Last night, the Palo Alto City Council passed a measure that effectively created a tourism board for the city. The board, which consists of representatives from businesses that stand to gain from an increase in tourism, like stakeholders, will investigate ways to entice tourism to Palo Alto.

The motion was labeled in the meeting’s minutes as a movement to “Authorize the City Manager to Appoint a Committee of Stakeholders to Explore Opportunities to Enhance Palo Alto’s Economy by Improving Visitor Outreach and Benefit from Local Tourism, Including Developing Recommendations and a Prioritized Action Plan” and it passed unanimously.

“We don’t have a problem with a lack of tourism, but what we know is that we’ve had more in the past and that our hotels and restaurants should be given a chance to do as well as they can,” said councilmember Bern Beecham, one of the driving forces behind the motion. “We hope we can find out [what will improve tourism] in the stakeholder meeting, which includes representatives from certain hotels and people from the downtown area, in particular some of the more notable restaurants, and we also hope that there will be someone from Stanford there as well.”

The City Council plans seek collaboration with the University in encouraging tourism, Beecham said.

“Stanford has many attractions and is certainly one of Palo Alto’s strongest assets,” he said. “We’d like to work with [the University] as well to find out how we can improve coordination and communication.”

Stanford plays a large role in the City’s plan for drawing not only tourists, but visiting families of students as well.

“For students, [this board] should make services we have available here in town more visible to their visitors, like visiting families, for example,” said Beecham. “They’ll know where they can stay, what activities are available, things of that nature.”

Other city councilmembers agreed.

“Tourism in Palo Alto has generally been a function of Stanford parents, the Stanford Industrial Park and the Stanford Hospital and the Medical Center,” said councilmember Jack Morton. “In the heyday of foreign tourism, the [Stanford] Shopping Center was a tour stop for the City but I’m not sure it is still the attraction that it was five or six years ago.

“When a community loses a major revenue contributor like Ricky’s Hyatt, you have to try to think of something that might get additional revenue,” he added. “If Four Seasons thinks Bayshore is ideal for a four-star hotel, I guess there might be more to University Avenue than some of us thought.”

In a memorandum released last October by Vice Mayor Judy Kleinberg and councilmembers Beecham and Dena Mossar, the city laid down its plans to “Enhance Palo Alto’s Economy by Improving Visitor Outreach.”

“Palo Alto is a destination community for many visitors each year,” stated the memorandum, from the Office of the City Clerk. “Additionally, our community has many hotels, restaurants, museums, arts and programs, recreational opportunities, personal services, and great places to shop. To date, no organized effort has been made to access the numbers of annual visitors, their destination, and interests of the possibility of enhancing Palo Alto’s economy by marketing services and products to these individuals. Therefore, we ask our colleagues to direct staff to agendize a council discussion of these issues and the possible formation of an ad hoc committee to explore opportunities to benefit from local tourism. This committee could include stakeholders from the business, residential and non-profit communities.”

The proposed committee would have three duties. The first is to identify and prioritize different methods for making Palo Alto more visible for visitors, including the possible creation of publications, information kiosks, maps or a visitor’s bureau. Second, the committee could explore public and private partnerships in order to organize and operate visitor services. And lastly, the stakeholders will be able to identify possible sources of funding to sustain identified visitor services which might include extra fees, the city of Palo Alto or other organizations.

“I suspect that my colleagues will support the idea [of a new tourism program],” said Beecham. “It will help us improve our cities’ budget bottom line and help us increase our revenues.”

Other councilmembers expressed caution, however eccentric.

“I think the item will pass because so far it is not costing anything,” said Morton. “But I am not holding out a lot of hope that [non-Stanford associated] tourists will suddenly think that Palo Alto is the destination for their next springtime vacation, although birding on the Bay is one of the world class sights we do have to offer. But birders are generally a thrifty lot.”