Beverly Hills Vice Mayor John Mirisch, a fourth-generation resident of the city, said his hometown has always been “a place where the world meets.”

Mirisch told the audience at the Beverly Hills Global Summit that he wants to stay true to “the notion of Beverly Hills as home.” (photo by Luke Harold)

“We’re kind of like a small village, but we’re a very special village,” he said. “We’re a cosmopolitan village. It’s got a combination of small town connectedness and international glamor, if you will, but also international cultural values.”

Mirisch joined the city’s business leaders on Jan. 24 at the Waldorf Astoria for the Beverly Hills Global Summit, sponsored by the Beverly Hills Conference and Visitors Bureau, to discuss ways to ensure the city’s future as a top destination for businesses, visitors and how it can maintain its high quality of life for residents.

“Really the most important thing we can do going forward is to keep it real, is to stay true to our identity, stay true to what we are, not to try to be what we’re not,” Mirisch said.

The city has been looking for ways to adapt to the changes in the travel, entertainment and retail industries. The BOLD (Beverly Hills Open Later Days) events that have taken place each summer and holiday season since 2017 were the first step toward attracting more shoppers and adding more entertainment for residents and visitors, who typically have to leave Beverly Hills for late night dining, shopping and entertainment. Councilwoman Lili Bosse, who initiated BOLD, and other city leaders have been saying they want to make sure the city continues to evolve as it faces competition from the Century City mall, newly renovated Beverly Center and online retailers. Tourism continues to thrive, creating economic opportunities for the entire region. A record-setting 48.5 million visitors came to Los Angeles County in 2017, adding $22.7 billion to the local economy, according to the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board. In 2016, Beverly Hills received $57 million in tourism-related taxes, according to a study conducted by the Conference and Visitors Bureau.

“Keeping relevant is not about one thing that we do differently now, but it’s a program we put in place as to how we continue to evolve,” said Clyde McKendrick, chief innovation officer at Canvas8, a New York-based firm that works with companies such as Nike and Google to analyze the market.

He mentioned how the millennial generation has placed a greater priority on experiences instead of material possessions when they spend money, changing the ways high-end brands like Gucci brand themselves.

“Even walking down Rodeo Drive,” McKendrick said, “you’ll see how many of those high fashion brands have embraced street culture and pop culture.

“It’s a byproduct of a generation that didn’t go in to be successful in work, they wanted to be successful in life because perhaps either the job opportunities weren’t there or they had other distractions, and the internet was a great way for them to start to explore humor, absurdism, surrealist aspects,” McKendrick continued. “That’s why you start to see these things manifest as playfulness in luxury.”

Mirisch, who will become the city’s mayor later this spring as part of the council’s annual reorganization, said he’ll continue to support a revitalized shopping and entertainment culture, as well as burgeoning technologies such as driverless vehicles. He added that he wants to stay true to “the notion that Beverly Hills is home.”

“When I say home, it’s not just for our residents,” he said. “It’s for the people who visit here as well.”