By Mike Silvas, CEO Morgan Lane, Inc., Realtors and 2009 Napa Chamber of Commerce Chairman of the Board

I am excited. The Chamber, along with our partners, i.e. the City, the Downtown Association, The Wine Train, the Outlet Center, and local businesses who are experts in their fields, are developing programs to attract quality visitors to our fair City to spend money. By leveraging our assets we are much more likely to be successful than if we all tried our own programs and went off in different directions.

Sonoma County has been doing something like this for the past few years and you see their brand and invitations to their attractions in every travel related publication out there.

Napa has a world wide reputation and is the place people want to come for a great experience, whether it be for wine, a fine meal, a great spa, a romantic interlude, a relaxing weekend, to be nurtured or at peace with nature or any of the other reasons they might conjure up.

My wife and I have only been here for 10 years and we have visitors from all over the country constantly - simply because of where we live. For all the years we lived in Southern California (just above the Rose Bowl) we never had the number of visitors we have here. They come to enjoy the wine, the food, the beauty of the valley, to shop, to hike, ride bikes or just walk around.

We have to face it, people want to visit here and for our businesses to thrive we need to figure out the best way to attract them, to let them know that we will greet them with open arms and thank them for coming. The other morning my wife and I were out walking our dogs and a couple pulled up and stopped. They told us we had the most beautiful skies here and I said “wait till you see the stars at night.” And that was in the middle of Brown’s Valley!

That is what the collaborative marketing effort is about, letting people know via public relations, marketing and any other creative avenues that the group can come up with, that Napa is open for business and a great place to visit, for a day, a weekend, a week, to host a business meeting, a family reunion, a special life event.

The City and all the other entities are contributing to this venture to build our local economy. And it won’t stop with inviting visitors – expect to see more about how we all have the power to help our local businesses survive by supporting them with our own hard earned dollars.

This could be the beginning of something really good and in my estimation, long overdue.