Associate Editor

Visitor spending pumped more than ,2 billion into Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties/ economies in 2005, according to a recent report on the impacts of travel in California.

Travelers spent nearly ,1.37 billion in Santa Barbara County and just under ,1.03 billion in San Luis Obispo County, according to the 134-page report by Dean Runyan Associates of Portland, Ore.

An estimated 32,630 jobs generating ,790.6 million in wages were supported by travelers/ spending in the two counties, according to the report.

&#8220The numbers reconfirm what we know: Tourism is essential to our local economy,C said Jonni Biaggini, executive director of the San Luis Obispo County Visitors and Conference Bureau, the county/s official tourism marketing organization.

Biaggini said this marks the first year the county has broken the ,1-billion mark in visitor revenue and noted that tourism is San Luis Obispo County/s No. 1 industry.

&#8220We only have about 8,500 (hotel) rooms, and we get about 8 million visitors to the county per year,C she said.

Biaggini said the San Luis Obispo County VCB spends about ,500,000 a year to bring tourists to the county, mostly through advertising on major urban daily newspapers/ Web sites.

&#8220Our whole business model is to drive people to our Web site,C she said. &#8220It has more content than anything else, and we can track the visitors and where they go by them clicking on members/ listings.C

No one from the Santa Barbara Conference and Visitors Bureau was available this week to comment on the report.

The figures are reported in &#8220California Travel Impacts by County,C a study prepared by Dean Runyan Associates for the California Travel and Tourism Commission and the state Business, Transportation and Housing Agency/s Division of Tourism.

The study documents the economic significance of the travel industry and the impact travel has in terms of visitor spending, employee earnings, the number of jobs it supports, and tax revenues.

&#8220We have relied on this report for many years to see how we/re doing and what our rank is with other counties in the state,C Biaggini said. &#8220It/s vital information for us.

&#8220It outlines how many people are employed by the tourism industry, and that/s significant, and how much local taxes tourism generates that our residents don/t have to pay,C she added.

According to the report, 2005 visitor spending in Santa Barbara County resulted in 16,170 jobs whose workers had earnings totaling ,444.4 million.

In San Luis Obispo County, visitors/ spending supported 16,460 jobs whose workers earned a total of ,346.2 million.

Local tax revenues generated by visitors in Santa Barbara County totaled ,54.5 million, while in San Luis Obispo County the total was ,22.3 million.

David Edge, county administrator for San Luis Obispo County, said the county knows how much it receives in direct transient occupancy taxes 7 charged on all room rentals 7 but the amount of tourism sales taxes generated for the county budget is &#8220a more debatable issue.C

Last year, he said, the county collected about ,5.34 million in transient occupancy taxes.

&#8220That represents about 5 percent of our discretionary revenue,C he said. &#8220The vast majority of our discretionary revenue comes from property taxes, followed by sales and transient occupancy taxes.C

William Boyer, communications director for Santa Barbara County, said officials there know how much transient occupancy taxes are received.

But, as in San Luis Obispo County, officials have no way of tracking how much other visitor taxes infuse into the county budget.

&#8220You/d have to determine how much tourists spend on trinkets, T-shirts, meals, rental cars 7 how do you do that?C he said. &#8220We can track things like car sales. … That/s a known quantity, and we can track that. But how do you track whether a tourist goes into a restaurant and buys a meal or if a local resident does the same?C

Santa Barbara County/s transient occupancy tax totaled ,4.75 million in the 2004-05 fiscal year.

The nearly ,1.37 billion spent in Santa Barbara County represents a 6.4-percent increase over the more than ,1.28 billion spent in 2004 and ranks the county 12th out of California/s 58 counties.

The ,1.03 billion spent in San Luis Obispo County equals a 5.7-percent increase over the 2004 figure and ranks San Luis Obispo County 17th in traveler spending.

But the report noted a substantial part of the increase in spending resulted from higher room rates, air fares and gasoline prices.

Los Angeles County topped the list in 2005 visitor spending at just over ,21.1 billion. At the other end of the scale is Sierra County with just ,16.7 million.

Statewide, travelers spent just under ,88.49 billion in 2005, generating 910,010 jobs paying total wages of just over ,27.4 billion and generating state taxes totaling nearly ,3.39 billion.

Combined state and local taxes paid by travelers totaled just under ,5.29 billion.

What/s behind the travel impact numbers?

There/s an old saying that statistics don/t lie. But there/s another old saying that you can make statistics say anything you want.

So what do the figures represent in the &#8220California Travel Impacts by CountyC study and where did they come from?

Dean Runyan Associates of Portland, Ore., prepared the study for the California Travel and Tourism Commission and the state/s Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, Division of Tourism.

The study tracks figures for each county and the state as a whole from 1992 to 2005. According to the report, here/s what the numbers represent:

The term &#8220travelC refers to trips for business, pleasure, shopping, meetings, personal, medical and education purposes. It includes trips by U.S. and foreign residents to California as well as trips within the state by Californians.

But not every trip is assessed. Commuting and other routine travel were not included; only trips that required an overnight stay or day trips that involved traveling more than 50 miles from home, one way, were considered in computing the figures.

Trips out of California by state residents also were not included in the calculations.

Overnight visitors include those staying in hotels, motels, resorts, bed-and-breakfast inns, private and public campgrounds, vacation homes and timeshare units as well as those who stay with friends and relatives and those who borrow or rent a vacation home where transient occupancy taxes are not collected.

&#8220Travel spendingC 7 the ,1.37 billion spent in Santa Barbara County and the ,1.03 billion spent in San Luis Obispo County 7 included all purchases by travelers during their trip.

That includes money spent on lodging, restaurants, retail purchases, gasoline and vehicle service and on other goods and services provided to travelers. It also includes lodging taxes and excise taxes paid at the point of sale.

Such transportation costs as air and rail fare are attributed to the point of purchase, even though they involve travel to other points in the state, which tended to skew some numbers toward urban counties.

Only &#8220direct impactsC were considered. Indirect impacts include such things as reinvested business revenues and public projects financed by taxes from visitor expenditures.

The number of &#8220jobsC refers to full- and part-time positions of wage and salary earners whose jobs depend upon travelers, as well as proprietors of businesses that serve visitors.

Their total &#8220earningsC include wages and salaries, benefits and proprietor income from travelers/ expenditures and do not include the balance of businesses/ receipts.

&#8220Local taxesC are those collected by counties and municipalities on travel-related purchases, including local sales taxes and transient occupancy taxes.

&#8220State taxesC include such excise taxes as sales and gasoline taxes and those levied on travel industry firms and employees.

The report also notes that available data on Indian gaming facilities were reviewed to ensure the impacts from gaming travel were not excluded.

Indian gaming revenues in California were about ,7 million in 2005, compared to almost ,90 million in travel spending, but most of that gaming revenue could not be clearly attributed to visitor impacts, the study said.

7 Mike Hodgson

Mike Hodgson can be reached at 738-2221 or mhodgson@santamariatimes.com.

March 25, 2007