Today was Tourism Day at the Capitol

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gillumhouse

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WV Tourism has a day during the Legislative Session that we set up tables to tell people visiting the Capitol and the Legislators about tourism in West Virginia. It is to show how much we have and what we do so the Legislature will give the Division a nice chunk of change in the Budget. Last year Tourism got an extra $14M more than was originally Budgeted. We are asking for another $14M increase because studies showed a return of about $10 for every $1 spent. We had a 9.9% growth in tourism dollars last year.
My Sate spends dollars on studies and then GIVES the Industry the reports. They work with us to market us and the State.
In 2019, Tourism sent a staff photographer to Gillum House to take photos (they will be going to all the members of WVBBA by the end of 2020) and thos photos were shared with me to use howeverAND I was ableto send them to WV Executive magazine for an article they are doing on GH.
Does the Tourism Division of your State help you? (And many at Tourism know me by name & the GH) What does your State do?
 
We go back and forth on being the number one or two industry in the state. I don’t see there being a lot of money available for promotion. It depends on who’s running things.

We went a long time ago to the tourism day and found it was a bust. Maybe it’s improved since then.
i think it was last year tourism hit over $1 billion in the state. We’ve met some of the players, but no one knows us personally.
 
In Vermont we had our Tourism Day at the statehouse yesterday as well. This year we are pushing hard for an additional $500,000 in funding to promote the Vermont brand, as other New England states' spending is fast outstripping ours.
It will be an uphill fight. Our lawmakers often take tourism for granted, and see the Rooms & Meals tax as nothing but a cash cow they can keep milking and raising, quickly drying out the cow. We have some allies in the House economic development caucus, but the real power is the Appropriations people, who seem more focused on other projects.
In all, our lawmakers over the past decade haven't been much help to us. They ignore laws that could create a level playing field for inns and STRs, they keep trying to raise the rooms and meals tax, which is already higher than some neighboring states, and they keep regulations in place that make it hard for inns like us to expand.
 
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