Agenda - 03-06-1991 - Laserfiche WebLink

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What Can We Do to Attract Visitor-? Project a conscious official attitude that we want visitors - that we are willing to extend ourselves to help them and to bring them to our communities. We each can't assume that someone else is doing it. We've all got to do it and our community leaders need to stand squarely behind it. Offer gracious hospitality to those who already come. Let's make them fee; welcome with an official voice - someone representing our communities who will say 'Thanks for coming ", "How can we help you ? -, and "Please come again ". Provide better service, information and assistance to those who want to come. We need to make it easier for conference and event planners who are trying to bring their business to our communities. Instead of having them burn up the phone lines to many individual providers of visitor facilities and services, give them a central point of contact to facilitate and coordinate the many details of their event. What Will It Cost to Establish a Visitor Development Authority? Based upon the Boulder, CO, example and those of other communities, a new organization could cost approximately $150,000 in startup for each of the first two years of operation to establish a permanent infrastructure. After startup, it will cost an estimated $200,000 per year for a full time, permanently funded program with the principal increase being for programs and marketing. These figures could be significantly lowered by "piggybacking" the Visitor Development Authority with existing represent- ational organizations such as the Chapel Hill /Carrboro Chamber of Commerce, the Hillsborough Chamber of Commerce, the Chapel Hill/Carrboro Downtown Commission or the UNC Visitors' Center. Where Will the Money Come From? There are a number of possibilities: • Provide a larger allocation of the current hotel occupancy tax to fund a Visitor Development Authority. • Increase the hotel occupancy tax, with the full increase going to fund a Visitor Development Authority. • Institute a prepared meal tax with some or all of it going to fund a Visitor Development Authority. • Set up a sliding scale on either occupancy tax or prepared meal tax where the first so many dollars of tax revenue goes to a Visitor Development Authority and all proceeds above that are split between the Visitor Development Authority and other governmental needs on a percentage basis. • Convince local hotels, restaurants and other interested businesses to contribute matching or seed money for several years to get the program off the ground. All of these alternatives are seen as a way to "prime the pump" - to increase visitor expenditures in our communities - by offering better visitor services.