Shifts in how Redding will be marketed as a tourism destination include an emphasis on sports

The Redding Tourism Marketing Group will retire its public-facing Choose Redding brand as part of an effort to consolidate the city’s tourism marketing under the Visit Redding name, according to a press release provided by RTMG CEO Jennifer Johnston. 

The city contracts with the Redding Chamber of Commerce to operate Visit Redding, which has a central purpose of promoting leisure tourism for the city. RTMG is a separate tourism marketing agency that has historically worked closely with the chamber, with a focus on attracting meetings, conventions, group travel and sporting events that generate overnight hotel stays. The two organizations function as a dual-engine tourism marketing system.

The sunsetting of Choose Redding unifies Redding’s tourism marketing under the Visit Redding brand while preserving separate funding, staff and organizational roles. Although the public brand is changing, RTMG will continue all of its operations behind the scenes, Johnston said.

The move follows heavy investments by the City of Redding in making downtown a destination for visitors, with new housing, streetscape projects and attractions complementing tourism marketing efforts. By creating a more unified tourism front, RTMG and the city hope to invest more directly in tourism initiatives, Johnston said, continuing to attract more visitors to Redding and boost the local economy. 

RTMG’s board approved the change in April after conversations with chamber leadership, saying the consolidation will allow visitors to interact with Visit Redding through a single website, social media presence and shared downtown tourism office.

“Our goal is simply to remove confusion,” Johnston wrote to Shasta Scout, in reference to the consolidation process. She said that while the decision was not primarily motivated by cost savings, eliminating the need to maintain separate websites and social media platforms will also save staff time and marketing resources.

In addition to the brand consolidation, RTMG also announced the launch of the Redding Sports Commission, which will recruit and support sporting events that are intended to increase overnight stays in Redding. The organization’s former Choose Redding social media accounts will be rebranded under the new commission, and the commission will be led by Tim Bauer, who was already leading RTMG’s sports tourism efforts. 

Why were there two tourism brands to start with?

In 2021, the city awarded the Visit Redding tourism marketing contract to the Redding Chamber of Commerce. The contract was previously held by the Shasta Cascade Wonderland Association.

SCWA and RTMG are separate organizations, though they operate with the same staff, according to Johnston. When the Redding Chamber of Commerce began managing the Visit Redding contract, RTMG decided to launch Choose Redding as its public-facing brand. 

Funding streams for the two organizations have historically been, and will continue to be, separate. RTMG is funded through the Redding Tourism Business Improvement District, a 2% assessment paid by lodging businesses like hotels and Airbnbs that generates about $1.5 million annually, the press release states. 

Visit Redding, operated through a tourism marketing contract with the Redding Chamber of Commerce, focuses primarily on leisure travel and is funded through the city’s transient occupancy tax. It’s a 10% tax that hotels and short-term rentals charge their guests, with the money going back to the city.  

Why consolidate now? And what might the future of Redding tourism look like?

Johnston said that while there was no formal consumer research study behind the decision, RTMG had received consistent feedback from the larger tourism community that suggested that the two brands were causing confusion. She mentioned routinely hearing questions during tourism conferences and industry meetings from professionals who struggled to understand the relationship between the organizations. 

“When prospective visitors, meeting planners, or event organizers don’t know which of multiple tourism organizations to contact, it creates unnecessary confusion and can ultimately cost Redding business,” Johnston wrote.

The change comes as the City of Redding continues to debate and rethink its approach to tourism. The past few years have seen a revitalization of downtown Redding as the city has undertaken major capital projects. These include the addition of hundreds of new residential and commercial units, reconstructing streets for bike- and pedestrian-friendly access, reopening portions of the historic street grid and the debut of the new Redding Public Market. 

Promotional efforts led by nonprofit organizations like Viva Downtown have worked to encourage regular events like First Fridays that support downtown business. But the work to make Redding a visitor destination extends beyond leisure tourism — RTMG’s new sports commission represents a new wave of efforts to draw in visitors through major sporting events.

Johnston wrote that sports tourism is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the visitor economy — with projected growth estimated at 17.5% between 2023-2030. The Redding Sports Commission formalizes sports-related tourism work that RTMG has already been doing, she said, adding that “Redding has reached a point where it deserves a dedicated program.”

The sports commission primarily aims to attract and host large-scale sporting events in Redding, something that will bring more visitors to the area, filling hotel beds. These events have historically included the Redding Marathon, Shasta Dam Grand Prix and Whiskeytown Regatta. 

This year, Redding will host the IRONMAN 70.3 Northern California as the commission’s flagship event. RTMG has invested nearly $500,000 to help bring the event to Redding, Johnston said, and she anticipates it will bring “thousands of visitors and millions of dollars in economic impact to the region.”

The event doesn’t just aim to fill hotel beds. According to the CEO of the Shasta Economic Development Corporation, Rebecca Baer, that kind of advertising has the potential to bring tourists back to Redding for longer stays, and could even encourage some to stay as residents. 

“Tourism/Visitation already plays an important role in our regional economy,” she wrote to Shasta Scout. “But (it) also has an opportunity to be a major catalyst for population and economic growth.”

Maya Nelson is a student at Brown University. She’s reporting for Shasta Scout as a 2026 summer intern with support from the Nonprofit Newsroom Internship Program — created by The Scripps Howard Fund and the Institute for Nonprofit News.

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