Trunk in the Boardwalk Shops, Mark Plackett of Plackett Enterprises, and Don Kajans of Quinault Beach Resort and Casino.
“The mission is for the businesses to have a larger voice in advertising than they would have individually,” Kajans said.
The goal is to have “a better return on the money that we spend,” he explained, “and we want to create more tax revenue, more visitors coming to the city.”
City Finance Director Steve Ensley was at the meeting and noted that hotel/motel tax revenues were up more than 17 percent last year: “It was just shy of the best year we have had.” In addition, sales tax revenue increased about 9 percent, according to Ensley.
Kajans also said the city experienced about an 8 percent increase in traffic counts coming into Ocean Shores in 2014.
The co-op campaign proved to be such a success that “everybody is in again for 2015” with the addition of one more hotel, Kajans said. “We’re inching up from the worst years we have ever had. But we are getting some increases, and I think that is really due to us advertising at a time when Washington state is really coming out of the great recession.”
This year, the co-op also would like to see the city contribute $30,000 ($20,000 was earmarked for 2015 in the 2015 city budget already approved) and the business community contribute at least $50 for every business in town, for a total of $35,000, with scrip of $55,000 from the hotels.
While increasing the city’s portion still would take formal action, Mayor Crystal Dingler expressed “how excited the city is to be a part of this again this year. I think this has been fabulously successful.”
“We all really need to pull together to make something happen here for Ocean Shores,” she said. The co-op plan is to do bus panels again, along with digital billboards and other print and radio advertising, as well as placement in the family oriented Parent Map (150,000 monthly readers) magazine and website, ParentMap.com.
“We’re working together to pull together to make Ocean Shores a destination that people just can’t stay away from,” Doolittle said.
Although Quinault Beach Resort is not in the city limits, Kajans and the resort have been committed to promoting Ocean Shores. “We believe in Ocean Shores,” he said. “Ocean Shores has to work for us to work.”
Other cities on the coast, such as Long Beach and Westport, put more money into advertising than Ocean Shores, according to Kajans.
“We have got to be out there with a presence. Right now, Ocean Shores is the best place to vacation, especially for a family. But if they don’t hear about us, they’re not going to come out,” he said.
Businesses and citizens can contribute at the office of the Ocean Shores/North Beach Chamber of Commerce on Point Brown Avenue.
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