• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, February 6, 2015

After a record-setting year with 33.8 million visitors in 2014, the San Diego Tourism Authority is hoping to keep the momentum going with a new $9 million advertising campaign called “Signs.” The campaign aims to spur regional tourism with ads targeting the Western U.S., across a range of channels including TV, print, digital and billboards.

The TV ads will air across the Western U.S., including San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Portland, and Phoenix.

The campaign is scheduled to run from February to June of this year.

Building on the authority’s 5-year-old “Happiness is Calling” theme, the new campaign centers on TV ads showing whimsical signs in front of iconic San Diego attractions, skewing heavily towards panoramic views of beaches and San Diego bay, along with youthful nightlife and restaurant scenes.

The ads were crafted with feedback from focus groups conducted in four big U.S. cities, as well as overseas.

Tourism is San Diego’s third-biggest industry, bringing in $9.2 billion in spending last year, employing 165,000 people. In 2014, visitors booked 16.2 million hotel room nights, generating $203 million in hotel room taxes for the city government. However, the city faces renewed competition from other popular U.S. city destinations in the Southwest, including Las Vegas and Los Angeles, which are courting more overseas visitors from Asia and Latin America.

The city’s tourism business also faces a challenge from negative publicity concerning Sea World, one of its main attractions, which saw its attendance fall 5.2% in the third quarter, to 8.41 million, amid controversy resulting from the documentary “Blackfish,” about the park’s treatment of captive orcas.

On a positive note, the San Diego Zoo remains the most popular zoo in the country, attracting around 3.2 million visitors per year.