RECAP: Tourism Business Improvement District Meeting, March 19, 2026
The board discusses the goals of events sponsorship and updating grant and sponsorship guidelines to emphasize overnight stays.
On Thursday, March 19, the Twentynine Palms Tourism Business Improvement District (TBID) board held its second meeting of the calendar year. The public meeting followed a closed session for a performance review of TBID marketing director Breanna Dusastre. The light public meeting agenda included a short update from Dusatre and a board discussion of the goals for TBID events grants and sponsorships, including a desire to bring stronger requirements for the generation of overnight stays into the application submission and evaluation process. All five TBID advisory board members were present: Chair Rakesh Mehta, Vice-Chair Ashton Ramsey, Maria Madrid, Ben Uyeda, and Liz Shickler, the first monthly meeting where there has been full board member attendance since the October 16, 2025, meeting.
The meeting began with a report back from TBID board members about events they had attended. Board member Shickler highlighted her attendance at the Holistic Health Fair on February 15th and the Route 66 car show at Roy’s in Amboy on March 7. She also discussed the event producer workshop that the TBID hosted on March 13. Ten participants joined, including local business representatives, event producers, and nonprofits. The workshop included an overview and review of eligibility and requirements for the sponsorship and event grant program, insights from the review committee, and the partnership structure with TBID and the city of Twentynine Palms. Dusastre elaborated during her update, remarking,
[It was] a great opportunity to talk through where funding comes from, why we are going to continuously drive the questions and the messaging about staying overnight with us in the city, application deadlines, requirements, what that partnership structure looks like with the TBID agreement.
Dusastre agreed it was “beneficial” for those who attended.
Director of Marketing update: A strong first quarter for overnight visitors
Dusaste provided a brief marketing update, which included record revenue for the first quarter of the fiscal year (October through December, 2025), upcoming events, and website and social media.
In the first quarter of the fiscal year the TBID reported:
$102,440 in collections of the 1% lodging-pass through tax, a 6% year–over-year increase.
13% increase in hotel and RV park stays, but a 3% decrease in vacation rental stays.
The 8th consecutive year of Q1 growth.
In her report and analysis last summer, Dusastre had cautioned that there could be a drop in overnight visitors and revenue due to economic uncertainty, but first quarter numbers are strong. However, as economic and political conditions continue to be strained, it will be important to continue to monitor overnight stays and revenue they generate as 2026 goes on.
Dusastre also reported on upcoming events supported by TBID grants and sponsorship, website traffic, digital advertising efforts, media placements and the rollout of the new website portal. In summary:
Media highlights include an upcoming segment featuring on Twentynine Palms on Sun Country airlines YouTube and inflight entertainment that be released later this spring and a republishing of the republish of the Travel and Leisure destination guide, originally published in November 2025
Paid social media campaigns include advertising to raise awareness about the April 1 grant and sponsorship application deadline for events taking place July 1 to December 31.
The new website portal, which will enable local businesses and event producers to add and edit their own listings, is proving more complicated to implement than anticipated. Dusastre noted that she will be working with stakeholders individually at the visitor center on Saturdays to train them how to use the portal.
Dusastre also attended the California Outlook Forum, which is a gathering of other California tourism organizations, and highlighted the celebration of the ten years of the Mojave Trails National Monument and 100 years of Route 66 at the Visitor’s Center.
Public comment: Better connection with the Base and stronger communication with lodging partners
The public comment session was light, with only two public comments.
Carla Kayajanian, the Community Analyst for Government and External Affairs from the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, introduced herself and explained she wanted to start attending the TBID meetings to serve as a liaison with the base. Kayajanian also publishes a community newsletter that highlights local events for senior enlisted leaders, who distribute it to service members and their families, inviting the TBID to send her events to highlight and to open the door to possible future collaboration.
In her public comment, Susan Peplow encouraged the TBID board to take Kayajanian up on her offer and to strengthen the connection with the Base and the families who come to visit. She also remarked that the list of upcoming events had not been distributed to lodging partners, noting,
That is the first I’ve seen that list, and I sit on [the events] subcommittee … Why are we only in this meeting seeing a list of events that are happening this coming weekend to lodging partners. How are lodging partners expected to share this information, tell their guests, encourage new guests to come in?
Peplow also questioned whether the TBID is receiving a return on investment from event organizers in terms of advertising and holding them responsible for generating overnight bookings.
Discussion of Sponsorship and Event Grant Program
The discussion of the meeting’s main agenda item centered on the need to revise the application process to emphasize overnight stays, as well as how to hold grantees accountable to documenting those stays, and initiatives to increase multi-day, midweek, and recurring events.
Uyeda summed up the issue, stating,
The events [application and review process] needs to be simpler and more focused on a specific goal that we then hold people accountable to … I think that we should be seeing on the first page of every application, is how many people are going to come, how many room nights is it do they projected to result in? And how are they going to track it?
The board member’s discussion included:
The need to focus applications on room nights they will generate and how to track them.
How to ensure events generate return on investment, not just on money but the time it takes to administer the program.
The continued importance of events to help raise awareness and generate visits to Twentynine Palms.
The importance of cultivating weekend-long, mid-week, events series, and off-season, and “shoulder events” on days like Wednesdays and Thursdays to create demand beyond weekends.
The continued need for fresh event ideas and to bring in larger events, which also highlights the need for larger event venues.
Whether the event sponsorships and grants are designed to subsidize events that need help getting started or draw established, profit-making events, such as the Vacation Races half-marathon, to Twentynine Palms.
In public comment Peplow suggested that the TBID could consider different strategies for allocating funds for events that specifically meet the TBID’s needs, suggesting the board could cherry pick what they want to see by “picking a [destination] pillar which everyone is for and pay someone to put on this event.” The 2025-2026 plan that the TBID discussed and approved last summer explains that TBID funding aims to help “seed” new events that appeal to their identified target audiences and attract new visitors. If the TBID were to shift to “curating” and programming events directly with their budget, this would be a shift in mission and focus for the organization, and unclear if this is possible the way funds are currently allocated.
The board did not definitively answer or make a motion of any of the questions about fund allocation or application guidelines. Rather, the events subcommittee will meet to discuss further and make recommendations.
While the board’s discussions focus on accountability for grantees and impact on overnight stays, currently the TBID has no consistent way to track which events bring visitors to Twentynine Palms. In their meetings they have not discussed, nor explored investing in, a tracking system shared between lodging partners, such as a QR code linked to a digital visitor survey or a booking code event organizers can share with event participants. As Dusastre regularly attends events with other tourism board colleagues, this could also be an opportunity to learn from other cities about how they track these types of metrics.
At the end of the meeting Madrid announced she was stepping down from the events subcommittee for personal reasons, and Uyeda volunteered to take her place. The events committee now consists of Shickler and Uyeda. They plan to meet in the next month to come up with recommendations for updates to application guidelines and whether the application deadline for fall and winter events should be moved up from October 1 to September 1.
No future agenda items were proposed. While Mehta mentioned that fall was also when re-certification for the TBID would be taking place, so far no agenda items have been proposed to discuss the re-certification process. Last year, TBID was re-certified for one year under the Parking and Business Improvement Area Law of 1989, but they intend to move to a five-year recertification process under the Property and Business Improvement District Law of 1994, which will require an investment in internal processes, organization, and stakeholder engagement.
A future meeting date has not yet been announced.
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