More tourists will be coming to Whidbey Island and spending their money during the fall-to-spring off-season if a new marketing campaign works as intended.

Members of the islandwide lodging tax committee recently hired a Seattle marketing firm, Big Bang, to create a $250,000 marketing program for Whidbey Island.

Oak Harbor City Council member Sheilah Crider, who is the city’s representative on the committee, said the advertising effort will focus on “the shoulder season, when we don’t have anyone coming here.”

The committee is funded by lodging taxes from hotels, motels and bed and breakfast establishments. A couple of years ago, the state Legislature passed a law allowing local governments to implement lodging taxes to 4 percent, up from 2 percent.

Island County, Oak Harbor and Coupeville raised their lodging tax the additional 2 percent in order to create a combined marketing program for the entire county. Langley is contributing 1 percent toward the program.

According to Crider, the taxes raise $180,000 to $250,000 a year. The committee that governs that money is made up of representatives from the county, the cities, the hotel industry, chambers of commerce, and bed and breakfasts.

The committee initially received 28 proposals from marketing firms around the nation. Members winnowed the number down to eight, then four and finally picked Big Bang.

While Big Bang wasn’t her first choice, Crider said the firm “definitely did their homework on Island County.” The company’s proposal included a picture of people in a canoe heading off into the sunset, she said, with the tongue-in-cheek theme that the county is where people can go to “do nothing.”

Crider said the firm is fine-tuning their campaign and will unveil it at a meeting in October.

The marketing effort will focus on bringing people to the island during the months, Crider said, “between Labor Day and Holland Happening” celebration in Oak Harbor.

“There are events we have during this time that aren’t advertised very well,” she said, referring specifically to the fact that there are many harvest and Christmas events.

There will be TV and print advertising targeting people who live within a 125-mile drive of the island. There are also plans for a Web site with a questionaire about the island’s activities.

If the marketing program takes off, Crider hopes the city of Oak Harbor will get more serious about off-season celebrations.

“Why don’t we something more for the Christmas season in Oak Harbor?” she said. “Why do we let Coupeville continue to do it all?”