Commissioner Murman quoted in this Tampa Tribune article on tourism:
Business News
Tourism leaders looking for more funding
By Yvette C. Hammett | Tribune Staff
Published: February 19, 2015 | Updated: February 19, 2015 at 08:47 PM
TAMPA — Tourism leaders lining up for a piece of the county’s bed tax pie are asking for 45 percent more funding over the next two fiscal years.
“This pie has gotten a lot bigger and there are more people and a lot of great stuff going on,” said Hillsborough County Commission Chair Sandy Murman, who also sits as chair of the Tourist Development Council. “We’re exploding,” but will have to make choices on how much each group will actually get, she said, because it isn’t likely there will be enough to fulfill everyone’s requests.
The Tourist Development Council, during its quarterly meeting on Thursday, heard from people representing 15 organizations hoping to get money to help market everything from the Florida Aquarium to the Straz Center for the Performing Arts, the Greater Plant City Chamber of Commerce and the Gasparilla International Film Festival.
Board members will hold a workshop on March 23 to discuss the requests, then make a final decision on funding for 2016 and 2017 on April 9.
Tourism in Hillsborough County has been on the upswing for months now, which means the county is collecting more money in bed taxes. Tourists pay 5 cents on the dollar in bed tax when they rent rooms. Two cents of the 5-cent bed tax goes to pay for debt service on Amalie Arena, Raymond James Stadium and on Steinbrenner Field and the Tampa Convention Center. It also pays for capital improvements at the convention center and at Steinbrenner. Of the remaining 3 cents, Visit Tampa Bay, the county’s official tourism agency, typically gets 72 percent with the rest split up among other recipients.
This year, Visit Tampa Bay CEO Santiago Corrada requested 75 percent of the funding, or an estimated $11.6 million in 2016 and $12.7 million in 2017.
The money is used to market the Tampa Bay area all over the country. In requesting the funding, Corrada produced numbers that showed how the money is invested in ad campaigns.
Corrada said that for every dollar the county invested in tourism marketing through Visit Tampa Bay in 2014, it got a $77 return through money tourists spent here for rooms, food and entertainment.
The Tampa Bay Sports Commission, which is responsible for bringing the Women’s Final Four back to Tampa next month and has booked the College Football National Championship for 2019, now gets 4.5 percent of the funding and wants to increase that to 6 percent in 2016 and 7.5 percent in 2017, said director Rob Higgins.
Tourist Development Council Director Ron Barton said the budget figures haven’t yet been projected for 2016 and 2017, but once they are, commitments to the various venues can be finalized.
