Despite the prospect of fewer tax dollars to use in promoting Santa Fe as a tourist destination, the Santa Fe Convention and Visitors Bureau is doing everything it can to increase visitor numbers and needs the cooperation of tourism-oriented businesses.

That was the message that the bureau's director, Keith Toler, delivered to about 100 retailers, hoteliers and others who attended a "tourism summit" Friday morning at the Santa Fe Community and Convention Center.

In advertising campaigns, he said, "We try to target as best we can to get the right message to the right audience."

Their primary target is baby boomers in nearby states and major metropolitan areas.

The city concentrates on the shoulder season (from November through March) when tourism numbers drop the most, Toler said, adding that the city's total advertising budget for the current budget year is $850,000.

The bureau is funded by the lodgers tax collected on hotel-room fees, which this fiscal year is down 15 percent, Toler said, explaining that could diminish financial resources for promoting Santa Fe.

Several national travel studies show people are still traveling but for shorter periods and are looking for cultural experience rather than going shopping, Toler said. "They're spending less overall," he said, "and they want value — a good product for a good price."

More than half of the people who ask for a visitors' guide end up making a visit to Santa Fe, he said. The number of fly-drive visitors who rent cars after arriving in New Mexico is about same as those who drive directly from other cities.

Toler also said the number of hotel rooms in the city and surrounding area went up more than 9 percent last year when Pojoaque Pueblo's Buffalo Thunder resort and the revamped Encantado resort opened north of Santa Fe.

Before a question-and-answer session, Toler sought to explain the difference between the Convention and Visitors Bureau, which handles the promotion and marketing of Santa Fe, and the Community and Convention Center, the facility which hosts conventions, conferences and other gatherings by both local and out-of-town groups.

Toler said there are 161 events of various types on the center's calendar stretching into 2010.

Downtown retailer Larry Tillis of the Lorreen International Emporium on Galisteo Street said fewer and fewer people are visiting Santa Fe. "Your advertising campaigns aren't working," he complained, calling the city's ad budget "peanuts."

However, jewelry store owner Valerie Fairchild said she felt much better about the city's advertising campaign and the fact that so much is being spent to promote the city.

Toler encouraged all merchants to promote their sales and specials by sending information to his bureau, which puts such information on its Web site, SantaFe.org.

"Let us know what's going on in your store," he said.

Contact Bob Quick at 986-3011 or bobquick@sfnewmexican.com.