Andy Tullis / The BulletinSkiers at the Pine Marten Chair at Mount Bachelor in March 2013. Mount Bachelor ìstarsî in two new TV ads destined for outside markets, particulary Seattle, as part of the new Visit Bend marketing campaign announced Tuesday.

Fresh off a record-breaking summer for tourism, Visit Bend on Tuesday unveiled a $400,000 marketing strategy for the sleepiest times in the local tourist trade: winter, fall and spring.

“We’ve been talking, at length, the past several years, how it is high time that we totally change how we market Bend in the wintertime,” said Doug LaPlaca, Visit Bend president and CEO, during a board presentation Tuesday.

The marketing plan, not fully complete, for the first time targets the Seattle metro area, which, after Portland, is the No. 2 source of Bend tourists. It aims to increase the number of overnight stays in Bend in commercial lodging by 3 percent year over year during the so-called shoulder seasons, the months of October, November, April and May. The plan also seeks to increase revenue from the city transient room tax by 12 percent for the same period.

For winter, the marketing campaign seeks bolder numbers: a 4 percent increase in lodging occupancy and a 16 percent increase in room tax revenue.

“We know that’s aggressive, but we also think it would be a worthy accomplishment if the industry could achieve that, and we do think it’s achievable,” LaPlaca said.

Winter occupancy rates fell to a low of 29.2 percent in December and January of 2008-09, according to Visit Bend data. For 2013-14, that rate stood at 47.9 percent in December, 43.3 percent in January and 50.2 percent in February.

By contrast, summer tourism generated an 84.4 percent occupancy rate in July and nearly $850,000 in room tax revenue, the largest month of collections ever, according to Visit Bend. The room taxes represented a 45 increase over July 2013.

“It was the first time in about seven or eight years that we actually started receiving complaints that there were too many visitors in town,” LaPlaca said.

Gross lodging revenue, which does not take into account a 1 percent room tax increase in June, grew by 29 percent in July over the same month the previous year, according to Visit Bend data.

“By all metrics to date, this was a third consecutive record summer for Bend’s tourism industry,” according to a report prepared for the board of directors.

The winter marketing strategy includes at least $117,000 for print, radio and television ads in Washington. A radio spot, “Save a Seattlite,” retools an ad, formerly aimed at Portland, that suggests Bend as a cure to watery beer, dreary skies and overpriced rain boots. Visit Bend budgeted $380,400 total for all media ad purchases between November and April 2015.

The campaign rests on three Bend-area assets: Mount Bachelor, the Ale Trail and cultural offerings, such as Tower Theatre events, LaPlaca said.

Mt. Bachelor ski area stars in two new TV ads prepared by the TBD agency, of Bend. Bend City Councilor Jodie Barram, a Visit Bend board member, asked whether the campaign should include a wider variety of activities in addition to downhill skiing.

LaPlaca agreed but added: “There’s no denying Mount Bachelor is a huge part of that. The biggest thing in our bag of tricks is Mount Bachelor. But it’s never exclusively Mount. Bachelor.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7815, jditzler@bendbulletin.com