Ad campaign attracts international tourists to Carmel
Recently NewsChannel 5 reported Carmel was seeing a big increase in the number of tourists from China. Since then, we’ve learned more about how the Chinese are finding out about Monterey County.
Lucy Maybury traveled all the way from London to visit friends and family in San Jose. But on Thursday, she decided to make the drive to Carmel.
“We’d never been down here before and wanted to see the beach and it’s beautiful. It’s just so nice. It’s just an old village-y feel to it. It’s a small town, not too commercialized,” San Jose resident Kelly Playle said.
Lucy is part of a growing number of international visitors coming to Monterey County.
“60 percent of the people that visit the Visitor’s Center are from different countries,” Tammy Blount
It’s no accident they’re coming here. The Monterey County Convention and Visitors Bureau, with the help of ‘Visit California’, have spent the last several years targeting Asian and European travel markets.
“An informational approach on social media, doing a website, public relations, we’ve worked with visit California doing sales missions to China,” Blount said.
Each sales mission, tailored to each country. While selling the California lifestyle works in China, Canadians are much more interested in the cuisine.
Some shop owners said they’re seeing a major jump in traffic from South America.
“We get a lot of people from Brazil. They tell us how in Brazil, this area is really popular,” assistant manager at Thinker Toys Shelby Copas said.
It’s only going to get more popular in the coming weeks with Car Week ramping up.
“Our visitors are bringing us a $500 tax benefit per person per year in Monterey County and they’re helping to keep all of the things we’re proud of, open,” Blount said.
According to recent numbers from the Convention and Visitors Bureau, tourists spent more than $53 million dollars during Car Week. The tax revenues from that are nearly $5 million dollars.
