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Why Illinois' Tourism Budget Must be Saved The 5 May 2004 edition of the Zeitgeist e-Zine As the
crowd thinned, the reporter began to press. I had just completed my
best “Tourism-is-an-Investment-in-Jobs” presentation before
a packed room at the Pheasant Run Resort in St.
Charles, Illinois. In attendance were State Legislators,
local elected officials, industry partners and the CEOs and staff of
the three suburban Chicago Bureaus that had asked me to speak at the
event. At stake is $25 million in state room tax revenue that the Illinois Governor has pledged to slash from the State Tourism office. With that $25 million is an estimated $5.5 million that will be diverted from the State’s exceptional grant program for its 39 CVBs. All told, the Governor is risking thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in state tax revenue in this penny-wise and pound-foolish attempt to balance his budget. The reporter seemed to be understanding how the math worked and appeared sympathetic to the cause…but he couldn’t quite get past one thing. Why would a guy from Wisconsin (me) be encouraging the competition in Illinois (them) to fight back and oppose these draconian cuts? Shouldn’t I be chortling in glee at the prospect of the once over-powering Illinois Marketing behemoth finally being cut down to size? It was tempting, I told him. And I assured him that many industry professionals throughout the Midwest were doing just that. But I cautioned that such a response didn’t take in to perspective the bigger picture for DMOs across the land. Illinois is one of an elite handful of states that have always “gotten it.” While other states were breaking out in a cold sweat as they invested $6 million in tourism promotion and development, Illinois was investing $67 million. Along with Pennsylvania, Illinois had one of the most innovative and aggressively funded local CVB grant program in the nation. And, since putting the program into play in 1983, visitor spending had increased at a breakneck pace in the Land of Lincoln. In anybody’s book (except, apparently, the Governor’s), this is the kind of “best practices” program of which any State could be proud. To play Edward Scissorhands with a program that conservatively generates over $2.2 billion in spending and $1.6 billion in state and local taxes* would be sheer folly. And…could send a message to other states that the Illinois “experiment” was a failure. Nevermind that the numbers prove just the opposite. The majority of the Governors and Legislators across the land that would hear of this turn of events would assume that Illinois’ Governor wouldn’t do something as foolish as kill the golden goose if it still laid shiny eggs. And they’d be dead wrong. As much as it is tempting for competitive destinations to start practicing a gaudy end-zone dance, smart travel marketers should support their partners in Illinois as they fight back. Because Illinois was one of the few States that got it right. It would be a shame to see one of the truly incredible success stories of our era derailed at the hands of a novice governor.
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ZEITGEIST
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