Santa Cruz working to capture UK visitors

John and Annie Cant are from England, visiting Santa Cruz by way of San Jose.

“We just like to come down here,” said John.

“We love the sea air, the sea air is really good,” said Annie.

Now that the San Jose airport has recently added nonstop and direct flights from London and Frankfurt to its roster, Santa Cruz County is working more extensively to catch the eye of the UK market.

“International travel is growing in the United States,” said Visit Santa Cruz County CEO Maggie Ivy. “So it’s just a terrific opportunity for us to get on that bandwagon and get the fair share of those dollars.”

Visitor officials said right now international travel is about 7 percent of the market in Santa Cruz and if they can boost that to 10 percent it will have a huge economic impact, along with building some off season travel.

“From Memorial Day through Labor Day, we have a really good, strong, healthy tourism season,” said Ivy. “But after Labor Day we are challenged to support the local economy.”

Visit Santa Cruz County said they’re working to capture the bleisure traveler, which is someone looking to mix their business trip to San Jose with some leisure time.

“International visitors tend to travel beyond the peak season,” said Christina Glynn, Communications Director/Film Commissioner for Visit Santa Cruz County. “They tend to stay longer as a whole and they tend to spend more money.”

To put Santa Cruz on the map, Visit Santa Cruz County is collaborating with San Jose and Monterey county on a marketing program which uses everything from brand messaging to advertising and familiarization tours.

“We had a group of 10 tour operators from Germany and we had a group of seven media representatives from Germany who were here doing research for future stories,” said Glynn.

Surfing, attractions, state parks, wineries and breweries are some of the things they capitalizing on.

“We are especially appealing to the long-haul traveler because we can offer a broader range of experiences in a relatively small amount of space,” said Glynn.

Not to mention it’s an escape from the UK’s grey and rainy weather.

“It’s warm,” said Annie. “You have no idea how miserable it is over there.”