The Joys of Summer

What other attractions are drawing people to the North Bay this summer, and what are visitors’ bureaus, welcome centers and lodgings doing to make certain they return?

The great outdoors of Marin County

Mark Essman, president/CEO of the Marin County Convention and Visitors Bureau, describes his county as a “non-urban location in an urban environment, where people can be just a couple of hours away from where they live, yet it seems like a different world.”

Hence the slogan, “Marin—Just a Little Out There.” Essman says that generally refers to coaxing visitors in San Francisco “to come over to the sunny side of the Golden Gate Bridge. We’re trying to capture some of that market.” The many events this summer to commemorate the bridge’s 75th anniversary are sure to bring additional visitors to Marin as well, he says.

So far this year, Marin has seen a steady and significant increase in visitors, from 2 to 5 percent, “and they’re spending more, too,” says Essman. “We’re projecting a 3 to 6 percent increase in visitors for 2012 over last year.”

Essman says Marin County’s most popular attraction for leisure travelers is the great outdoors: Muir Woods, Point Reyes National Seashore, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Mount Tamalpais—and at least two state parks that were on the hit list to close this summer that won’t be padlocked after all. Tomales Bay State Park and Samuel P. Taylor State Park will stay open on reduced schedules through an agreement reached between California State Parks and the National Park Service (NPS).  

Samuel P. Taylor park is a favorite of international visitors in particular, according to Essman. “It’s easy access from San Francisco, it’s full of big trees, and it’s great for tent camping, which is preferred by a lot of Europeans,” he says.

Olompali State Historic Park and China Camp State Park remain on the state’s list of parks to close. “But there’s been a groundswell of support to keep them open,” says Essman. “There are private interests working with the state, and it remains to be seen what will happen. But we’re hopeful they’ll continue to remain open in some capacity.” (Read “No Walk in the Park,” July 2012.)

The future of the America’s Cup regattas on San Francisco Bay in August and October was also still murky at press time. (Preliminary races take place this summer and fall, and the main event takes place in the city next year.) “The status of the Cup races continues to evolve,” says Essman. “But anything that draws a big crowd to San Francisco, such as the U.S. Open golf tournament in June, benefits Marin directly.”

Encouraged by what his hotel has experienced so far this year, Bill Blackburn, general manager of the Corte Madera Inn, claims, “the summer of 2012 will definitely surpass the number [of visitors] in the summer of 2011.”

Blackburn’s hotel is ready for the anticipated tsunami of seasonal guests: Many of the rooms have been completely renovated with new carpeting and furniture, along with 37-inch LCD televisions. The lobby and meeting rooms also underwent updating recently with new carpeting, lighting and artwork.

Like most hotels in Marin County, where rooms total approximately 2,500, Corte Madera Inn will see a much higher percentage of leisure guests during the summer months, says Blackburn. At his hotel in 2011, more than 60 percent of the guests were leisure visitors, “and we anticipate that percentage will be even higher in 2012.”

"Do Napa" encourages staying and playing

“People in the lodging industry are happy,” about the increased business in Napa Valley to date, says Clay Gregory, president/CEO of the Napa Valley Destination Council.

The valley definitely saw an impact from the recession, he says, but nearly every aspect of tourism since then “has shown improvement almost across the board. On an overall Napa Valley basis, every month over the last 18 months has been better than the year before it.” The valley currently has 5,200 rooms (including hotels and bed-and-breakfast inns); the city of Napa accounts for 3,200 of those.

To capture the “drive market,” as guests who hadn’t planned on spending the night are called, the City of Napa Tourism Improvement District (TID) recently launched a “Do Napa” campaign that encourages them “to stay and play,” says Sara Brooks, general manager of the Napa River Inn and Historic Napa Mill and chairman of the TID. Participating hotels offer an overnight kit with items that a last-minute traveler might need, such as a nightshirt, razor, shaving cream, skincare products, contact lens solution and other basic necessities. The kits are complimentary to walk-in guests booking a same-day room reservation.

“Wine Country is a playground for San Franciscans and especially the millennial generation,” says Peg Melnik, referring to the 21- to 34-year-old fans of wine. “They’re coming north to our tasting rooms and restaurants for ‘day-cations’ and for the wine and the sunshine.” Melnik is the wine writer for The Press Democrat and author of nine editions of the Explorer’s Guide to Napa and Sonoma, along with her husband Tim Fish, an associate editor with Wine Spectator magazine.

If the day-cationers really like it here, Melnik says, “they’ll be back for a three- or four-day weekend. Many of the wineries and restaurants I talk with are seeing millennials visiting by the droves.” And it’s not only the wine that’s bringing people to Wine Country, it’s the spas, too. “Many visitors love the spa retreats—they ‘spa’ for sport,” she adds.

Brooks says visitors who stay in downtown Napa can park their car once and hoof it everywhere. “They can eat at a world-class restaurant, taste at more than 25 tasting rooms and attend a performance at one of our live entertainment venues–all within walking distance of their hotel room,” she adds.

The Oxbow Public Market also attracts both locals and tourists, and “it’s jammed virtually every night,” says Gregory. The restaurant Morimoto is also hugely popular. “We’re thrilled that chef Morimoto decided to put his only West Coast restaurant in the city of Napa [in 2010], and we see people coming from San Francisco specifically to dine there,” he says.

 Attracting the international visitor

This will be the second summer that the Destination Council has operated the Napa Valley Welcome Center, which opened about 15 months ago in downtown Napa’s Riverfront complex. In addition to iPad stations and a lodgings desk, the center has a large, 3-D topographical map that gives visitors a bird’s-eye view of Napa Valley and helps the center’s volunteers point out appellations and other landmarks.

Gregory says tourists from Europe, in particular, gravitate to the Welcome Center, “because that’s the culture in Europe—an information or welcome center is usually the first place a European looks for when visiting a new country or city.”

The international visitor is a demographic the Destination Council is hoping to attract in greater numbers. “We’re working diligently to make that happen,” said Gregory a few days before leaving for Los Angeles with a sizable Napa Valley contingent to market the valley at International Pow Wow, one of the largest travel shows in the world that draws international travel planners and media. “Undoubtedly, we’re the best known wine region in the United States, and that helps.”

To freshen Napa Valley’s visitor profile data, the Destination Council has hired a firm to work up an economic impact study of tourism and conduct interceptor interviews and lodging guest surveys, which are now underway at lodging properties, wineries and other attractions. “The last really meaningful study we did on this was in 2005,” says Gregory. “It’s antique data, and we’ve been hamstrung by that, especially when people are looking to invest in Napa Valley in any way.”

New restaurants and a ‘wine wave’

The St. Helena Chamber of Commerce’s official Welcome Center is already seeing an increase in visitors over last year at this time, according to President/CEO Pam Simpson. “The center is more visible this year, too,” she adds, explaining a move that took place last September. “We wanted to be right out on Main Street so that visitors can pull in easily and park.”

The center has a full-service concierge for booking hotels and setting up itineraries, and it sells merchandise with St. Helena’s “Napa Valley’s Main Street” branding. “Our old tagline was ‘Heart of the Valley,’ but Yountville was also using a ‘heart’ tagline, so it was time for a change,” says Simpson. “‘Napa Valley’s Main Street’ made sense—it means we’re all about hometown and community.”

Two hotly anticipated new restaurants in St. Helena are now drawing diners: Goose & Gander opened in late April in the former Martini House location, and French Blue had a late-May opening after a significant remodel at the north end of downtown. And for the fourth year, Cheers! St. Helena, a downtown social for locals and visitors, is taking place along Main Street on the first Friday evening of every month through October.

But what really has the town buzzing is its quest to set a new Guinness World Record for the longest relay wine toast. Dubbed “The Napa Valley Wine Wave,” the sequential toast is a relay in which participants clink their wine glasses in order, from start to finish, rather than a more common toast with everyone clinking glasses simultaneously. The current world record for a sequential wine toast of 321 participants was set last year in China. St. Helena is hoping more than 500 glass clinkers will pony up the $100 entry fee to be part of the Wine Wave, scheduled for October 7 at Charles Krug Winery. At each Cheers! social this summer, people can sign up to participate in the Wave and practice the relay toast technique.

Wedding bookings on the rise

At the north end of Napa Valley, the Calistoga Chamber of Commerce expects a much better summer than in previous years. “We had a pretty good 2011 overall, summer included, but we’re absolutely anticipating more visitors this year,” says the chamber’s executive director, Chris Canning.

Intercept surveys reveal that people come to Calistoga for its “more laid back, approachable and relaxing lifestyle,” says Canning, adding that leisure visits account for about 85 percent of the town’s tourism business.

Meanwhile, venues that are allowed to host weddings in and around Calistoga are reporting a dramatic increase in the number and scope of the bookings. “The size of the weddings, the number of guests expected, is growing,” says Canning, and the reservations are being made further out at places such as Solage, Calistoga Ranch resort and Hans Fahden Winery (just over the Napa County line in Sonoma County).

Melnik attests to the North Bay’s popularity as a wedding location, particularly in the warmer months. “We offer an amazing backdrop for brides to plan their weddings,” she says, citing lodgings such as Milliken Creek Inn in Napa, which advertises “elopement” packages where “you supply the bride and groom and the inn does the rest.”

A "robust recovery" for Sonoma County

Under a hot Alexander Valley sun, the 3,600-square-foot, H-shaped swimming pool at the Coppola Winery is a magnet for families and couples seeking cool relief and a diversion that’s not all about wine. The place seems custom-made for the sunshine season, with more going on outside than inside. There’s a teepee filled with books for children, a snack bar near the pool and four regulation bocce courts, where a United States Bocce Federation tournament will take place in September.

Sonoma County is on track for a robust recovery this summer, says Tim Zahner, director of marketing for the Sonoma County Tourism Bureau (SCTB). “We’re hearing that hotels are doing really well and getting earlier bookings, too,” he adds. “The demand for rooms is increasing. Rates were severely depressed during the recession, but we’re starting to see them creep back up.” Sonoma County has 6,600 hotel rooms, according to the SCTB.

For wine lovers, a new collective called the Westside Road Wineries Association spotlights the mix of tasting rooms along a 12-mile stretch of scenic Westside Road that connects River Road with Healdsburg. And near downtown Santa Rosa, a new craft beer bar called Heritage Public House is dispensing suds made by small California brewers.

Zahner says another new draw this summer is the opening of the Green Music Center on the Sonoma State University campus. The 1,400-seat venue, modeled after Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, officially becomes the new home of the Santa Rosa Symphony when it performs its first concert there on September 30. The 200th anniversary of Fort Ross is also expected to attract thousands of history buffs to the coast for the fort’s expanded Cultural Heritage Days in July (July 28-29, two days instead of one this year) and the October Harvest Festival. Both events will feature historic re-enactments, arts and crafts, folk singing and dancing, and traditional foods.

Brushing up on customer service

Approximately 16,500 jobs in Sonoma County are dependent on the tourism dollar. So to continue attracting the 7 million visitors every year who spend $1.2 billion cumulatively, and to make certain the experience for this influx of visitors is as good as it can be, the hospitality industry is brushing up on its customer service skills and knowledge.

In early May, as many as 100 businesspeople in Healdsburg attended the Excellent Service Workshop Series, seven days of interactive training aimed specifically at owners and employees of Healdsburg’s hotels and restaurants, retail and professional services, and wineries/tasting rooms. “In my 25-year career in hospitality, this is one of the singular most exciting initiatives I’ve taken part in,” says Mo McElroy, president and CEO of the Healdsburg Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Bureau. Workshop topics included how to better remember names and faces, and why “good” service is no longer good enough.

Elsewhere in the county, the SCTB is hoping to enroll more than 500 hospitality workers and others for Certified Tourism Ambassador (CTA) training, which begins this fall. With instruction by subject matter experts, the curriculum was still being developed in early May.

“The goal of the training is to turn every frontline experience for the visitor into a positive one,” says Zahner. “That’s not only for the tourism sector but for the sheriff’s department, staff at regional parks, and so on—anyone who has contact with a visitor.”

Graduates of the CTA training “will have to prove they’re up on what’s happening in Sonoma County,” says Zahner, who compares the program to the extensive knowledge testing that cab drivers in London must complete. “London cabbies know where to find anything.”

Jean Saylor Doppenberg is the author of three books: Food Lovers’ Guide to Sonoma, Food Lovers’ Guide to Napa Valley and Insiders’ Guide to California’s Wine Country.