Tourism Officials Unveil San Diego’s Largest-Ever Marketing Campaign

Written by Dwane Brown/KPBS

Interim Mayor Todd Gloria and the San Diego Tourism Authority unveiled the tourism group’s largest-ever marketing campaign on Wednesday.

The campaign features a national television ad that will begin to air during this weekend’s Farmer’s Insurance Open golf tournament at the Torrey Pines Golf Course. The campaign also includes print and online ads.

San Diego Tourism Authority President Joe Terzi said the campaign will last six months.

“We will be spending over $12 million in a six-month period of time, which is the largest amount of money we’ve ever spent,” Terzi said.

The funds for the campaign were put on hold under disgraced former Mayor Bob Filner, and subsequently released by Gloria. Gloria said attracting more tourist dollars helps the city pay for other needed services.

“More tourism money means more money flowing into our local economy, more tax revenues flowing into our city coffers to help pay for neighborhood improvements we all want. We all want more freshly paved roads, we want to hire more police officers, we want more library hours. Tourism is one of the ways we can accomplish that,” Gloria said.

The television ad running this weekend features Sea World, the USS Midway Museum and the San Diego Zoo.