2009 California Government Code - Section 13995-13995.1 :: Article 1. Legislative Intent

13995.  This chapter shall be known and may be cited as the
California Tourism Marketing Act.

13995.1.  The Legislature hereby finds and declares all of the
following:
   (a) Tourism is among California's biggest industries, contributing
over fifty-two billion dollars ($52,000,000,000) to the state
economy and employing nearly 700,000 Californians in 1995.
   (b) In order to retain and expand the tourism industry in
California, it is necessary to market travel to and within
California.
   (c) State funding, while an important component of marketing, has
been unable to generate sufficient funds to meet the threshold levels
of funding necessary to reverse recent losses of California's
tourism market share.
   (d) In regard to the need for a cooperative partnership between
business and industry:
   (1) It is in the state's public interest and vital to the welfare
of the state's economy to expand the market for, and develop,
California tourism through a cooperative partnership funded in part
by the state that will allow generic promotion and communication
programs.
   (2) The mechanism established by this chapter is intended to play
a unique role in advancing the opportunity to expand tourism in
California, and it is intended to increase the opportunity for
tourism to the benefit of the tourism industry and the consumers of
the State of California.
   (3) Programs implemented pursuant to this chapter are intended to
complement the marketing activities of individual competitors within
the tourism industry.
   (4) While it is recognized that smaller businesses participating
in the tourism market often lack the resources or market power to
conduct these activities on their own, the programs are intended to
be of benefit to businesses of all sizes.
   (5) These programs are not intended to, and they do not, impede
the right or ability of individual businesses to conduct activities
designed to increase the tourism market generally or their own
respective shares of the California tourism market, and nothing in
the mechanism established by this chapter shall prevent an individual
business or participant in the industry from seeking to expand its
market through alternative or complementary means, or both.
   (6) (A) An individual business's own advertising initiatives are
typically designed to increase its share of the California tourism
market rather than to increase or expand the overall size of that
market.
   (B) In contrast, generic promotion of California as a tourism
destination is intended and designed to maintain or increase the
overall demand for California tourism and to maintain or increase the
size of that market, often by utilizing promotional methods and
techniques that individual businesses typically are unable, or have
no incentive, to employ.
   (7) This chapter creates a mechanism to fund generic promotions
that, pursuant to the required supervision and oversight of the
secretary as specified in this chapter, further specific state
governmental goals, as established by the Legislature, and result in
a promotion program that produces nonideological and commercial
communication that bears the characteristics of, and is entitled to
all the privileges and protections of, government speech.
   (8) The programs implemented pursuant to this chapter shall be
carried out in an effective and coordinated manner that is designed
to strengthen the tourism industry and the state's economy as a
whole.
   (9) Independent evaluation of the effectiveness of the programs
will assist the Legislature in ensuring that the objectives of the
programs as set out in this section are met.
   (e) An industry-approved assessment provides a private-sector
financing mechanism that, in partnership with state funding, will
provide the amount of marketing necessary to increase tourism
marketing expenditures by California.
   (f) The goal of the assessments is to assess the least amount per
business, in the least intrusive manner, spread across the greatest
practical number of tourism industry segments.
   (g) The California Travel and Tourism Commission shall target an
amount determined to be sufficient to market effectively travel and
tourism to and within the state.
   (h) In the course of developing its written marketing plan
pursuant to Section 13995.45, the California Travel and Tourism
Commission shall, to the maximum extent feasible, do both of the
following:
   (1) Seek advice and recommendations from all segments of
California's travel and tourism industry and from all geographic
regions of the state.
   (2) Harmonize, as appropriate, its marketing plan with the travel
and tourism marketing activities and objectives of the various
industry segments and geographic regions.
   (i) The California Travel and Tourism Commission's marketing
budget shall be spent principally to bring travelers and tourists
into the state. No more than 15 percent of the commission's assessed
funds in any year shall be spent to promote travel within California,
unless approved by at least two-thirds of the commissioners.