The Colorado Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau is launching a $200,000 advertising campaign aimed at luring tourists back to the region after the Waldo Canyon fire.

“The public perception was that the Front Range of Colorado was on fire and was going up in smoke,” said Doug Price, president and CEO of the convention and visitors bureau.

Changing that perception won’t happen right away, but the CVB hopes to start turning the ship around with the new campaign. It’s pulling $100,000 from its reserves to fund the campaign and hopes to raise another $100,000, or more, through donations.

“It’s starting to come back,” Price said of tourism in the region. “I drove through Garden of the Gods the other day and I was pleased to be in a traffic jam. There was a bus in front of me and a car with Texas plates behind me. I just wanted to hug everyone.”

But the effect of the fire was profound, he said: The Broadmoor hotel lost 4,000 room nights in July, primarily from group business, and visitors to local tourist attractions were down anywhere from 18 to 50 percent in the month.

“It’s hard to put a dollar value on what it cost us,” Price said. “I can tell you, there are a lot of businesses that are teetering right now.”

Price said the CVB has spoken with the city about boosting the bureau’s share of the lodging and auto rental tax for 2013, but, he said, the city is wrestling with the financial impact of the fire on its own budget. The CVB currently receives two-thirds of the lodging tax revenue to promote the city.

The bureau’s advertising budget for 2012 was originally $901,200, most of which has already been spent, said Amy Long, the bureau’s vice president of marketing and membership. About $125,000 of the new advertising will go to online media, primarily targeting visitors within the state, and another $75,000 will be spent on traditional media, including billboards, airport signs, and radio and television advertising in places such as Texas and Kansas. The campaign should run through the end of October, Long said.

Businesses or individuals interested in donating to the campaign should call CVB chief financial officer Jim Cassidy at 685-7628.

On a smaller level, the CVB is selling “Welcome Back” bumper stickers for $2, with the proceeds going to relief organizations and has set up a “Welcome Back” website at welcomebackcs.com.