The National Endowment for the Arts on Tuesday granted $150,000 to a pilot California project designed to be a national model for how to lure tourists and their spending money on a cultural journey.
The California Cultural Tourism Initiative, which will be formally unveiled at a conference in Los Angeles later this month, is part of one of the newest trends in the travel industry.
Promoters of cultural tourism seek to marry art and commerce for the good of both, said Laura Zucker, executive director of the Los Angeles County Music and Performing Arts Commission, which is a member of the coalition behind the initiative.
"We have put something together that is way out in front of what anyone else is doing in cultural tourism today," Zucker said. The NEA provided the money because the initiative is seen as a national model for setting up this kind of hybrid program, she said. The coalition has to raise an additional $450,000 under the terms of the grant.
The three cities involved in the project, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego, are developing 16 themed cultural itineraries covering three to five days in each region. The suggested trips will be printed in brochures and distributed to tour packagers, travel agents and individuals, said Robert Barrett, director of cultural tourism for the Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau. The aim is to lengthen visitor stays in California, which would translate into increased spending and revenues for the state, the travel industry and arts organizations, he said.
"The hidden message is you've got to come again and again and again to California," Barrett said.
The itineraries are being set up with community input--the Los Angeles committees include nearly 350 volunteers--and will contain the familiar and the esoteric, Barrett said. Itineraries will focus on such things as Latino heritage, Jewish heritage, Japanese American heritage, African American heritage, the car culture, gay and lesbian culture, cutting-edge art, the printed word, architecture and family cultural adventures.
"If you're coming to Southern California and you're interested in Jewish heritage, for example, you can pick up any piece of this itinerary" for ideas on things to do, Zucker said.
One stop on the Latino heritage tour will be Self Help Graphics, a nonprofit art gallery and workshop in East Los Angeles.
