Travel Expenses

Washingtons tourism industry has long lamented how little the state spends promoting its attractions and accommodations when compared to others.

We used to say we were 53rd out of 50 states, recalls Jane Kilburn, public affairs director for the Port of Seattle. It was pitiful.

So how much lower down in the rankings will Washington fall, now that the state has closed its tourism marketing office and cut the budget to zero?

Thats the question the newly formed Washington Tourism Alliance and the industry are trying to answer with state government now out of the travel-promotion business.

The tourism promotion office, which had been tucked into the Department of Commerce, fell victim to efforts by the governor and Legislature to close a $5 billion budget deficit, even though its contribution to that deficit$1.8 million a yearwas comparatively small.

The tourism industry appears resigned to the new reality. Were already down this path. The decisions been made, says George Schweitzer, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Spokane-based Red Lion Hotels.

A statewide umbrella organization for tourism marketing is just really, really important, says Tammy Blount, president and chief executive of the Tacoma Regional Convention & Visitor Bureau. The farther away our customers are, the more important that umbrella becomes.

For an example of what they dont want to see happen, industry officials point to Colorado, which in the 1990s closed its state tourism-promotion office only to see tax revenue from that sector swoon. Tourists dont just show up at your door, Schweitzer explains. Theyve got choices.

Tourism marketing is what puts a destination like Washington on that menu.

Schweitzer points out that Washington tourism generates $1 billion a year in tax revenue. Its not small potatoes, he says. Theres a lot to lose if we dont do our best to continue to market this state.

Those officials dont need reports or data to remind them of what theyre up against. The state of Montana regularly advertises its tourism attractions on Seattle-area media, including radio, bus signs and billboards along freeways. Idaho paid for an insert in Spokanes The Spokesman-Review to encourage travel to the state.

Well before Governor Chris Gregoire proposed eliminating state tourism marketing, Kilburn says, the industry had already begun talking about how to create a more sustainable funding model.

To further that effort, the industry in March convened its own summit at a SeaTac hotel to discuss a plan to form a new private-sector tourism-promotion entity called the Washington Tourism Alliance. Organizers had hoped that 100 people might show up. More than 500 did.

What eliminating the state tourism office did, Schweitzer says, was cause a large number of people to marshal forces and declare, Its time to step up to the plate and do something about this. We need to be in charge and not have the rug pulled out from under us.

The short-term job of the allianceKilburn and Schweitzer are founding board members, and Blount has been an active volunteer and organizerhas been to provide a place for state tourism marketing efforts: website, databases, media contacts and so on. It has also worked to land and to provide a continuing point of contact for potential visitors as well as the travel and tourism media, crucial elements in marketing the state.

It [tourism promotion] just cant go dark, Kilburn says.

Intermediate-term tasks include building an organization by hiring an interim director and writing bylaws. Those efforts are backed up by an initial group of sponsors. The Port of Seattle, which has a stake in tourism through both the airport, which it operates, and its cruise-ship business, contributed $150,000. The crucial long-term task: figuring out how to generate the money needed to promote Washingtons tourism attractions.

That goal could prove to be a tall order for an industry with thousands of players, from tiny household businesses to huge corporations, with a history of fractiousness.

The challenge, as Schweitzer sees it, is to get everyone whos a beneficiary in the industry to hold hands and join in and accept this as a great opportunity to revitalize marketing for tourism within our state….Its an easy statement to make, but its been easier said than done. There have been some competing entities that have caused those who were beneficiaries to not work cooperatively. This is forcing everyone to say, Weve got to put all that aside and march arm in arm and make this work.

To make it work, the alliance will have to come up with a funding model that doesnt leave any geographic region or subsector of the industry feeling left out or paying what it considers an unfair share of the cost of marketing. It also has to come up with a system of self-assessment that isnt a tax. The industry would control this sytem and ensure it gets enough compliance to eliminate the free-rider problem.

If we remain strictly a membership organization, it will be difficult to come up with a sustainable funding model thats not subject to the vagaries of the economy, Schweitzer says. Typically, when you have economic pressures, youll see those discretionary expenses dry up, and once again youre back to a situation where youre having to deal with far less money than is required to do the job.

The easiest approach would be to slap an additional fee on hotel and motel rooms or car rentals. But many other businesses benefit from the money that tourists spend, and the thinking is they ought to contribute to the effort, too.

It shouldnt be strapped on the back of any specific sector in this industry unfairly, Schweitzer says. Lodging often carries the tax.

In devising its plan, the alliance might expand existing local tourism promotion areas already in place, or reach out to product and commodity groups, such as the Washington Wine Commission. Or it might look toward Californias Travel and Tourism Commission, a private, nonprofit entity that levies assessments ($650 per $1 million in annual tourism revenue) not just on hotels, restaurants and rental cars, but also on a long list of venues and activities, including museums, retailers, arts venues, performances, fairs and festivals. The commission says it derives its register of assessable enterprises from business lists, promotional publications, on-site identification surveys and internet listings.

The result: California, admittedly a much larger state than Washington, spends more than $50 million a year on tourism marketing. To have something similar in Washington will require some governmental regulation, Schweitzer says, as well as industry buy-in.

Is that amount of involvement possible in this state? Encouraged by the attendance at the travel summit and the number of people who have volunteered and contributed since then, Blount thinks it is. The states exit from tourism promotion, she says, is acting as a catalyst to unite an industry that needs to be united.