View From Afar S2, E5: IPW 2026 | John Urdi on Why Huntington Beach Is Having a Moment

How does Surf City USA reintroduce itself to the world—and convert day-trippers into destination visitors—with the World Cup and LA Olympics on the horizon? John Urdi, the new president and CEO of Visit Huntington Beach, has a plan: privatize the funding, expand international reach, and tell a bigger story about the 10 miles of coastline behind the headlines.

In this IPW 2026 episode, recorded live from the conference floor in Fort Lauderdale, Urdi sits down with Afar deputy editor Michelle Baran—who grew up in Huntington Beach—to talk about his move from Mammoth Lakes to the coast, the Live Between Waves campaign, and how a destination that’s drawn polarizing national attention is leading with what’s there.

Transcript

Michelle Baran: I’m Michelle Baran, deputy editor at Afar, and welcome to View From Afar, a podcast that spotlights the people and ideas shaping the future of travel. And in this special series, I’m coming to you live from the floor of IPW, the annual travel conference organized by the U.S. Travel Association to share the best of America with the rest of the world. It’s a pivotal moment right now. The U.S. is preparing to co-host the FIFA World Cup and celebrate its 250th anniversary, even as international travel arrivals are down and global events are affecting travel across the world. But the reasons we travel haven’t changed. In fact, they’ve become more important than ever. Joy and connection. So we’re talking to industry leaders about how their destinations are pivoting in a tough world, how they’re giving travelers experiences to smile about and making visitors feel welcome.

This episode is a really exciting one for me, and that’s because I’ll be talking with John Urdi, president and CEO of Visit Huntington Beach. This SoCal destination, maybe you know it as Surf City, USA, also happens to be where I grew up. This past November, John was tapped to helm the beach town’s marketing arm after serving as president and founding CEO of Mammoth Lakes Tourism since 2010. Apparently, John only likes to represent beautiful mountain or beach towns, and who could blame him? So we dig into how he’s bringing his past experience at both Mammoth Lakes and in organizations like the U.S. Travel Association, and Visit California to Huntington Beach. Plus, his thoughts on tourism growth, the ways that HB is leaning into diversity, and his vision for this iconic surf town.

Well, welcome, John. It’s so great to have you.

John Urdi: Thanks for having me. This is great.

Michelle: So first off, you and your wife were married in Huntington Beach. And I have to ask as a HB local myself, where did you guys get married?

John: Well, you know, it started we actually met at a Cal Travel conference at Paséa Hotel right on the beach there back in 2021, right after Covid, like first meeting out of Covid and fell in love and got married on the beach at Tower 11.

Michelle: Oh wow.

John: I’m sure you know exactly where that is. And, uh yep. Got married at Tower 11, then had our party up at the Offshore 9 at Hilton. It was fantastic.

Michelle: Oh, I love a good HB romance story.

John: And that it was.

Michelle: So you’re a relatively new resident in HB. You hail from Mammoth before this. Um, what drew you from the mountains to the sea?

John: You know, I’ve been in the mountains my entire life, and the opportunity to go from one iconic destination to another was really an amazing opportunity. And I have obviously, I have a personal connection to Huntington Beach, and I really felt there was great opportunity to take that destination to the next level, like we did in Mammoth Lakes, which was really a challenge and I think a great opportunity. So I’ve got probably one more ten year, twelve year run in me, and I really want to make a difference in Huntington.

Michelle: So what? Give me an idea of like, what are some of the things that you want to accomplish, you know, kind of coming into this new role, given what you did in Mammoth, like, how are you going to bring some of those learnings to Huntington Beach?

John: Yeah, absolutely. I did some, um, I guess we call it pioneering funding in Mammoth Lakes. And so one of the opportunities down there is to privatize our funding with the hotels. And so that helps us be a little bit more nimble, streamlined. Um, and then that allows us a little bit more funding as well to go after more of these international markets. We, we really have great opportunities in places like Japan and Australia that we don’t have representation in right now. And I think that we can really expand that, not to mention just even domestically bringing people to the beach.

Michelle: Mhm. I’m curious how big the domestic market is versus the international market in Huntington Beach.

John: And Huntington Beach is really a lot of domestic market. And you know, you growing up there, you probably know there are a lot of folks that come in for the day. And so the destination traffic is really fairly low. I think our overnight traffic is only 25 percent of our business. So you have a lot of folks that come in, bring their coolers with their beers and their, uh, their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, maybe pay for parking and go home. So we really need to figure out how we can fill the hotels and that destination traffic. So really driving with working with the airlines. Our conference sales team has done an amazing job. Two years ago, they were bringing in 56,000 room nights to the hotels. Last year they did about 87,000. So, you know, new director of sales came in two years ago. She’s done an amazing job. And I think that there’s really just great opportunity to continue to drive that team to get those numbers up, even over 100,000 in the next couple of years. And my job is to make sure they have the resources.

Michelle: And you mentioned this partnering with the hotels and a funding model. How does that work?

John: Yeah. So the funding model is a tourism business improvement district, a TBID. They’re fairly prevalent around the world. We have 120 of them in California. I think there are 215 in the world. They originated in West Hollywood back in I think 1994, ‘88 somewhere in there. And it’s a mechanism where the hotels are assessed the fee, but they can pass it along to the visitor. And so the visitor is actually funding the organization to help to help us provide not only the marketing, but also looking at the infrastructure that can help the visitor experience things like safety and transportation, things like those. But really the the tools to drive the marketing to help us get those international and get those destination visitors to come visit.

Michelle: So like a classic kind of tourist tax that a lot of destinations implement, which is becoming, I think, increasingly popular too, with like overtourism and creating sort of a sustainable tourism model and destinations as well.

John: Yeah, exactly. The difference between this and a tax is it’s not voted in by the public. It’s voted in by the the people that pay it. And so within California, they, it needs to benefit the people that pay into it. And right now we have the hotels. Currently we have the hotels in the short term rentals that pay into it. Moving forward with a new model, it may just be the larger hotels that are really paying the lion’s share now. And they see the biggest impact. So.

Michelle: Right. So, you know, before we get into more of the amazing things about Huntington Beach, I have to be honest, it’s sometimes a bit of a complicated place to talk about, at least for me. During and after the pandemic, HB made a lot of headlines for what some might consider polarizing policies. There was an anti mask and vaccine mandate and a pride flag ban. What impact do you think those headlines had on tourism, and how are you working to promote the destination as a place that welcomes all who come?

John: Yeah, you know, it’s interesting because all of that was taken. I took that into consideration when I was interviewing and even interested in the position. And a lot of destinations have those sort of challenges. We had a big opportunity to take that to another level. And my philosophy is I love gardening, and the best way to keep weeds out of your garden is to plant more flowers. And so I think our job is to really drive the positive messages of the ten miles of uninterrupted coastline, you know, really talk about all the great things that that we have there, the four amazing hotels right on the beach, which you don’t get in other places. And I think that big opportunity is really the focus. It’s hard because we do have a lot of things that end up with national headlines that that try and set us back a little bit. And so we just need to work a little bit harder to, to make sure we have that positive message out there.

Michelle: I love that, and I’m going to use that as someone who, you know, lives my life representing Huntington Beach, I’m going to use the gardening analogy because I absolutely love that. So, you know, there’s a lot of competition when it comes to beach cities in Southern California. What are some of the strongest selling points of Huntington as a destination when compared to neighboring cities? We’ve got Newport, Laguna. The list goes on and on.

John: Yeah, I think the biggest thing is really just what I mentioned before, the four hotels that sit directly on the beach. I mean, it’s really something where I love Newport Beach. There’s great food, there’s great shopping, there’s great activity down there, but you don’t really have that, that hotel on the beach. That makes a difference. And the walkable footprint of Huntington Beach. So our offices are in the Kimpton on the north side of the stretch. And really from our office at the Kimpton to the Hyatt is a one mile footprint. And so whether it’s conference business or leisure business, you can come in and you won’t need your car while you’re there. You can walk down the boardwalk on the beach, or you can walk down the path from the Hyatt back into downtown. And it’s just very walkable. It’s got a little bit of everything for everyone. The restaurants are really stepping up. Next time you come back into town, we’ve got some new places.

Michelle: Yeah, you’ll have to give me the latest recommendations.

John: Yeah. Champagne’s Kitchen, which just opened the other day around on Main Street. They. They started in Newport and they. They took over the the IHOP location on Main Street. So as a as a marketer, as much as I love IHOP, I didn’t want to see it on my main street, but it had been there for 30 years or something. And Champagne’s Kitchen came in and they’re, they’re a great new addition.

And so I think the food, the walkability, the hotels right on the beach and the hotels are beautiful. You know, I’ve been fortunate enough to stay in each one of them and had our wedding party at the Offshore 9 at the which was gorgeous. Yeah. And so really just affinity to it. The Kimpton is an eclectic little hotel with their happy hour in the afternoon and record players and all the rooms. And so I think it’s a it’s not a pretentious destination. It’s really something that is approachable. It’s it’s laid back luxury.

Michelle: And the pier too, I love, you know, every time I go home, we almost always go do a walk on the pier as a family just because I mean, there’s not there are piers throughout, but not all of them are intact and you know, as well preserved. So it’s a really great to be able to just literally walk out into the middle of the ocean.

John: So yeah. And we have a new restaurant going out there. Huntington.

Michelle: Oh, really?

John: Yeah. So whatever the shops were that were just before you get to the end of the pier, those have been basically torn down and they’re starting to build this brand new restaurant called Huntington’s.

Michelle: That’d be awesome. Yeah. Literally eating in the middle of the ocean.

John: That’s right.

Michelle: So of course, there’s the eternal rivalry with Santa Cruz that we all know that Huntington Beach is the real Surf City, USA. That rivalry aside, how big of a role does surf culture play in Huntington’s tourism industry? I mean, it’s such an integral part of life in HB.

John: Yeah. You know, it’s a huge, huge part. And I think it’s interesting because coming to the surf side of things and to the beach side of things, it is interesting because I think that people think with Surf City USA that it’s all about surfing and it is all about surfing, but it’s all about the surf culture. And so right now, our campaign that we have out there is called Live Between Waves. Oh, interesting. And so it basically is trying to say, yes, there’s amazing surfing here, but look at all these other great things. We have ten miles of uninterrupted coastline. We’ve got the ten mile boardwalk to ride your bikes down. You’ve got all the fire pits, you’ve got the restaurants. And so it really is trying to talk about the fact that while surfing built the place, it is a big part of it, but it’s something that just speaks to the culture. It doesn’t, you don’t have to be a surfer to come to Huntington Beach. I think it’s very similar to where I came from in the ski industry, where après-ski is for everyone. So après-surf

Michelle: We love après.

John: We’re good for après-surf as well. So, you know, I love watching. I’ve got a friend who’s a daughter is, uh, is a hotshot and, uh, watched her in a competition last week and it’s really fun to watch. I’m never going to be able to, you know, ride waves like that, but it’s great to be part of the culture, but not necessarily feel like you have to surf to do it.

Michelle: Totally. I mean, as someone who’s born and raised there, I am not a surfer, but I absolutely love watching. And it’s an attraction, you know, to just be able to go watch them ride those beautiful waves.

John: Absolutely.

Michelle: Speaking of surfing, I was so excited to hear about a newer annual event in HB called A Great Day in the Stoke that kicked off in 2022 as the largest gathering of black surfers created to make black surfers feel welcome in the water. Does Huntington Beach plan to continue hosting this event this year and beyond? And what’s been the response? I thought it was just such a cool thing.

John: Yeah, it is a super cool thing. I think that also speaks to the, the challenges you mentioned before, where I think that there are some things out there that maybe make Huntington Beach feel like it’s not as welcoming as it is. I am blown away at how welcoming the community is. And, um, Great Day in the Stoke is an example of that. And, you know, it sounds like we’ve got that group coming back again in, in the fall. And it is a great impact for the community. It is something that we’re really proud of. And I think that it really does show the inclusivity that we have in surfing and in Huntington Beach. I think it’s amazing. So I walk to work every morning, it’s a 15-minute walk, and everybody I walk by says, hello.

Michelle: Yeah.

John: You know, it’s it’s pretty, it’s pretty amazing to have a community like that. Right? And, and this event is one of those examples.

Michelle: Yeah, exactly. You mentioned the hotels. I mean, I remember a time when there were no hotels lining the Huntington Beach front. And now there’s such an impressive roster of resorts. Where do you see the resort development? Do you see further development elsewhere in the city as well, or more along the waterfront? Is that the place people should stay, or are there other pockets of Huntington people should stay say as well.

John: Yeah. There are a couple of new things happening now. Um, the Magnolia, I think it’s called Magnolia Coast is a new project that’s going in down to the south, and that’s going to be looks like a 250-room hotel and a number of residential units on the old Magnolia Farm project. And then north up by Bolsa Chica. There’s the CRC property that’s currently the Chevron Oil Development area, and that is looking to be another development where there’s probably looking at a 350-room hotel residential right across from Bolsa Chica, right across from the beach there. And actually, one of the things that I’m excited about there is not only does it take the oil project right off the PCH, but the oil rig that’s closest to shore right there goes away as well.

Michelle: Oh, interesting.

John: So that one, one piece that is somewhat of an eyesore from the beach. I mean it’s obviously it is it’s okay. It’s doing it’s it’s doing its thing, but it’s not, it’s not the most exciting thing to look at when you’re on the beach. Um, but yeah, I was excited to hear that that goes away once they, once they make that development happen.

Michelle: That’s right over by dog beach, right? Correct. Which is another cool, cool thing we have going on.

John: Dog beach is amazing. You know, when you have 1.5 miles of beach just open so your dogs can run and enjoy it? My dog doesn’t do so well. He’s a mountain dog and he, uh, likes to eat sand and then drink the salt water and then throw it all up. It’s great. Fantastic. Uh, so he’s not and he doesn’t play well with other dogs. Okay, but the thousands of dogs that go there every day have a blast.

Michelle: It’s so fun to watch them, like, frolicking in the waves and running through the sand freely.

John: So I wish my dog would do that. And he just does not.

Michelle: Beyond the waterfront, there’s also things going on inland. I think about like Huntington Public Library, an amazing piece of architecture, beautiful piece of art, and the Central Park, there’s, you know, I think people don’t even realize that when with the beach cities, that they also have an inland element that is worth exploring as well.

John: Yeah. Very true. Central Park is amazing. And the library, my, my dad’s an architect and so the library is impressive. And back to the gardening. They have a seed library. Oh, cool. You can actually go in.

Michelle: I didn’t know that.

John: You can go in and get seeds for to start up plants, which is very cool. And the building itself is beautiful. The grounds are beautiful and it’s just a great place to go. There’s a lot of folks out there bird watching and just enjoying the park and walking dogs.

Michelle: And yeah, I tell everyone, you have to go see.

John: It’s a little gem.

Michelle: It is absolutely one of my favorite libraries in the world. So, you know, let’s talk a little bit about technology. AI has exploded in growth this year, obviously. Um, how is your organization and your local tourism businesses dealing with AI’s impact or taking advantage of it and maybe also holding off in some ways?

John: Yeah, I think the biggest places we’re taking advantage of it, whether it’s trying to develop itineraries and really dial things in for travel trade and writers that are coming in. Uh, I use it. I actually had it help me write an agreement the other day for an event program. Obviously, it’s not foolproof. So I have it do some of the basic work and then go in and tweak it to make sure that it really fits what we need to build a brand new website. Our website is definitely in need of a complete rebuild, and part of that will really take a huge AI focus, whether it’s for GEO or for, you know, putting chatbots on there so that we can have people getting the answers they need. And I think people are a little concerned. Well, if it’s asking your, your website questions, why isn’t it going to pull from everywhere in the world and give you wrong information? It really just pulls from your website. So we worked with GuideGeek in Mammoth with Matador and the fencing is that if it’s on your website, that’s where it’s getting the information. So if it’s wrong, it’s our own fault. That’s where it becomes really helpful, where people can really pinpoint that, hey, I’ve got a four year old and an eight year old. We want to do X, Y, and Z. Where should we go? And it really does help. So they don’t have to necessarily just really scramble around a thousand page website to find the information.

Michelle: Right. And it’s interesting you bring up kids because I think about Orange County, there are the individual cities, but then there are sort of the package together. Obviously there’s Disneyland that’s not far away. And so I’m curious just how you work sort of independently as a city and then whether or not you also kind of partner with the other, you know, neighboring cities to create these more maybe comprehensive itineraries to bring people to the entire region. And just curious how that works when there is something like a Disneyland that is such an international draw as well.

John: Yeah, you know, it’s funny, I’ve worked all over the country and California in general is more collaborative than any place I’ve ever worked. And even being in Huntington Beach, we work extremely closely with Visit Anaheim, with Los Angeles tourism, with Palm Springs. So we try and triangulate partnerships as much as possible. If we have travel trade in, if we have media in, we will work with the different destinations because California is so amazing that we have the beach, Anaheim has Disney. Palm Springs is just a whole other element with just incredible golf courses and food and everything else out there. And so we’ll work with each other to tie all of those pieces into a story or a travel travel trip. And the partnerships are amazing.

Michelle: Right? And I was just thinking of that too, thinking about, you know, with the World Cup coming and then LA Olympics. Like there’s feels like there’s a lot of opportunity. I don’t want to say like to piggyback on, but like people are going to be coming into town for this, for these big events and what, you know, and to get away from the crowds or to get out of LA, you know, there’s, I think there is a, you know, if you’re coming across the world to either the World Cup or the Olympics, you’re not coming for a couple of days.

John: No, you’re not. And I think with the Olympics, I think there are a lot of people disappointed that we didn’t get the surfing in Huntington Beach. I think the biggest thing there. So I spent a lot of time with American Skiing Company back in the day in the 2002 Olympics, we had just bought a resort in Park City, and we weren’t. We didn’t have the chance to get any activities from the Olympics, which actually worked out to be a good thing because we were the only place you could go skiing.

Michelle: Oh, interesting. Yeah, right.

John: We’re hosting. So the way we’re positioning it is we’ll be your open beach, and if you want to surf, you can come surf here. If you’re if you’re thinking you’re going to go to San Clemente for the Olympics, I think they’re selling 3,000 tickets for for the event. And it’s a pretty tight area down there, really just taking advantage of that and talk about writing coattails. I’m. I’m the first to take advantage of it. We do about 2.4 million visitors in Huntington Beach. Anaheim does 28 million. And so Mike Waterman, who’s my counterpart in Anaheim, were both good New Hampshire boys. So we get along really well.

Michelle: Oh that’s awesome.

John: And, um, you know, I’ve told him, I said, we’re your beach. Anaheim doesn’t have a beach. And I think that one of the things when you talk about opportunities, Huntington has never really promoted the proximity to Disney as much as it needs to. If you’re looking at staying inland or you’re looking at staying at the Hilton waterfront, I’m going to choose the waterfront. Yeah. You know, and I’ll and I’ll make the trip over to Disney. But to be able to go to the beach, I mean, when you have kids, you can only do so much.

Michelle: Yeah. I mean, I, yeah, and I, I told, I tell people, you know, I grew up in Huntington and I, we went to Disneyland all the time. Like it’s right there. So it really is not as far as you might think. And yes, what better place to retreat to after the parks than right back at the water. So and it’s cooler. You’ve got the breeze. Yeah.

John: And then, you know, there are a lot of things around. So, I mean, we we, um, obviously Costa Mesa is really a great place for arts and Laguna Beach and Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park. And, you know, I think that we’ve just got a lot of things near us that it’s funny. I actually went to my team and I said, don’t feel like you have to just promote the things that are within Huntington Beach.

We did a, my team, we went out on a whale watch in Newport and they said, God, I wish we could promote these. I said, well, do we have whale watching in Huntington Beach? They said, no. I said, well, then we can promote it because I want to have the people that are staying here. I want them to see what’s available to them so that they’re they’re happy to be staying in Huntington Beach. They go down to Newport 20 minutes down the road, go out, do a whale watch, and then come back into the hotel. So really giving the freedom to talk about what we have around us.

Michelle: Right, it makes it more of a dynamic experience. I mean, it’s not like there’s a strict border right there. I mean, the blinds are, you know, sometimes you don’t even know which one you’re in, you know, as you’re driving around. So it does. Yeah. You don’t want to limit yourself. I mean, even Long Beach, you can go up to the aquarium, you know, you can make it so many different things when you incorporate the neighboring areas. So I love that attitude of sort of a healthy sense of competition, but also that collaboration.

John: It is great. I mean, Gary Sherwin down in Newport Beach, he and I work really closely together on, on different programs as well, because we all know that if somebody comes to California and has an amazing experience, it’s just going to benefit us in the long run. Even if they even if they’re staying in Newport and they just came to Huntington for the day, maybe they’re going to say, hey, we need to come back and go to Huntington, or we need to tell our friends that when they go, they need to check this out, and so it makes perfect sense for us all to collaborate.

Michelle: Well, it sounds like one of the biggest opportunities on the horizon is these international events coming. And I’ll be very curious to see how many people end up tacking on some time in Huntington Beach. That’s the part that might get a little competitive, you know, where are they going to go before and after the soccer matches and the Olympic Games.

John: So yeah, no question, no question. We’re we’re, uh, we’re ready for them.

Michelle: Yeah. Well, I can’t wait to see Huntington sort of take off from here. I’m really excited to see where you take it. And thank you so much for joining us. View From Afar.

John: Oh thank you, I appreciate it.

Michelle: Thanks for joining us for this episode of View From Afar. In the show notes, you’ll find links to everything we discussed today, as well as the social media handles and website link for Visit Huntington Beach, and be sure to follow along this week to hear more interviews with industry experts. You can find more views from afar on Afar.com, and be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok. We’re at @AfarMedia. If you enjoyed today’s exploration, I hope you’ll come back for more great interviews. Subscribing always makes that easy, and be sure to rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platforms. It helps other travelers find it.

This has been View From Afar, a production of Afar Media. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene and Nikki Galteland, with assistance from Billie Cohen and me, Michelle Baran. music composition from Epidemic Sound. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media Podcast Network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to their other fine shows like Culture Kids and The Explorers podcast.