EL DORADO HILLS — El Dorado County's very own California Welcome Center opens in Town Center Friday. The El Dorado Hills Chamber of Commerce invites the public to an all-day open house followed by a grand opening reception. Last week the chamber moved in next door to the Welcome Center in Theater Plaza on the ground level of Vine Street.
Chamber President and CEO Debbie Manning called the visitor center a "focal point for marketing the west gate of the county," and emphasized that although it should provide a healthy shot in the arm for the already bustling Town Center, the benefits will be felt countywide and beyond, including in Folsom, Amador County and even Sacramento.
California Welcome Centers are located strategically around the state to encourage tourism. They provide information on attractions throughout the state but emphasize their immediate areas, promoting places to stay and things to do. El Dorado County has plenty of both.
Inside, trained "area information specialists" use interpretive panels, video displays, maps, brochures, common sense and bright smiles to guide visitors to area attractions. A giant mural portrays the entire region, targeting specific destinations.
There are currently 14 welcome centers scattered around the state. Four new centers, including the one in El Dorado Hills, will come on line this year.
The centers' success is due largely to large blue freeway signs directing visitors to the center. "Way finding" signs along the surface streets are going up now.
California Tourism officials predict the freeway signs, which go up in early June, will help pull at least 15,000 visitors off Highway 50 and into El Dorado Hills annually. One of five guests at a California Welcome center is local. A smidge more than half are U.S. residents who hail from outside California. Almost one quarter are international visitors.
Visitors who stop at a Welcome Center spend an average of $15 per person in the area, mostly on dining, shopping and gas, according to tourism officials. Ten percent spend an additional night in the region. All this adds up to an estimated $1.2 million to $2 million in extra revenue for the county, Manning said.
Best of all, a full 10 percent will return to the county based on what chamber officials learned during their initial visit. During their second go-round tourists spend an average of $500 a day. The Welcome Center was the result of hard work from the El Dorado Hills Chamber, but it had plenty of help.
Town Center chief Tony Mansour, Assemblywoman Alyson Huber, area chamber/tourism officials and consultant John Poimeroo are all on the gratitude list, along with too many county staffers and supervisors to mention.
Poimeroo created the Welcome Center program during his tenure as state tourism director in the 1990s, and had a big hand in landing one in El Dorado Hills. "This wouldn't have happened without John's intimate knowledge of the tourism industry," said Manning.
In addition to preparing the application, he oversaw the informative panels featuring the region's outdoor recreation opportunities and worked closely with Bashore Design and Ferrari Color on the graphics. Poimeroo will also coordinate the staff training.
The El Dorado County Board of Supervisors chipped in $56,000 in hotel tax revenue to get the ball rolling but Mansour has financed the majority of the startup costs, investing more than $100,000 so far. He also donated use of the space.
Manning said she hopes to offset operating expenses through advertising. She's currently seeking partners to sponsor the interpretive panels, and has a variety of other advertising options.
The Welcome Center could become an attraction in itself, Manning added. Noting the informative nature of the materials offered, she envisions expanding the concept more deeply into education. She likens the Welcome Center to a Website. "What you're seeing here is just version 1.0," she said. Manning also insists that the state's 15,000 annual visitor estimate is low.
"This is an incredible opportunity at so many levels," she said, "not only to educate the 15,000 visitors — or maybe it will be 50,000 — who are going to get off Highway 50 to come here, but also our local people who don't know all the cool stuff that's here in this county and this region."
"This county has a rich history, wonderful agritourism, delightful wineries, beautiful rivers and of course Lake Tahoe," said Mansour. "It's all been undersold to travelers on Highway 50. This is a win/win."
He predicts locals from El Dorado Hills, Folsom or even Sacramento will use the Welcome Center to plan trips into El Dorado County. "A lot of these people will discover that they don't have to leave El Dorado County to have a good vacation," he said.
Reflecting on their efforts so far, Mansour mused that he and Manning work well together because "we're both stubborn, we're both tenacious and we don't know the meaning of 'no.'"
Manning added wearily, "We also don't seem to know how to use it."
She may not know "no," but she does know "thank you," expressing heartfelt appreciation to all the tourism experts around the region that she leaned on for advice, especially B. Gorman at the Lake Tahoe Visitor's Authority, El Dorado County Tourism Director Jody Franklin and California Travel and Tourism Commissioner Shellie Cook.
Cook convinced Manning to get on board with the state's "find yourself here" branded identity, which is geared toward recreation, rather than try to invent something different.
"The state spent something like $50 million to create this brand, and we thought it fit perfectly for this area," said Manning. "They're delighted we're using it."
The Welcome Center is located beneath the Chili's restaurant in Town Center, next door to Cold Stone Creamery. The open house is all day Friday. At 5:30 p.m. a formal reception is scheduled with speakers, wine and snacks. During the reception Manning and Mansour will get to use the big scissors that have opened so many El Dorado Hills businesses to cut their own ribbon.
Excerpted from www.mtdemocrat.com
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