Tourism bureau CEO visits town

Looking out at the Rainbow Bridge from Nell Thorn last fall made a favorable impression on new Skagit Tourism Bureau CEO Jake Buganski.

“Seeing La Conner’s vibrant downtown while I was interviewing for this position was one of the big reasons I was excited about Skagit County,” he said.

Buganski visited again last Tuesday to meet the La Conner Chamber of Commerce board and talk about the town’s tourism priorities with local leaders. Following the early morning meeting, he had coffee at the Calico Cupboard with Mayor Ramon Hayes and Chamber Director Heather Carter, and visited all three museums and their directors. Lunch at Santo Coyote wrapped up the morning.

The new Skagit Tourism Bureau is a collaborative effort among county lodging businesses, municipalities, and chambers of commerce. Its budget comes from the interlocal Tourism Promotion Area (TPA), which adds a $2 per night fee to rooms in hotels with more than 40 rooms. About $400,000 is expected to be generated this year.

In La Conner, only the Country Inn levies this additional fee, paid by hotel guests. All La Conner lodging venues pay into the hotel/motel tax, whose proceeds stay in town.

Previously, chambers of commerce were given $30,000 a year to promote their towns and the county, but “we didn’t have the bandwidth to sell the county as a whole,” said Carter. “Jake’s job is to pull together a new organization to promote all corners of the county.”

Carter looks forward to the Bureau developing a collective branding strategy for the county. She also hopes the Bureau will help explore opportunities for Maple Hall to host corporate groups.

For Mayor Hayes, bringing back day-tour boats is a priority.

“They don’t create car traffic, they bring a large number of people downtown, and at the end of the day they move onto next destination,” he said.

“We’d like to explore that area.”

Buganski is excited to start telling the county’s stories—and help manage visitor flow.

“This is not a place where you can sit back and let tourism happen to you,” he said. “Overtourism happens in the absence of a coordinated effort to move people around in a strategic way. It is a real problem in Europe.”

Skagit County is entering its most congested month—seen as an economic engine or a gigantic drag for locals, depending on whom you talk to.

Buganski says that researching ways to minimize impact may be needed. Better messaging to tulip Festival visitors may also help. Working with tour operators to bring buses in, or offering a trolley service so visitors can see fields without driving their own cars are other possibilities.

Buganski calls the pandemic “a reset button” that the tourism industry can use to reconfigure itself.

“We can come up with new ways to help visitors explore the area and also re-examine some opportunities, like tour boats, that worked in the past but have gone by the wayside.”

Overall Buganski, who has worked in New York and New Jersey, where he served as State Tourism Director, is excited about what Skagit County offers.

“You have a beautiful agricultural community with vibrant, interesting downtowns,” he said.