The budget analysts at Budget Schmudget sound like they are holding their noses as they review the Washington State Senate’s budget proposal. Their director Remy Trupin released a short statement that reads in part: “It bets against our future through robbing investments in health, public safety, and family security. It is a bad deal for all Washingtonians.”
Trupin left out tourism in the first part of his list. While the proposal does include a “sales tax exemption on the purchase of clay targets by non-profit gun clubs,” there’s no money in it for the Washington Tourism Alliance or any tourism programs. Tourism, according to the New York Times, is the fourth-largest industry in our state, but in 2011, to save $1.8 million, the state closed its tourism office. That’s when the private Washington Tourism Alliance formed.
The WTA is setting up its own tourism marketing program, but had asked for a one-time appropriation of almost $1.3 million for the 2013-15 biennium, to bridge the two years before it could fund the program through participant assessments. (For contrast, Wisconsin spent almost $10 million in 2010, Illinois, $44 million. “At any time when the economy is tough, you have to hunker down and advertise,” said Wisconsin’s governor Scott Walker, explaining an increase in the tourism budget.)
During the recession, heavy-hitter California’s tourism budget jumped to in excess of $50 million. There, the state tourism office acts as a sort of treasurer for the non-profit California Travel and Tourism Commission, collecting the car rental tax and business assessments that fund the CTTC. But even so, the state’s office maintains a budget of close to $1 million.
Plaintively, the WTA is asking those interested to contact their legislative representatives and emphasize two glaringly obvious points: Tourists spend money (nearly $17 billion in Washington in 2012) and that money is taxed (resulting in more than $1 billion in local/state tax revenue the same year). Secondarily, those tourism dollars fund 153,300 jobs (themselves worth $4.7 billion). By any spend-money-to-make-money metric, tourism pays off handsomely, but the Legislature has been more interested in hacking away at budgets than assessing how to spend its money wisely.
While you’re at it, speaking of tourism and giving legislators an earful, you might want to mention that when the state parks system is underfunded by more than $200 million, a $7 million parks allowance isn’t the answer.
I’ve always been amazed at how our state and Seattle in particular takes tourists for granted. For instance, during the waterfront trolley debate the arguments focused on ridership and transportation efficiency and never considered how fun it is to ride an old streetcar when you visit a city.
In the meantime a cheery young Canadian hands me a glossy pamphlet telling me how awesome Vancouver is, and how fun it would be to ride the train up for the weekend. Oh, and here are some discounted tickets and a list of great hotels near the train station.
Where are our cheery young Seattlites standing on streetcorners of Vancouver and Portland handing out pamphlets?
Where are our cheery young Seattleites period! :)
(sigh) Google says we don’t have any. Clearly we need to start importing them from sunnier, more cheerful regions. Or Canada.
Lend-lease program!