JUST IN TIME for the summer travel season, United Airlines' in-flight magazine, Hemispheres, has a printed a 24-page spread on the charms of Ventura. It's packed with outdoor adventure ideas, lures for the foodie set, an extended piece on our thriving arts community and lots of ads for local businesses.

There's a guide to the local economy, an ad for our high-tech business incubator and even a short story on our efforts to preserve open space.

We all knew we had a overlooked gem here and now the secret is definitely out. If I didn't already live here, this would surely convince me that Ventura is much more than a stopover between Mailbu and Santa Barbara.

It couldn't have come at a better time for the sluggish local economy, according to City Manager Rick Cole. "If there is a silver lining anywhere, it would be tourism. With the fall of the dollar and rise in airfares, we may get more local tourists from Los Angeles and the Central Valley. That's the best hope for our restaurant- and gift store-heavy Downtown."

As I wrote in a previous entry, one of the bright spots in the local economy is that our Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) collections are up. More and more tourists are coming here and staying in our hotels. And they're also visiting our local businesses.

"The process of getting the feature in Hemispheres began over a year ago when our PR rep met the publisher of the Insights section of the magazine while attending Pow Wow, an annual travel industry trade show," explained Jim Luttjohan, executive director of the Ventura Visitors and Convention Bureau. "They told her they were about to do a piece on Santa Barbara, and she recommended they check out Ventura along the way. Last March we were contacted by the publisher asking us to help him on a site visit to town, and while here he fell for Ventura and decided to do the feature.

"After that we got together with city and Chamber folks to get the word out to each of our supporters, and viola! -- a 24-page spread on Ventura in United Airlines' in-flight magazine during one of the heaviest travel periods of the year," Luttjohan said.

He's obviously pleased with the spread and added that the advertising value of the free editorial content is over $800,000.

It's a good read for locals, too. If you're flying this summer, pick up a copy. It may help you rediscover your own town.

THERE'S NOTHING MORE DELIGHTFUL about parenthood than cuddling with your child and sharing a book. Over the years, I've spent many hours sprawled on the carpet at Adventures for Kids in Ventura, reading books, playing with puppets and leaving with a purchase or two tucked under my arm.

So my heart really sank when I learned our beloved local children's bookstore would be closing by the end of July. I knew they were struggling a bit. But I didn't really know just how much until I spoke to store owner Barbara O'Grady. She's devastated.

"Books aren't a lucrative business," she explained. "I'm just barely surviving. It's just all over the book industry. It's a bad business to be in right now."

Adventures for Kids has been a local literary fixture since 1979. It was a labor of love for the store's previous owner, Jody Shapiro. She sold the enterprise to O'Grady two years ago who at first had high hopes for the business. "I told Jody the other day it wasn't part of the dream to close the store," O'Grady said. But after months of just barely squeaking by, she knew she had no other choice.

IT WAS NO ORDINARY bookstore. Over the years, the biggest luminaries in children's publishing passed through those doors. "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling's visit brought huge crowds. My children met Daniel Handler, otherwise known as Lemony Snicket, author of "A Series of Unfortunate Events." Gifted illustrator Jan Brett signed books for us as well as humorist Dav Pilkey and "Princess Diaries" author Meg Cabot. And the store held the best midnight Harry Potter parties around.

Adventures for Kids was also stellar about giving back to the community, participating in numerous fundraisers for the local schools.

Tell me, what has Amazon.com done for you lately?

O'Grady's not shy about blaming that particular online book business for the death of local bookstores. "But I know times are changing and people choose to shop differently for a number of reasons," she said with a sigh.

But I have always seen great value in a business where a salesperson goes out of her way to pick out just the right book for my child, which always happened when I visited Adventures for Kids. You can't get that online. This store was special.

"If people want to have unique communities, people have to support the uniqueness of it," O'Grady said.

Ironically, since Adventures for Kids announced its "going out of business" sale, the shop has been busy again. "There were days when nobody came in," O'Grady told me. "I think to myself, 'Where were all you people before?' "

Shop local. It's my mantra. Don't let another gem slip away.

THE PROSPECT FOR CAPTURING more revenue for Ventura's city coffers is looking bleaker these days with a skidding economy sending collection of sales taxes down 10 percent and a faltering housing market setting off alarm bells that property tax revenues will soon be on the decline. City Hall has announced belt-tightening measures that will cut back some city services.

Yet in the middle of this gloom and doom is a bright ray of Ventura sunshine: our Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) collections are up. What does that mean to those of us who don't converse in "Cityspeak"? More and more tourists are coming here and staying in our hotels. They are also eating in our restaurants and shopping in our boutiques. They are going out to visit the Channel Islands, hiking in the nearby mountains and relaxing on our beaches. All this activity brings TOT revenues to the general fund, keeps locals employed and brings in sales tax revenues, too.

According to Jim Luttjohann, director of the Ventura Visitors & Convention Bureau (VVCB), annual TOT revenues have grown from $3 million in 2003 to $4 million as of December 2007. We've also enjoyed an increase in revenue per available room of 7.9 percent while nearby Oxnard has remained nearly flat, he said. According to a recent study, visitor spending in Ventura was $458,315,800 in 2006.

Unfortunately, the engine helping to drive this mini-economic boom is falling under the budget axe itself. The VVCB's contract is housed within the City of Ventura's Cultural Affairs Division, which is being recommended for an across-the-board 11 percent reduction in funding. Cultural Affairs also supervises other revenue-generating activities like ArtWalk and the Street Fairs.

The VVCB budget will likely see a reduction of $83,000 from current year funding (about $132,000 from anticipated funding based on a contract funded at 2% of collected TOT). The cut will greatly affect the VVCB's ability to reach the tourist market, Luttjohann noted. "For us to shrink right now is potentially devastating."

IS SHRINKING A REVENUE-GENERATING portion of
city government a good idea in bad economic times? Not according to Monterey's City Manager, Fred Meurer. In 2002-04, when Monterey experienced a loss of $8 million in revenue over three years, it actually grew its tourism budget while cutting other services, Meurer said. "One area the City Council wanted to increase was tourism and marketing promotion to help build its coffers," he said.

"When business is down, you should be working on increasing your bottom line."

Bill Watkins of the UCSB Economic Forecast Project also noted an uptick in county tourism in his latest report: "Sectors that we expect to add a significant number of jobs from 2008-2010 include trade and leisure hospitality."

Ventura's VCB has been successful in drawing visitors interested in three major areas, Luttjohann explained: heritage and cultural tourists, gourmet diners or "foodies," and outdoor adventurers. "The foodie tourism market has been great to us," he said.

Two new hotels are also scheduled to be built here within the next few years: an Embassy Suites near the Fairgrounds and a Hyatt Place near Seaward and the 101 Freeway. "It will be very difficult to sell more rooms with fewer dollars," Luttjohann said.

But marketing all these great amenities involves employing a sales force to attend trade shows in addition to placing stories and making expensive ad buys in magazines like Sunset, Westways, Southwest Art, Gourmet and National Geographic Traveler. "We have to be in the really high-profile publications," Luttjohann said. "That's where you're getting your leisure travelers." And a state-of-the-art online presence is essential. "Sixty percent of travel planning is now done online," he said.

AN 11 PERCENT REDUCTION in marketing will certainly mean fewer visitors, Luttjohann said, which could also mean millions in reduced spending. A cut in Colorado's tourism and marketing budget a few years back, he said, caused a decline of 37 percent in overnight stays. And Monterey's Meurer pointed to nearby Pacific Grove, which recently withdrew from a regional cooperative advertising contract only to quickly opt back in the following year.

The bureau is considering taking on additional services for the city in exchange for maintaining its current budget structure, Luttjohann said. "Alternatively, we will have to reduce staffing and media placements and programs like the non-profit marketing grants that help our local organizations reach tourists in marketing they would not otherwise be able to afford."

Is cutting $130,000 from the Visitor's Bureau and then potentially losing millions from tourists a wise budget move?

It's time to visit this again.