Parish might reduce financing to the tourist commission in favor of efforts to boost economic development
Tourism officials and hoteliers in St. Tammany Parish appear ready to battle a possible move by parish government to reduce financing to the parish tourist commission so more money could be put toward efforts to boost economic development. Howard Daigle, who leads Parish President Pat Brister's transition team, said last week that the team is examining the allocation of money the state gives back to the parish from the state hotel-motel taxes paid by people staying in parish hotels, motels and bed-and-breakfasts.
View full sizeA visitor from Watson heads for the surf near the cabins her family rented for a week in Fontainebleau State Park in 2009.In normal years -- those not skewed by an influx of disaster recovery visitors -- the state sends about $1.3 million to the parish, said Donna O'Daniels, executive director of the St. Tammany Parish Tourist & Convention Commission.
Daigle told the commission at a lengthy and confrontational meeting Thursday that the team is studying whether the division of those funds between tourism and economic development should be adjusted. The money is divided among the tourist commission, the St. Tammany Economic Development Foundation, the Northshore Harbor Center near Slidell, the Castine Center near Mandeville, and smaller government events and performing arts centers.
The tourist commission gets 60 percent of the money, while the economic development foundation gets 15 percent. The remaining 25 percent goes to government-sponsored events centers in the parish in a complicated formula.
Daigle noted that a study has shown that the national average for tourism spending is $350 per hotel room per year. In St. Tammany, though, the amount spent is $700 per hotel room per year, he said.
The tourist commission's $2 million budget far outpaces spending by Jefferson and Tangipahoa parishes, which spend about $975,000 each per year, Daigle said. It also outpaces the Economic Development Foundation's $400,000 budget, he said.
New emphasis by Brister
The transition team plans to recommend a significant change in the structure of the economic development arm of parish government, and this is where any additional money would be devoted, Daigle said. The money would not go to the Economic Development Foundation, he said.
Brister said during her campaign and again before taking office that she planned to place a stronger emphasis on economic development. And adding to that sentiment, Daigle said at a meeting of the transition team in November that most of the new business growth in the parish has come as a result of the parish selling itself.
He also noted the tough economic times ahead, saying the team would analyze the financing streams now present and whether those would continue to flow into the parish during the next five years, he said.
Thursday's tourist commission meeting featured the presentation of an economic and marketing impact study undertaken by the panel's consultant. However, Daigle repeatedly cited a more recent study by a consultant financed by the economic development foundation.
The meeting also featured some harsh words from commissioners who said their opposition to any recommendation to reduce the funding of tourism marketing will be "vociferous."
Daigle said neither Brister nor the transition team is discounting the importance of money spent by visitors nor the "good work" by the tourism officials. The question is whether visitors are being drawn to the parish through the marketing activities of the commission or whether they are coming for another reason, he said.
He also wondered whether a "robust tourism program" takes as much funding as the commission's current budget, which grew from about $1 million to $2 million annually after Hurricane Katrina.
Daigle noted that the commission could raise its other main source of revenue, the parishwide hotel-motel occupancy tax. The tax is set at 3 percent, but the commission could increase it to 4 percent.
Pegging visitors' worth
Depending on the study, between 53 percent and 60 percent of visitors staying in hotels in the parish are business travelers, a group Daigle said does not appear to be influenced as much by the commission's marketing as it does by the parish's physical location.
Tourist commission consultant Judy Randall of Randall Travel Marketing Inc. told the commission Thursday that an 18-month study researching who visits the parish and what opportunities exist to increase both visitors and their spending while in the parish showed that for every $1 spent on tourism in St. Tammany, $7.50 comes back to the parish in terms of sales tax alone.
Valerie Waeltz, a Homewood Suites employee who represented the hoteliers at the meeting, said that amounts to $225 per household in the parish, meaning homeowners pay that much less in taxes thanks to visitor spending.
Waeltz said hoteliers in the parish will oppose any attempt to reduce money to tourism marketing.
In an email after the meeting, Daigle said the "sense of the transition team" is that more than $1 million but less than the current $2 million "would be an appropriate budget to pursue the marketing strategies outlined" by Randall during the meeting.
He said his purpose at the meeting was "fact finding" in nature, to learn the opinions of the tourist commissioners, and that the transition team needs to do further study before making recommendations to Brister.
The position of the commissioners and hoteliers will be communicated to Brister by the transition team, he said.
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Ann Barks can be reached at abarkspr@bellsouth.net. Christine Harvey can be reached at charvey@timespicayune.com or 985.645.2853.