The question of who should run the Mariposa County Visitor Center and what exactly it should be, has come full circle.
What began in January with Mariposa County officials calling for a dramatic rethinking of the visitor center with a significant online and social media presence, and a lively discussion at two town halls in June, ended last week with an almost full scale retreat back to business as usual.
“Let’s keep it as simple as possible,” said Mariposa County Chief Administrative Officer Joe Lynch, in a striking reversal.
Lynch said the county should have “clear lanes and stay out of others.”
“My original intent was to blur the lines, I must’ve been having a bad day,” Lynch said.
The Mariposa County Visitor Center at 5158 Highway 140, at the intersection of Highway 49, has been operated by the Mariposa Chamber of Commerce at that location for 36 years.
A new request for proposal (RFP) will be issued later this month and seems almost tailor made for the Chamber keeping its contract, with a strong preference for the current location, or one very much like it.
Proposals will be submitted in September, reviewed in October, with a November recommendation to the board.
The new contract will begin Jan. 1, 2027.
How did we get here?
In January, Mariposa County issued a request for proposal (RFP) for a visitor center that not only had a physical location, but also a robust online presence that supported local businesses and attractions outside of Yosemite National Park.
The RFP, required for county contracts over $60,000 a year, offered the option of co-locating visitor services with another business in the town of Mariposa.
Leigh Westerlund, assistant county administrator, said staff got a “wake up call” two years ago when they saw a visitor center proposal from Juliette Vuillaume of the Oakhurst based branding company Yosemite Foothills.
Vuillaume’s plan in 2024 leaned exclusively into social media and an online events calendar similar to what she has developed for Eastern Madera County. At that time, her plan did not have a physical location.
County staff presented research that showed travelers increasingly rely on social media when planning vacation trips and noted the current visitor center seemed lacking in its online presence with little engagement and few followers.
In addition, the Mariposa County Visitor Center had seen a drop off in visits in the last three years even as visitation to Yosemite National Park was on the upswing.
Times were changing, staff suggested.
By February, there were three proposals on the table: Vuillaume’s Yosemite Foothills was the low bid at $180,000 a year, followed by the Chamber of Commerce at $209,000 and Adventure Mariposa at $249,000.
County staff recommended Vuillaume’s low-bid for its “active engagement and representation of ALL visitor service providers,” and its strong social media skills and experience.
Chamber of Commerce members were stunned, posting flyers about how the decision would “take away a vital, locally run resource,” and would be awarded to a company based outside the community.
Chamber members packed a May 12 board of supervisors meeting where board members decided to suspend the RFP and hold two town hall meetings to solicit feedback.
The retreat had begun.
Town hall meetings
Those town hall meetings on June 6 and 9, while at times circular and repetitive, seemed to shift the conversation.
There was frustration that not enough had been done to promote local businesses, amenities and events outside of Yosemite National Park.
But it was equally clear that people valued having a physical location for the visitor center, with knowledgeable staff, and that the current location, with its ADA compliant restrooms and ample parking, was ideal.
For many, it was eye-opening exactly how much the Yosemite Mariposa County Tourism Bureau (YMCTB) was already doing to promote local businesses through its branding of Yosemite.com
The tourism bureau is separate from the visitor center, and is financed through a 1.5 percent lodging tax, the Tourism Business Improvement District (TBID), that collects $3 million a year. The money spent must benefit lodging in some way.
Jonathan Farrington, the bureau’s executive director, said locals may not see how much the tourism bureau does because its advertising is “geo-fenced,” so it is seen by people who live outside the area.
Why waste advertising dollars telling people what they already know about the place where they already live, the thinking goes.
Farrington emphasized that Yosemite, with its international name recognition, and not Mariposa County, is the draw and bait for travelers.
The trick is to get them to spend time in the rest of Mariposa County once they arrive, and Farrington said the bureau expends considerable marketing effort to promote other parts of Mariposa County.
Farrington also cautioned county leaders about diluting the branding of Yosemite.com, which has four million visits a year.
The bureau’s head of marketing, Ellen Bergstone Wasil, said the days of “organic growth” on social media are over and that a significant online presence costs money. She said the bureau’s social media marketing budget is more than the entire RFP for the visitor center.
‘Keep it simple’
When the conversation about the visitor center returned last week to the Mariposa County Board of Supervisors, there was suddenly no longer any talk about it having an online presence.
In fact, the discussion was preceded, not coincidentally, by a presentation from the tourism bureau about its mission, sophisticated metrics and marketing efforts.
Referencing the role the Yosemite Mariposa County Tourism Bureau plays in the branding of Yosemite.com, compared to the reach of the visitor center, Lynch said bluntly, “Two thousand followers doesn’t compete with four million views.”
Supervisors Miles Menetrey and Shannon Poe expressed frustration that their options were limited because the chamber has a vice-like hold on its current location, which it leases from the VFW, and the chamber is unwilling to surrender that location to another bidder.
“I’m a little troubled with the way it went down before,” Poe said. “I want to see options for overcoming that challenge.”
Menetrey suggested people “freaked out,” when he asked last May if the chamber would allow someone else to take over the lease. He emphasized that he was never suggesting eminent domain.
“It benefits the county to pursue that lease whenever it ends. It is clear that is the preferred location for the visitor center,” Menetrey said.
In the end, Lynch suggested a scaled back RFP for the visitors center with only five basic requirements: A location similar to the existing one, hours of operation, required standards like ADA compliant parking and restrooms, a few simple key performance indicators and “interactive minimums,” like the availability of foreign language translation services.
There will be no online requirement, not even for a local events calendar.
“I think the chamber has already picked up that mantel,” Lynch said.
Lynch added that the RFP could also have a preference for a locally based applicant.
Lessons learned?
Several key players in the debate privately conceded it was a head scratching return to the status quo.
But many said the eight month debate was valuable, providing clarity about the bureau’s online marketing efforts, and the value of a physical location for a visitor center.
It seems virtual still needs an anchor in the analogue.
Notably absent from the supervisors’ meeting last week was Vuillaume, whose proposal in June was recommended by staff and whose reconceptualization of what a visitor center could be prompted the county’s reevaluation.
Vuillaume said she was unaware the issue had returned to the board’s agenda.
In an interview with the Mariposa Gazette she sounded chastened.
“Step into my shoes,” Vuillaume said. “I got a lot of hate, emails, calls and text messages. There was so much misinformation.”
“I’m here to help the community and I wish people saw my passion rather than villainizing me. We could have worked together,” she said.
Vuillaume, 28, wonders if her experience might make young entrepreneurs reluctant to work the Chamber of Commerce in the future.
She is uncertain whether she will apply, for a third time, to operate the Mariposa County Visitor Center.
Given the pared down requirements of the RFP, the Chamber of Commerce seems like a shoe in.
“It pains me to say this, but I kind of thought this might happen,” she said.
Responses (0)