Tourism in Morro Bay this past year looked different from season to season.
“We were up 5% to 10%, January, February, March, leading into spring, and spring was very strong for us," said Michael Wambolt, Visit Morro Bay Executive Director.
However, he said that over the summer, there was a decrease in visitors, which Visit Morro Bay believes was caused by the cooler weather in the Central Valley and carryover effects of the Highway 1 closure.
“In the summer period, we were seeing occupancy down anywhere between 7% and 10% through the summer period for us," Wambolt said. "Which is really unusual. That is our peak period of travel.”
The Dutchie in Morro Bay has been in Ineke McGraw’s family for about 40 years. She said that they also saw changes in daily average customer counts.
“February through July, we saw a downturn of 30 customers a day on average, and then in August through September, we saw it up about 20," McGraw said.
Wambolt said that they also saw about a 5% to 7% decrease in international travelers, a group that Morro Bay tourism has relied on in the past.
“International for us here on the Estero Bay can be anywhere between 10% and 15% of our total travel through those time frames, through summer and then early fall,” Wambolt said.
McGraw said that her restaurant noticed that change.
“We probably saw a little bit of a downturn, but I still saw quite a bit of Europeans coming through the restaurant, especially on the weekdays," she said.
In order to address those downturns, Wambolt said they are planning to focus on bolstering events in Morro Bay that would draw people in.
Additionally, Visit Morro Bay has contracted offices in two top touring markets for California, which are the United Kingdom and Germany.
This gives them international representation by attending trade shows and training tour operators to raise awareness for Morro Bay as a travel destination.
The Dutchie is also working on some marketing tactics of its own.
“We’re gonna be trying some Google ads and improving on our social media footprint and then really talking about our 40-year anniversary,” McGraw said.
