Visit Santa Barbara held its Annual General Meeting on Wednesday afternoon at the Ritz-Carlton Bacara to celebrate the area’s tourism industry and local “hospitality heroes.”
This year’s event also coincided with California Tourism Month in May.
As Santa Barbara’s hospitality industry continues to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, the latest transient occupancy tax results for the city show that more than $3 million was collected in April — about $893,000 above collections from the same time period last year.
In April 2020, transient occupancy tax collections were a little more than $134,000, a 93.3% decrease from the previous year.
According to the City of Santa Barbara, occupancy levels are continuing to stabilize around pre-pandemic levels.
“Since the new year, we’ve had upwards of 1.4 million referrals to your businesses just through [the Visit Santa Barbara] website,” Visit Santa Barbara President/CEO Kathy Janega-Dykes said during Wednesday’s event. “As we look to the future, I am really optimistic about what’s coming.”
The renewal of the South Coast Business Improvement District plan was something Janega-Dykes emphasized as an important milestone for the industry that will guide them into the future.
She also recognized that, last November, “Wine Enthusiasts” magazine named Santa Barbara County as the 2021 Wine Region of the Year.
Kevin Brown, author of “Unleashing Your Hero: Rise Above Any Challenge, Expand Your Impact, and Be the Hero the World Needs,” was this year’s keynote speaker for the meeting, sharing his experiences from family vacations to mentors growing up to show how small acts of kindness and caring from those working in hospitality can have great, lasting impacts — making them “hospitality heroes.”
“[Heroes] just make life better,” Brown said. “People don’t come to you for what you do. They come to you for who you are.”
During the event, each attendee was given a wooden “Hospitality Hero” token that they could either choose to keep or pay forward by giving it to other hospitality works to honor their exemplary service.
“While COVID-19 created many challenges, countless hospitality employees rose to the occasion and continue to do so,” Janega-Dykes said in a news release. “They’ve taken on extra shifts, introduced safety measures and enhanced cleaning, and much more. Anyone, from housekeeping crews to front desk staff, can be a hospitality hero when they help make Santa Barbara shine for our visitors and community.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Serena Guentz can be reached at sguentz@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.