L.A. joins forces with rivals in tourism advertising blitz.

The impossible has happened: Los Angeles is joining forces with San Diego and San Francisco.

The unlikely troika plans to launch a $2 million ad campaign this winter aimed at attracting more visitors to each city's cultural attractions.

"All three cities share the vision of enhancing awareness of destinations and adding more room nights, so it made sense to us to join forces," said Robert Barrett, associate vice president of culture and tourism for the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau and president of the newly formed California Cultural Tourism Coalition.

"People who visit cultural events and attractions tend to have more money and spend more money than the average tourist, so this is a natural for us to join forces on," he said.

The marketing campaign is being launched by the California Cultural Tourism Coalition, which was formed last year after Barrett got together with his counterparts in San Diego and San Francisco. The group has backing from the National Endowment for the Arts, the arts councils of California and each of the three cities, Hyatt Hotels and American Express Co.

The coalition has retained the Los Angeles office of Globe Media, one of the nation's largest destination marketing firms, to launch a marketing campaign in February that is ultimately budgeted to cost $2 million. Brochures on the three cities' cultural attractions will be sent to members of the travel industry, attendees of cultural events, readers of cultural and travel magazines and American Express cardholders.

The campaign is being timed to ride the momentum of the opening of the new Getty Museum in the hills above Brentwood. The Getty already has garnered worldwide attention and coalition organizers hope that interest will carry over into curiosity about what other cultural venues California has to offer.

"This is a way to promote each other's cities without really competing," said Richard Newirth, director of cultural affairs for the San Francisco Arts Commission. "The goal is to get tourists to stay longer in each city, not longer in one city at the expense of the others."

In San Diego, Victoria Hamilton, executive director of the Commission for Arts and Culture, said she is not concerned that the city's culture will get swallowed by Los Angeles.

"We have our own unique characteristics, and those will be enhanced by this effort," Hamilton said.

Tourism industry players, sensing an undertapped market, have jumped on the cultural tourism bandwagon in recent years. Their goal: to lure tourists beyond the traditional sites in each of the three cities.

Not all local organizations are 100 percent behind the joint campaign. The Los Angeles-based Tourism Industry Development Commission would have preferred a more grassroots approach.

"This is a very good first step, but much more needs to be done to bring attention to community-based arts groups," said TIDC Executive Director Madeline Janis-Aparicio. "This appears to be more of a top-down approach rather than bottom-up."