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Serving Oregon’s South Coast Since 1878

TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 2024

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Area chess teams compete at state championships Chess teams from Coos County braved the forecast of snow to travel to Oregon Episcopal School in Portland to compete in the Oregon High School Chess Team State Championships two-day event March 1st and 2nd. Saturday morning the large windows of the tournament room showed the gentle snow fall while chess games in the tournament hall were blazing with battle. The Coquille Varsity Team was handicapped from the beginning as one team member became ill the day before, so the team played with four board, taking an automatic loss on their fifth board. Coquille was paired to play Westview, a 6A school in the first round and took a beating as first board Frank Morse had to play National Master and Oregon

Please see CHESS Page 7

CPD announces upcoming Cars and Cops Car Show The Coquille Police Department is excited to announce their upcoming Cars and Cops Car Show. The event will take place on Saturday, June 1st , 2024, in downtown Coquille. Come join us for our Cars and Cops

Car Show, where there will be awards, raffles, food, music, and more! Bring the whole family to enjoy this free and exciting event! Registration will take place from 8 am – 10 am, with the show hours being from 9 am – 2 pm.

If you’re interested in preregistration, contact the Coquille Police Department. There is no registration or entry fee for this event, donations are gladly accepted. If you’re interested in sponsoring an award, donating,

or contributing to our raffle baskets, please contact the Coquille Police Department. There will be 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place awards for the following classes: Pre 30’s 30’s 40’s 50’s 60’s 70’s Corvette Modern American

VCB semi-annual report Records show that visitors spent $295.9 million in Coos County in 2022, she told the commissioners. COQUILLE — For every She also displayed on the screen a advertising dollar the local visitor breakdown by accommodations, and convention bureau spent in 2022 food service, fuel and local to influence travel in Coos Bay, transportation, convenience stores, North Bend and Charleston, visitors retail sales and so on. spent $26.70 in return. Dean Runyan’s figures showed Janice Langlinais knows tourism that visitors spent $137.2 million in Coos County and she thinks that’s specifically in Coos Bay, North a pretty good return on investment. Bend and Charleston in 2022 or 46 As the executive director of the percent of the county’s total. Coos Bay-North Bend-Charleston The VCB executive illustrated her Visitor & Convention Bureau report with a visual presentation, (VCB), 50 Central Ave., Coos Bay, “The Work of a Destination she explained her organization’s Program” on the screen in the efforts to Coos County commissioners’ chambers. She said Commissioners at their regular the bureau has a $1.3 million annual meeting Feb. 20. Delivering her semi-annual report budget. To date, the organization has received 61.4 of its projected to the county, Langlinais said Coos income and has spent 45 percent of County is one of four funding its funds. partners supporting the bureau. It Langlinais told commissioners receives a portion of the lodging tax that return on investment (ROI) is a collected by Coos Bay, North Bend, percentage of visitor spending based the Coquille Tribe and Coos County, on the influence of advertising. She which collects lodging taxes for an said Travel Oregon figures an ROI area around Charleston. The VCB obtains county tourism of 5 percent while the University of Massachusetts says ROI is 14.7 data from Travel Oregon, which is percent. the public face of the Oregon “We thought Travel Oregon was a Tourism Commission. It works to little conservative,” she said in an enhance visitors’ experiences by interview later, adding that the local providing information, resources VCB thought VisitFlorida’s figure of and trip planning tools that inspire a 40 percent ROI spending “was a Oregon travel experiences and strengthen the economic impacts of little bold.” She believes the Massachusetts figure is probably the state’s $10.9 billion tourism closer to reality, so the local VCB industry, which employs more than determined that in exchange for the 100,000 Oregonians. money spent promoting tourism, Langlinais also has hired visitors returned about $20.2 million Dean Runyan Associates, a in spending and taxes in 2022, the Portland travel and recreation last year for which data is available. research firm, to collect specific Langlinais told commissioners the data from the three communities VCB receives about 39 percent of that support her organization. She the total lodging taxes collected in has data back to 2018.

BY DEAN BRICKEY For The World

Promoting tourism

Coos County. She added that the bureau is “one of the only entities that I’m aware of that has a tribal entity participating in this way.” The executive director said in an interview that the VCB was created in the 1980s as a Tourism Promotions Committee for Coos Bay and North Bend. The Coquille Tribe joined as an intergovernmental agreement was written in 2010, and in 2022 voters approved a ballot measure adding Charleston-area lodging establishments. Because Charleston is unincorporated, she said, “We drew a map around Charleston to figure out where the lodging properties were in that area so that the county could impose the lodging tax. The Charleston Merchants Association went to the county and asked for a new visitor center. The merchants association is getting 31 percent of the lodging taxes collected in the Charleston area.” The Charleston “region,” she said, starts at the Coos Bay city limits on Cape Arago Highway in Empire and extends to Cape Arago State Park and from the ocean up Seven Devils Road to Barview. “We couldn’t do what we do without the support of all of our funding partners, including the county commissioners and the county as a whole,” Langlinais said, adding that the organization’s influence continues to grow. “In six years, we have taken the Visitor & Convention Bureau’s budget from $350,000 in 2017 to $1.3 million, but that is still a drop in the bucket compared to our competitors on the Central and North Coast,” she said, “but we’re making headway.”

BY DEAN BRICKEY

For The World

COQUILLE — The new 2023 Holiday Lights Shuttle from the Charleston Marina to Shore Acres State Park for the annual Holiday Lights display proved to be “one of the most popular” visitor enhancements of the year. Janice Langlinais, executive director of Coos Bay-North Bend-Charleston Visitor & Convention Bureau (VCB), told Coos County Commissioners Feb. 20 that the shuttle cost $22,281 and transported 4,100 people to the state park on Cape Arago Highway for the lighting exhibit. Records show 53,000 Holiday Lights visitors from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Eve. Last November and December, Langlinais said, the Holiday Lights welcomed visitors from 20 countries, including Australia, China, New Zealand and Russia. In addition, there were visitors from 39 states and 489 different cities, towns and areas. She noted that in 2019, the Chicago Tribune named the Holiday Lights at Shore Acres State Park “one of the top holiday events in the nation.” Storm watching is next big winter draw in Coos County, Langlinais said, but “We’ve had some very disappointed people standing, looking at a glassy sea.” She explained that she and her co-workers at the visitor’s bureau spend a lot of time explaining the difference between high surf and king tides. “King tides are predictable,” she said. “High surf is not predictable. It depends on the Pacific storms, and the weather service’s high surf advisories with swells of 16-30 feet. Check our Visitor & Convention Bureau Facebook page because we will put that information out immediately when the Weather Service puts it out. We get about a day and a half to two days notice of when a high surf is predicted.” Langlinais said the organization is advertising more in digital and social realms these days and spending less on print advertising. “We can’t track it,” she said, adding that for the Holiday Lights and storm watching, the VCB paid for billboards in Portland, Salem, Eugene, and up and down the Interstate-5 corridor. The bureau also uses Facebook a lot, which it can track, and has just started usingTikTok. “Our reach doubled in 2023 to 4.9 million, up 101 percent from 2021,” she said, referring to Facebook calculations of hits on the VCB page. “And we had twice as many impressions of our actual posts, more than 7.2 million.” Impressions are about the posts, she explained, and reach is about clicks on the page.

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Muscle Cars Other awards will include Best in Show, Most Likely to be Pulled Over, and more! Please contact the Coquille Police Department at 541-396-2114 or come see us at 851 N. Central Boulevard in Coquille for more information.

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