Lorin Stewart

Dialogue with Tom Blair

GROWING UP IN SAN JOSE, the only child of a broken home, Lorin Stewart turned to theater for family. That theater family took him through high school, to college at Santa Clara University and on to the Royal Shakespeare Company in London. After seven successful years of theater in Europe, where he eventually established his own production company, he returned to San Diego in 1989 and found himself performing magic and waiting for casting calls from Los Angeles. That’s when he joined the Old Town Trolley, quickly working his way up from tour guide to director of operations. This year, Stewart signed on as executive director of the new San Diego Tourism Promotion Corporation. He lives in Rancho Peñasquitos with his wife, Victoria, and 10-year-old daughter Kylan.

TOM BLAIR: You’ve come a long way from the Royal Shakespeare Company in London — literally and figuratively. Anything you learned on the legitimate stage that translates into tourism promotion?

LORIN STEWART: Absolutely. When I went to Santa Clara, I got a scholarship from a producer. You might remember him: Quinn Martin.

TB: Oh, yeah. TV’s The Fugitive and The Streets of San Francisco . . .

LS: Right. He had set up a perpetual scholarship for theater majors. He believed in youth and in setting aside money for education. He saw me and liked the work I had done, so I got his scholarship. Eventually, I got a full ride at Santa Clara University because of acting. And I got to know Quinn Martin. He drove something home to me that’s been invaluable. He said, “You can always act. But whatever you do, take business classes. Learn marketing and economics.” Of course, theater is a business, too. So I took business classes, and I started doing some producing. And then I got the opportunity to go to London.

TB: How did that come about?

LS: Patrick Stewart, the actor, was part of the Playing Shakespeare program through the Royal Shakespeare Company. He came to Santa Clara with a touring company right when I was graduating. And I got to do a master’s class with him. We hit it off — both of us Stewarts — and I became his gofer. He’s the one who got me to try out for the apprenticeship program in London. So I did an audition in Santa Clara, and then I went to New York for a second audition. Before I knew it, I got the letter to go to London. Once you’re in the Royal Shakespeare Company, it’s the old guild program. It’s practical, not like taking classes in school. The people who are giving you lessons are professionals. Anthony Hopkins was in London at the same time I was. And vocal coaching, for example, was taught by Stephen Sondheim.

TB: Sondheim taught you to sing?

LS: I took his classes, but he determined I can’t sing. Actually, I did play Macheath in Beggar’s Opera — but that’s talk-singing. The point is, you’re taught everything by the experts. And then, if you make it to the third year — I made it all the way through the three-year program — you’re cast in a Royal Shakespeare Company show, and you go out on tour for a year, spreading the importance of good theater and learning your craft. After that, you come back and start making the rounds. I was lucky to get a very good agent whose clients included Pierce Brosnan, Hugh Grant and Sean Connery. And I got into the acting union — which you have to do to work anywhere. Ultimately, I got cast for the movie Taipan — from the James Clavell bestseller. I was going to play Sean Connery’s son. Unfortunately, Connery held out for more money, and the issues surrounding that lasted for almost a year. When you’re on retainer, which I was, you’re not allowed to take any other work. So I remembered what Quinn Martin told me, and went into business for myself. I started my own theater company. But after a while, I started feeling I was acting these pale copies of true Brits. So I came home, feeling I should do something more American. I got the bug to do film, and my agent agreed to roll the dice.

TB: Were you cast in a movie right away?

LS: I got a lot of auditions — in fact, it seemed like I was auditioning full-time. It was hurry up and wait. I was doing magic at one point — you do whatever you can do to stay in the business. I had an aptitude for that. So I ended up getting a job in front of the camera as an actor and in back of the camera as an advisor on the movie Lord of Illusions. I was Scott Bakula’s sidekick in this movie, playing Billy Who. If you get the DVD, you can see me there with long, greasy hair — and my lines consisting of four-letter words.

TB: Is that what persuaded you to come back to San Diego?

LS: Well, if you’re a creative person, all that waiting for work becomes frustrating. And again, the advice of Quinn Martin reverberated. It’s about the business. So I came here for a job with Historic Tours of America on the Old Town Trolley.

TB: You essentially went from being an actor to being an actor in a different way — as a tour guide.

LS: Exactly. As a guide, you’re telling history, with a script — although it really wasn’t much of a traditional script. You’re taking people around and directing their attention to the city’s living history. We created a fantastic company of guides, but there was nobody in San Diego doing all of the things you’ve got to do to make sure the product is consistent and that you’re creating the right environment. Most importantly, that you’re hiring people who thrive in that environment.

TB: They’re entertainers first.

LS: They have to be. So it was really just a perfect marriage. I brought the audition process to the trolley company. We ended up with a real script. I became like the executive producer of these shows. We’d have people who did research and scripting and training.

TB: Within five years, you were general manager, and for the past 15 years, you’ve been running a business. But now, you’ve taken on a new challenge. It’s been just a few months since you took over as the head of the new San Diego Tourism Promotion Corporation. The big job, it seems to me, is going to be keeping a group of tough and demanding local hotel owners happy by putting heads on their beds — in an economic climate that’s not very happy right now. What persuaded you to take the job?

LS: Because our business was tourism, during my 19 years with the trolley I got involved with the Chamber of Commerce and the Convention & Visitors Bureau. As I got more involved in the numbers, it was easy to see an upward trend in hotel occupancy when the money was deployed for destination marketing. And then, when the city started cutting the share of transient occupancy tax [TOT] for destination marketing — specifically through ConVis — I started seeing the percentage of lost revenue was directly related. It affected my company. We had to lay off people. ConVis did, too. When ConVis funding got cut by 46 percent, in a very short period of time, it hurt. It was having a terrible effect on our local hoteliers.

TB: So now the hotel owners have decided to assess themselves, at 2 percent of gross revenues, to make up for the loss of city money for tourism promotion?

LS: Yes, and it’s pretty amazing to see all these owners and executives leaving their weapons at the door and working together for the greater good. It’s an experiment that really needs to work, because it’s a terrible economic climate.

TB: So are you going to be happy with all these new bosses?

LS: I don’t think it’s a matter of the bosses; it’s about the system. From my perspective, it’s that ConVis, over the past few years, was accountable to a budget — under the direction of the city council. But when ConVis would take these very exotic marketing programs to the council, which was not directly engaged in how tourism promotion works, the council wouldn’t know how to offer direction. That has definitely changed with the SDTPC board overseeing the process. Basically, for the past few years, ConVis’ job was to just survive. Because they didn’t have the money to really impact the market. Last year, they got $8.5 million from the city’s TOT. This is nothing like Las Vegas money. Its visitors bureau gets something like $256 million from their TOT. Vegas did more than $150 million in direct advertising compared to our $8.5 million in TOT last year. Talk about David and Goliath.

TB: So how much is San Diego’s new Tourism Marketing District going to be collecting, and who gets it?

LS: First projection was $30 million a year, but obviously this market is not what it was even last year. So the projection for 2009 is about $27 million. Fifty percent goes to ConVis; 10 percent goes to San Diego North ConVis; 5 percent goes to a catastrophe fund (in case we have something like another 9/11); and 35 percent is distributed to incremental programs — programs that can show us return on investment. In other words, how they can help us put heads on beds. That’s the way TOT was always meant to be spent.

TB: Spent on organizations like the San Diego Film Commission that can make the argument they help bring tourists and film-industry employees to San Diego hotels while helping promote the city through TV and movies.

LS: Yes. And right now, we’re giving these organizations the opportunity to come forward and make their arguments for funding, which — up to this point — have been eye-openers. In some cases, we have organizations requesting a very small amount. If they already have a program that’s working really well, it’s important they have some help with promotions that can affect the whole tourism market. The trick is going to be connecting it all for maximum benefit.

TB: Do you feel any stress in taking over a new company aimed at increasing tourism at a time when airlines are cutting flights, prices are escalating and many people are staying home in this uncertain economic climate?

LS: Well, hotel business is very difficult, at least right now. But you don’t want to get out of a marketplace at a time like this. So with this comes a huge responsibility that every single dime we spend is spent in the smartest fashion. What we don’t have a lot of is time. For all the money it looks like we have, when you put it in perspective with all the other areas we’re competing with for tourism, it’s very little. Even Las Vegas started to feel a dip in hotel occupancy last spring, and in one month they invested $12 million in a single advertising campaign.

TB: That’s almost half your annual budget. But from the looks of your new office here, you haven’t been raiding anybody’s piggy bank. What is this, 100 square feet?

LS: Actually, 95. But you know, I like having people over here to see this. I chose this spot because, at this stage, it’s all we need. But I’ll tell you something: After I moved in, I kept having trouble with my phone and my computer, so I finally told the lady who’s managing this office, “The place is great; I love it. But my phone’s not working. And my T-1 line isn’t working.” And she said, “You know, I’m not really surprised. This used to be the broom closet.”

TB: And you’re keeping your huge staff somewhere else?

LS: I’m the staff. But we’ve been in this situation before. The economy is tough, but the forecasters’ point is that you’ve got to get down to the bottom, as fast as possible, because that’s when everything starts rebuilding. We’ve had a lot of stuff thrown at us all at once, but the good thing about it is that everyone is feeling the urgency of what we have to do. And they’re energized. Occupancy recently dropped from around 73 percent for hotels to 71, but we have a target. By 2012, there will already be some new hotel projects completed; we’re going to have an even larger room inventory. So to get back to 73 percent occupancy by then, we’re going to need to do a million more room nights a year. If we can do that, there’ll be another $30 million a year collected in TOT — a total of $200 million per year — for the city, without the need for a tax increase. So I’ll talk to you in about three years.

TB: And if I call you in 2012 and somebody says, “Oh, Mr. Stewart’s gone back out on the road”?

LS: Clang, clang, clang went the trolley.

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