SEQUIM — After months of looking and a pay hike, Sequim has yet to find anyone to sell it as a tourist destination.
The city has for more than 10 years had a “tourism coordinator,” a contractor who sang Sequim’s praises through news releases, maps, brochures and the Web site www.visitsun.com.
Until spring of last year, that consultant was Patricia McCauley of InsideOut Solutions, a Sequim marketing firm.
But McCauley retired from the position April 30, and the Sequim City Council turned the tourism-promotion tasks over to Vickie Maples, the already busy executive director of the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce.
Then, last summer, the chamber board decided it wanted Maples to concentrate on chamber projects and that Sequim needed an additional consultant who focuses on tourism promotion. Maples would continue through Dec. 31, and a new coordinator would take over Jan. 1.
The City Council authorized the issuance of a request for proposals from contractors interested in succeeding Maples and set a September deadline.
The contract was to be for $11,000 per year, paid for with lodging-tax funds.
Sequim’s hotel and motel tax revenues held their own in 2009, in the wake of the recession. With $150,779 collected as of Dec. 31, the city reaped 87 percent of the lodging taxes collected in 2008, and that total was 115 percent of the city’s projections.
After the request for proposals went out, however, not one response came in.
The deadline was moved to Nov. 6, and still there were no proposals.
In December, the council, in approving its 2010 budget, raised the pay to a maximum of $18,000 and extended the deadline to Jan. 22, in hopes of selecting a new tourism coordinator in late February.
There are still no proposals, City Clerk Karen Kuznek-Reese said Tuesday.
The Sequim Marketing Action Committee, however, is trying to be optimistic. The panel will hold a special meeting for would-be applicants at 1:30 p.m. Thursday in the Sequim Transit Center conference room at 190 W. Cedar St.
The meeting is “to provide an opportunity for all respondents of the request for proposals . . . to ask questions,” Kuznek-Reese noted.
There is still the nagging problem that nobody has formally responded to the request for proposals.
But four people have phoned City Hall about it, Kuznek-Reese said. One or all of them might appear at Thursday’s meeting. She urged others to phone her for more information at 360-683-4139.
Jean Wyatt, while serving on the Sequim marketing committee in 2009, helped write the request for proposals.
It’s on the city’s Web site, www.ci.Sequim.wa.us, and outlines a scope of work that includes working with the marketing committee to develop a strategic plan for promoting Sequim, plus an action plan and media kit for magazines, newspapers, Web sites and travel organizations.
This is a revision from the first request for proposals issued in mid-2009, Wyatt said.
In the first version, tourism coordinator “looked like this overwhelming job” for scant pay.
The marketing committee made the revision more open-ended, she said, so applicants can outline their own ideas.
‘Creative thought’
“The new RFP says, ‘Give us a proposal for what you can really do to help the marketing of the city.’ Hopefully, we’ll get some really creative thought from people.”
Wyatt added that to her, this contract seems like a plum.
“We have a lot of exciting things here, nearly year-round,” from hiking in the Olympic National Forest to boating at John Wayne Marina to birding and bicycling at Railroad Bridge Park.
“I would think it would be a really fun job,” said Wyatt, who is retired from a career at Microsoft.
Proposals must be submitted by 4 p.m. Jan. 22 to City Hall, 152 W. Cedar St.
The marketing committee plans interviews Feb. 5, approval of a selected candidate at the Feb. 22 City Council meeting and finally, approval of the contract at the March 8 council session.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
