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Final Report March 1997 Tourism Development Organization The need for "economic development" and "community marketing" have long been recognized in San Marcos and supported by contracts between the city and an external contractor (currently the Chamber of Commerce). Our deliberations have indicated the need to add a tourism development component. For the purpose of this document, we attempted to design what we would consider to be an ideal management structure if we were to start de novo. The organization chart on the prior page describes that structure and the text sets out some of the reasoning which led us to this design. For lack of better terms, we now have full time persons dedicated to the "business development" and "community marketing" functions. It would be desirable to have another full time person dedicated to "tourism development". This implies three co- equals reporting to, and being coordinated by, a senior officer of a contractor organization. In the long term, this is unrealistic. Any senior officer of a contractor organization will almost certainly have too many direct lines of responsibility to give adequate attention to this function. The problem is best resolved by designating a "development officer" at the senior professional level, who would coordinate the efforts of the three junior specialists and report to the contractor's "Person in Charge". The cost should be similar to the cost of having three senior professionals. To assure continued input from those segments ofthe community which will be directly affected by their efforts, each of the three specialists, with the concurrence of the Development Offic~r, should constitute an advisory group. These advisory groups would be analogous, in some ways, with the existing £DC, CVB and Tourism Commission. This system, as we have defined it, has a serious defect. The Development Officer is being bombarded with advice; from the three advisory groups by way of the specialists, from the contractor's management, and from the City Council. How can we insure that the overall directions desired by the City Council are those that prevail? One way is through the choice of contract instrument used to support the activity. We recommend that the activities be supported by a single "award fee" contract in which a fixed (and predetermined) percentage of the award is reserved for performance bonuses. Each quarter a three person Award Fee Panel (named by, and representing the City Council) meets with the contractor's "Person in Charge" and the Development Officer to inform them of areas of satisfactory and unsatisfactory performance and to recommend to the City Council the proportion of available award fee funds to be released in that quarter. Mayor's Blue Ribbon Committee on Tourism Development Page 30