10A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 2015
Masons: ‘The stewardship of
these scholarships will fall apart
unless we get new blood’
Continued from Page 1A
Marsch will study an-
imal sciences at Oregon
State University, with hopes
of one day working at a zoo.
Gateway Lodge
JOSHUA BESSEX — The Daily Astorian
A family walks down to the beach from the WorldMark Seaside Resort Saturday. The
Seaside Visitors Bureau gets more than 20 percent of the lodging tax collected there.
Tourism: Seaside Visitors Bureau gets 20.1
percent of whatever lodging tax is collected
Continued from Page 1A
Klein said employment in
the tourism industry started
picking up about a year lat-
er than spending. The report
found that industry employ-
ment tied to travel spending,
dominated by the lodging
and food service sectors, has
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year time frame by 10 per-
cent, from 3,520 in 2010 to
3,880 in 2014.
Filling rooms
“The bottom line for my
community is bed taxes, how
many people are here,” said
Jon Rahl, the tourism market-
ing manager for the city-fund-
ed Seaside Visitors Bureau.
Rahl said one of the easiest
statistics to track is transient
room taxes, used to fund the
bureau and similar commu-
nity improvement programs
around Clatsop County. Ac-
cording to the Dean Runyan
study, Clatsop County has had
a 30 percent increase from
2010 to 2014 in local and state
taxes collected from the tour-
ism industry.
“We have 13 consecutive
quarters of year-over-year
growth,” Rahl said of Seaside’s
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$2.5 million, equal to what it
earned in the entire 2010-11
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to June 30. And that doesn’t in-
clude the revenue Seaside will
collect during one of its busiest
quarters.
Rahl said he hears anec-
dotally from Seaside-area
businesses that winter week-
ends are increasingly becom-
ing like summer weekends
used to be.
Caroline Wuebben of the
Holiday Inn in Astoria, which
recently announced the expan-
sion of its 78-room hotel by an-
other 20 rooms, said her loca-
tion is at full capacity between
Memorial Day and September,
with rates charged for rooms in-
creasing across the county.
Looking into reports from
the Oregon Restaurant and
Lodging Association, Wueb-
ben said she’s noticed the
Oregon Coast is driving the
state’s increase in occupancy
rates, including a 15 percent
increase for this February
over a year ago.
Wuebben and Rahl both
credited the milder weather and
lack of snow in the mountains
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But they also noted the exten-
sive regional marketing cam-
paigns local chambers, the vis-
itors bureau and other groups
are using to lure visitors.
Marketing the coast
The Seaside Visitors Bu-
reau gets 20.1 percent of
whatever lodging tax is col-
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Some members of the
Gateway Masonic Lodge
estimate the average age of
its 50 members at around 70
years old.
“The stewardship of
these scholarships will fall
apart unless we get new
blood,” Worshipful Master
Archie Cook said, adding
that the lodge doesn’t ap-
peal for new members, but
that people are more than
welcome to join.
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Cook enticed one of the
lodge’s youngest members,
27-year-old Sean Morgan,
who said he didn’t know
much about the Masons be-
fore joining Seaside’s chapter.
JOSHUA BESSEX — The Daily Astorian
Guest speaker Steve Berk, a professor emeritus at Cal-
ifornia State University in Long Beach and an adjunct
history professor at Clatsop Community College, talks
about the history of the Masons during the banquet.
“We are just another
volunteer organization,”
Morgan said. “The com-
mon bond we have is ma-
sonry.”
Morgan said the organi-
zation has taught him stew-
ardship and management
skills, as well as exposing
him to a group of commu-
nity-minded people with a
storied history of members.
“Lewis and Clark were Ma-
sons.”
For more informa-
tion on Gateway Masonic
Lodge, visit http://gateway-
lodge175.org/
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JOSHUA BESSEX — The Daily Astorian
Proud parents try to get photos of their students after the 55th annual Warrenton
High School Honor Student Banquet.
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For online updates: www.dailyastorian.com
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lected in a given year, Rahl
said, spending between
$250,000 and $300,000 of it
promoting Seaside through-
out the region.
For the past four springs,
the bureau has partnered with
the Astoria-Warrenton Area
and Cannon Beach chambers
of commerce on the “Ore-
gon’s North Coast” campaign,
advertising online in Portland,
Seattle and Vancouver, British
Columbia.
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that our core demographic
is still young families,” Rahl
said, adding that the demo-
graphics coming to Seaside
are expanding in tandem with
the culinary offerings and
events.
Since 2010, the Asto-
ria-Warrenton Area Cham-
ber has partnered with
Maxwell PR and Robeson
Communications on its own
regional marketing efforts.
It’s taken multiple iterations,
from several different tar-
geted campaigns to www.
travelastoria.com. This year,
the focus is on family travel,
motorcyclists, beer aficiona-
dos, foodies and, of course,
Goonies fans, Account Man-
ager Sara Stewart from Max-
well said.
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ALEX PAJUNAS — The Daily Astorian File
Alerted by the blast of the 951-foot Star Princess’ horn, hundreds of seagulls say their
goodbyes and help the visiting cruise ship push off from the face of the Port of Astoria’s
Pier 1 in September 2013.
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