Proposed law set to abolish Tourism Board | Columbia County | hudsonvalley360.com - Hudson Valley 360
HUDSON — The Common Council discussed supporting a new local law that would in effect eliminate Hudson’s Tourism Board and at the same time amend the city’s lodging tax.
The short-term lodging tax created the need for the nine-person Tourism Board and provided it with a dedicated stream of revenue originally intended to help market the city to potential overnight and day-trip visitors.
The lodging tax was enacted in 2017 and charged a 4% fee to the city’s providers of short-term lodging.
In 2020, a law dictated that the revenue from the lodging tax should be deposited in the city’s general fund. The Common Council now finds, in its effort to be more transparent with the public and provide better accounting, that the Tourism Board should be converted into a Tourism and Events Standing Committee operated under the jurisdiction of the council.
The Tourism Board currently has about $21,000 left over from the approximate $450,000 it received from the lodging tax, 5th Ward Alder Dominic Merante said. The city’s Board of Estimate and Apportionment allocated the Tourism Board an additional $30,000 for 2022.
“This gets rid of unnecessary bureaucracy of having a nine-member tourism board,” Common Council President Tom DePietro said in a meeting Tuesday.
During the meeting, 1st Ward Alder Margaret Morris expressed the necessity for the marketing budget to go toward actually funding activities instead of just advertising the city to outsiders.
DePietro assured her that the money could and would go toward funding activities.
The resolution will come up for a vote by the Common Council in March but first must sit for 30 days before Mayor Kamal Johnson either signs it into law or vetoes it.
In what may be their final interaction, the Common Council in late January unanimously approved a Tourism Board grant of $16,500 to spend on various activities related to a monthly Gallery Crawl.
Ellen D’Arcy Simpson, Susan Eley and Jeremy Bullis, art gallery owners in Hudson, came up with an idea to have local businesses extend their hours on the second Saturday of each month as a way to stimulate the local economy, especially during the slower winter months. The effort is an attempt to bring people to Hudson and mirrors similar initiatives to bolster business in other cities across the country.
Some of the money will go toward minimizing the need for self-transportation for tourists who wish to stay in Hudson and ski at Windham Mountain.
The Common Council authorized Mayor Kamal Johnson to enter into a contract with Johnston Transportation to provide two school buses at the cost of $2,160 for tourists to visit Windham Mountain. The hope is that this will drive added foot traffic to the Second Saturday Gallery Crawl, and to restaurants and shops throughout the city.
Second Saturdays in Hudson involves a hands-on collaboration between local and regional businesses to produce bustling weekend activities that will attract overnight stays that consequently increase the amount of lodging and sales tax revenue the city produces.
source: https://www.hudsonvalley360.com/news/columbiacounty/proposed-law-set-to-abolish-tourism-board/article_d1564b80-d6b4-51d0-a5fe-3df94c41159a.html
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