The mission of Visit Santa Cruz County is to stimulate the economy by promoting Santa Cruz County as a visitor, conference and film destination through marketing programs including advertising, promotion and visitor services. The priority is on attracting high-yield overnight business during the off-peak periods of the year.
There are over 3 million visitor trips taken to Santa Cruz County each year. Many visitors turn to the official destination marketing organization for the county for travel resources and information. Visit Santa Cruz County (VSCC) offers marketing opportunities at a variety of levels to accommodate budgets of all sizes. In addition to a presence on the visitsantacruz.org website, VSCC offers sponsorship opportunities with the annual Official Santa Cruz County Traveler’s Guide and other targeted marketing programs like the Wedding and Conference web listing marketing programs. For a comprehensive look at all of the marketing opportunities available through VSCC, please view our Marketing & Co-op Programs Booklet.
Visit Santa Cruz County was incorporated in 1988 as a non-profit corporation (501(c)6). VSCC has a 24-member volunteer Board of Directors. The Board is divided between geographic representation across Santa Cruz County as well as maintaining balanced representation from government, cultural interests and various sectors of the tourism industry (restaurants, retail, lodging, attractions, etc.).
An extensive community-wide process began in the fall of 1987, to reconcile diverse interest in the tourism industry and local government and to initiate a countywide approach to providing visitor services and carrying out tourism promotion.
Leaders agreed that a community whose economy was so directly impacted by tourism needed such an agency with a countywide approach in order to be effective as well as to avoid duplication of effort. The planning process involved participation from local government, the cultural community and private industry and resulted in the formation of a newly structured tourism agency now known as Visit Santa Cruz County. VSCC’s structure provides a governing body expressing the interests of the governmental funding sources, the tourism industry and the cultural community. This body provides a collaborative and mutually beneficial partnership, governed and funded through a public/private partnership.