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Tourism
Fights Back
Taken
from the Summer 2004 issue of the Zeitgeist Newsletter
Since 1984, Illinois
has been one of the most successful examples of the relationship between
the investment of tax dollars into tourism promotion and development.
With a performance-based investment formula that grows the State’s
Bureau of Tourism as the State Hotel-Motel Tax grows, Illinois’
budget had grown to exceed $65 million in the halcyon days before 9/11.
Even at last year’s $52 million budget, Illinois was a marketing
force to be reckoned with, both domestically and internationally. In
addition to its statewide firepower, it’s innovative CVB grant
program invested $14 million into the budgets of 39 State certified
Bureaus, providing them with significantly more marketing muscle than
their neighboring competitors.
But mix a gaping hole in the State’s budget and a freshman Governor...and
the program that was conservatively generating
a billion dollars in sales tax revenue back to the State was slated
to be slashed in half.
The day after the Governor’s budget proposal was announced in
February, half of the State’s 39 CVBs were in Springfield. Within
a couple weeks, the leadership of the Illinois Council of CVBs was summoned
by State officials to a meeting in which, Borg-like,
they were informed that “resistance was futile.” That meeting,
however, had the opposite effect on ICCVB leadership. That State officials
had called them to a meeting signaled that, behind their bravado, they
were nervous that the Bureaus could mount an effective campaign to reverse
the proposal.
Their initial concerns were well founded. ICCVB utilized the State’s
own commissioned research into the impact of the tourism industry to
show that, by slashing the tourism budget, thousands of jobs would be
put in jeopardy. Building off a campaign developed by the Rockford
Area CVB last fall, ICCVB adopted the slogan “Tourism
Means Jobs...Your Job!” A video, featuring rank and file tourism
workers from throughout the State, explained how their jobs depended
on visitors...as did their planned purchases of houses, cars and college
educations. And a website
provided the industry with resources, direction and background.
Bureaus staged informational Tourism “Summits” in their
communities to inform business partners and community leaders of the
proposal AND the likely consequences to hospitality busi-nesses... and,
thus, their businesses.
Pretty soon, the editorial pages were teaming with suggestions that
the Governor’s plan to plug his budget hole with tourism money
was beyond clueless. And finally, instead of playing politics, local
State Senators and Representatives began tossing their support behind
their constituents in the hospitality industry (how refreshing).
As the pressure mounted, the Governor went to Chicago to meet with Mayor
Daley and Union Leaders on new convention center accords at McCormick
Place. Union Leadership reportedly informed the Governor that they weren’t
very interested in discussing his issues if he still intended to slash
the tourism budget.
Those close to the meeting report that the Union said, in essence, “if
you cut the budget, Chicago wins fewer conventions...and our members
get laid off.” If the Governor hadn’t already figured out
the two-plus-two-equals-four tourism investment equation, he certainly
did then. He emerged from the meeting and announced that he was restoring
the $26 million to the budget.
Invisible industry? Not in Illinois. At least not anymore.
For
more on this incredible story, check out the DMOU
interview with Wendy Fisher and Sue Vos at DMOU
Teleseminars.
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