Pacific County tourism chief: journey up, spending down

Pacific County tourism chief: journey up, spending down

Published 12:54 pm Sunday, May 3, 2026

PACIFIC COUNTY — Travel to this slice of the Washington coast is up in comparison with a yr in the past, in response to the pinnacle of the Pacific County Tourism Bureau, however a decline in customer spending has dampened the spoils for native companies and authorities entities.

Josh Phillips, the bureau’s government director since December 2024, mentioned final week that sturdy visitation to Pacific County — significantly from the Portland and Vancouver space, as of late — has buoyed the county’s massive tourism business. However, like different areas of the economic system, a drop in spending from vacationers has restricted the financial affect.

“ We’re up year over year in terms of visitation, but consumer spending has dropped quite a bit when we look at that,” mentioned Phillips, who additionally serves on the Ilwaco City Council and owns Spawn Fly Fish. “So the average visitor is spending less when they’re coming here.”

“ I’ve talked to some local business owners and they’ve noticed that they’re not coming and eating out every meal, stuff like that,” he added.

Even with a pointy spike in fuel costs attributed to the U.S.’s warfare in opposition to Iran, along with a persistently higher-than-normal inflation charge, Phillips believes the county can profit by providing itself as a extra inexpensive trip vacation spot.

“ I mean I have to go to Olympia this weekend and the thought of what it’s going to cost just to go to Olympia is 100% in the back of my mind,” he mentioned. “ But I do think that the [cost of] airfare and the people that have tough experiences at the airport, I mean that benefits us.  We are a regional trip; it’s undoubtedly less expensive to come out here for the weekend than it is to go to Disneyland.”

Marketing focus

Phillips has made a number of modifications since coming aboard, together with adopting new instruments to trace visitation to the county, transferring the dealing with of the bureau’s social media accounts again in home once they had beforehand been outsourced, and presenting month-to-month stories to the Long Beach City Council. (Long Beach is the bureau’s high funder.)

But one factor that hasn’t modified for the bureau, which rebranded its enterprise identify from Visit Long Beach Peninsula to Washington’s Evergreen Coast shortly earlier than Phillips’ arrival, is its deal with the Seattle and Portland markets. Those two areas have lengthy been an vital one for Pacific County to faucet into.

“ When you talk about where our visitation’s coming from, it is 100% heavily leaning into regional traffic, especially from that sort of I-5 corridor from Seattle to Portland,” Phillips mentioned. “We see a large portion of our traffic coming from those counties.”

According to lately launched information from Nielsen, the worldwide information and analytics firm that measures shopper habits, about 908,000 adults from the Seattle space have visited the Washington coast in a single day within the final 12 months, making it the highest vacationer vacation spot for that market. Portland was second in in a single day journey among the many Seattle market’s 4.5 million grownup inhabitants, with almost 860,000 visiting the Rose City up to now yr.

Much of the bureau’s advertising and marketing is now geared towards geofenced digital promoting — similar to on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google and YouTube — within the Seattle and Portland markets. The bureau additionally advertises in markets east of the Cascades, together with Spokane, Boise and the Tri-Cities, in addition to different secondary markets like Phoenix.

The county will not be marketed the identical to every space, Phillips famous, saying advertisements particularly for Seattle and Portland might emphasize actions to get pleasure from throughout shorter weekend journeys whereas advertisements tailor-made to markets additional away might spotlight fishing journeys and longer stays.

Strong tourism seasons don’t simply profit the inns and eating places, he added, however present lodging tax funds for the county and cities which might be in a position to be reinvested into the world for the advantage of each guests and locals.

“ If you have a successful season or multiple years of success with growing the lodging tax fund, it doesn’t just help us increase tourism — it helps increase the life of the people that live here,” Phillips mentioned. “Like with the boardwalk, for example, it’s a phenomenal project that helps both people that live here and visit here, so it’s pretty cool. And Ilwaco just approved a new dock [at Black Lake.]”