The city of San Luis Obispo has taken its first steps toward unleashing a new marketing campaign aimed at bringing more tourists to the region.

After forming a citywide tourism business improvement district, or BID, last year, its new board has hired Level Studios, a San Luis Obispo-based digital marketing agency, to spearhead outreach efforts. The $850,000 contract was inked last month and will run until June 2010.

“The irony is we’ve been in San Luis Obispo County since 1998 and founded in Santa Barbara County in 1995, and we have really not done a lot of local business,” said Tom Adamski, Level’s president and chief executive officer. “People knew us but they knew us from a distance, so this was the first opportunity that we could bid on a local product.”

To view the rest of this story and all other full offerings in the Business Times, see this week’s print version or SUBSCRIBE for $49.99 today.