Bulletin file photoVisit Bend promotes tourism, seeking to draw winter sports enthusiasts, fo example, to the region such as these skiers and snowboarders on Mount. Bachelor. A city of Bend proposal to divert some money from Visit Bend to fix up city streets could draw a lawsuit.

Visit Bend, the city’s tourism-promotion agency, plans to use its growing revenues to launch an expanded winter advertising campaign aimed at the coveted Northern California market.

The agency’s revenue comes primarily from lodging taxes, and tax collections are on pace to shatter the record set last fiscal year. In April, the most recent month for which data is available, lodging tax collections were up more than 42 percent over April 2014.

While Visit Bend has focused on markets like Portland and southern Washington in the past, the additional money has made it possible for the agency to expand its campaign aimed at Northern California.

“It was a far more complex market than we had in Portland or Seattle,” Doug La Placa, CEO of Visit Bend, told the agency’s board members during a meeting Tuesday.

La Placa added that while the budget for the campaign is still being finalized, it could be around $400,000.

Because of the myriad markets in the region, Visit Bend reached out to PorterCo, a Sacramento, California-based advertising agency that works with a mix of companies in Northern California and elsewhere, to help it break into the market.

Lori Porter, principal at PorterCo, said the campaign will be focusing on three designated marketing areas based around San Francisco, Sacramento and Chico, California. While the cities are very different from one another, Porter said, there were some commonalities that Visit Bend would be able to appeal to.

“We’re a very recreational, outdoor-oriented marketplace,” Porter said.

Northern California has been an important market for Bend in the past, even without a formal advertising campaign. Of the more than 2 million annual visitors that Bend has averaged over the past few years, 17.7 percent came from California, the largest percentage from any state outside Oregon, according to Visit Bend’s data.

“I think the brand of Bend is so well-defined that people already know what sort of amenities the area provides,” Porter said.

Central Oregon Visitors Association, the regional tourism-promotion agency, has advertised in the Bay Area in the past, partnering with Mt. Bachelor ski area for a winter marketing campaign and launching a stylized promotion at a San Francisco Giants game in May.

Alana Hughson, president and CEO of COVA, said the region’s skiing conditions draw visitors from Northern California, which helps fill hotels during the winter, generally a slower time of year.

“We have seen historically that our snow conditions at Mt. Bachelor are better than those at places like Lake Tahoe,” Hughson said.

Additionally, visitors tend to be more affluent than those from other regions, and they spend more money during their stays.

“The San Francisco Bay Area is obviously a key strategic market,” Hughson said. “It’s also one of the most expensive.”

— Reporter: 541-671-7818, shamway@bendbulletin.com