Los Angeles County has seen an explosion of hotel-funded tourism marketing districts in recent years as local establishments try to drum up additional tourist and meeting business.

Five of these tourism marketing districts, also known as tourism business improvement districts or TBIDs, have sprung up in the county in the last three years, bringing the total to eight. That’s enough to merit a new separate list of tourism districts in the Business Journal’s annual listing of business improvement districts (see List, page 23).

Tourism marketing districts, or TBIDs, are similar to other BIDs in that they impose a special assessment on a group of businesses – in this case, large hotels. But instead of using the money to spruce up a particular business district as traditional BIDs do, the money is used to fund advertising and marketing campaigns designed to promote the area as a destination for tourists and professional meetings.

The first TBIDs formed more than 20 years ago. But their numbers have grown in the last three years as other sources of funding for tourism promotion have dried up. Since 2009, Burbank, Claremont, Los Angeles, Santa Clarita and Torrance have all created TBIDs.

“So many folks are turning to TBIDs because they provide a stable source of funding for tourism promotion,” said John Lambeth, president of Civitas Advisors Inc., a Sacramento BID consulting firm that has helped form several of the districts in the county.

For hotel owners, there’s little downside to joining a tourism BID. That’s because they pass on the cost as a line-item charge on guest bills. The assessments generally range between 1 percent and 3 percent of gross room rates, so on a typical room that costs $200 a night, the assessment would be about $4 a night, not enough to prompt guests to balk at the charge.

A change in state law in 2005 made it easier to form tourism BIDs. Instead of requiring hotel owners to approve the assessments each year, TBIDs can now be formed for a five-year term; after that, they can go up for renewal at 10-year intervals. That reduces the funding uncertainty for longer-range planning and also cuts down on paperwork.

The money is used to market a specific city as a destination for domestic and foreign tourists, and for professional associations to hold meetings and conventions at participating hotels.

The largest TBID by far is the Los Angeles Tourism Marketing District, which assesses 165 hotels and motels in city limits with at least 50 rooms. The district formed last year, with assessments of 1.5 percent of gross room revenue beginning in August; the first-year budget is $11.5 million.

The L.A. district in September hired veteran marketing executive Don Skeoch as its chief marketing officer and in November signed Campbell Ewald Advertising as its primary ad agency.

Skeoch said last week that the first check from the hotel assessments collected by the city was due to arrive “any day now,” and that the district’s first ad campaign would begin this spring.

Burbank’s TBID, which formed last year, is also set to launch its first ad campaign in coming months. The district consists of 15 hotels with at least 25 rooms. The assessment is 1 percent of gross room rates and is expected to bring in $520,000 during its first full year.

Tom Whelan, general manager of the Hotel Amarano in Burbank, said no one in Burbank had previously marketed the city as a tourist and meeting/convention destination. Other cities have used their hotel bed taxes to fund marketing campaigns. But Burbank’s 10 percent hotel bed tax went straight to the city’s general fund to pay for basic services.

“We’re the media capital of the world, but we just weren’t promoting this,” Whelan said.

Some hotel owners have expressed skepticism about the value of TBIDs, especially whether the marketing campaigns would actually translate into more people booking rooms in their hotels.

But at least one skeptic has changed his tune: Barrett Patel, owner of the Best Western Avita Suites Hotel in Torrance. No one in Torrance had ever marketed the city as a tourist destination before, so it was uncharted territory when the district was formed in 2010.

“I had concerns about how the money was going to be spent and the performance metrics used to measure the effectiveness of the ads and the marketing,” Patel said.

But after one year, his room occupancy rate went up substantially. Patel said he’s convinced that the Torrance TBID drives more business his way.

Patel, who is treasurer of the Torrance TBID, said he’s now such a fan of the districts that he’s leading an effort to form one in Manhattan Beach, where he also owns a hotel.

“Look, this is not just about improving our occupancy rates,” Patel said. “You get more tourists into the city, they go out and spend money at restaurants and shops and that benefits everyone.”