John Urdi has traded the snow in Mammoth for Surf City sand as the new chief executive of the city’s tourism organization, Visit Huntington Beach.
The newly tapped tourism leader is now using his Mammoth playbook to increase overnight and multi-day visitors to Orange County’s fourth-largest city with plans to boost extended stays by expanding the city’s roster of destination events.
Right now 23% of total annual visitors are staying overnight.
“We need to get that number up,” Urdi told the Business Journal. “50% of our visitors should be coming to stay overnight.”
Breaking the Mold
Urdi is already familiar with attracting tourists during off-seasons.
He joined Mammoth Lakes Tourism in 2010 after two decades in sales and marketing roles at ski destinations across the country, including resorts in Colorado, Wyoming and New Hampshire.
He was hired to build Mammoth’s destination marketing organization from the ground up and broaden its focus beyond ski operators to include local restaurants, retailers and other businesses that benefit from tourism in its funding model.
“When we expanded that, we broke the mold on the funding,” he said.
Under his leadership, the annual tourism marketing fund grew from $2 million to more than $11 million, while transient occupancy tax revenues nearly tripled to about $30 million.
Urdi also helped the mountain town attract visitors by marketing ticketed sporting events, festivals and other activities designed to fill the slower seasons.
“How do I make sure that the entire community is prosperous instead of just looking at it from one owner’s perspective?” Urdi said. “How do you bring in the right visitors that are going to spend money and spend more time there?”
Urdi also focused on the environment as well, emphasizing cleanliness and safety regulations.
On leaving Mammoth, Urdi said: “There’s still tons of opportunity up there, but this opportunity here in Huntington is just another incredibly iconic destination with all sorts of opportunity on its own.”
He knows the region well since he
met and married his wife Erin in Orange County, where she grew up.
Year-Round Destination
Urdi succeeded Visit Huntington Beach’s previous CEO Kelly Miller, who retired in January after 12 years with the marketing organization.
Urdi said Miller initially asked him if he was interested in the role four years ago.
Now he’s ready to revive tourism in Huntington Beach.
“I always feel like marketing in general is a game, and it is a game of ‘how do you fill in certain time periods,’” Urdi said. “As part of the game, what can we do?”
The city currently books 87,000 room nights per year. Urdi aims to increase that to 100,000 room nights in the next two years.
The key is multi-day events that will bring people from longer distances to stay in the city, according to Urdi. He added that he’s working with existing event organizers on how to add more dates while also looking for new events to launch.
He said that conferences are currently a major driver of visitor volume, as those events fill weekday nights, leaving weekends open for leisure travelers. Urdi plans to round out the city’s calendar outside July and August with “commitment events,” like he did in Mammoth.
One major topic for Urdi is the city’s brand identity.
“One of the first things we need to do is really find out what resonates with people, because Surf City USA probably resonates with people within a 50-plus mile radius, but I’m not sure that it’s as prevalent nationally or internationally,” Urdi said.
He has doubts potential visitors would look up “Surf City” when thinking of Huntington Beach. “We have a little bit of confusion out there as to who we are,” Urdi said.
Another project is privatizing the city’s tourism business improvement district (TBID) process by having hotels pay the transient occupancy taxes directly to Visit Huntington Beach rather than to the city and exploring other funding options as well.
Urdi aims to complete the transition in one year.
Other small steps include infrastructure improvements, such as switching pier lights to LEDs, adding lights to pedestrian walkways and replacing the planters on Main Street.
“At no cost to the city. All provided by funding from the visitors,” he said.
