Newport visitors bureau has a bright future

The leaders within the Newport Beach Conference and Visitors

Bureau have worked hard to establish tourism as a major piece of the

economic engine in town.

After all, Newport Beach is a destination spot, a tourist

attraction, much to the chagrin of some folks we know. But you can’t

change what you are.

So, it is with open arms that we welcome Marta Hayden as the

executive director of the bureau as she knows what Newport is and has

good ideas on how it can fulfill that role.

Some may recall that the bureau came into prominence into the

first half of the 1990s under the leadership of the late Rosalind

Williams. Williams recognized the value of tourism and promoted

Newport Beach as a resort town that visitors could venture to year

round.

For example, Williams was legendary for paying close attention to

the college football season to see just which team would be coming to

the Rose Bowl that year. Then she’d do her best to get them to stay

in Newport Beach, pumping up the hotel and tourism industry during

the winter, a time normally written off as loss.

Before her death, Williams was able to present the Newport Beach

City Council with a symbolic check of $21 million -- a sum that

represented the tax benefits the city received for tourism in a given

year.

Unfortunately, after Williams’ death, the leadership of the

visitors bureau hasn’t been quite the same and the abrupt departure

early this year of her replacement, John Cassady, made that painfully

clear.

So our hope is that Hayden will restore the spirit and energy that

was indicative of the visitors bureau in the past. Her experience in

Monterrey, another upscale beach community in Northern California,

should serve her well here.

We hope she is able to again make Newport Beach, and even Costa

Mesa, attractive to those who want the best in beaches, shopping and

entertainment.

Judging by her comments in a recent interview, “it’s getting all

of these wonderful mosaic pieces that make up the jewel that we have

and making people aware of it,” it looks like she knows how to put

those pieces in place.