USA: Connecticut Tourism Coalition In Legislation To Provide Dedicated Revenue Stream

Businesses in the tourism industry are banding together in an effort to champion legislation that would provide a dedicated revenue stream to fund the state’s Tourism Council.

The newly created Connecticut Tourism Coalition held a rally at the state Capitol Tuesday in an effort to draw attention to House Bill 5576. The legislation would divert 2 percent of the 15 percent state room occupancy tax and use the money to promote tourism around Connecticut, said Stephen Tagliatela, innkeeper/managing partner of Saybrook Point Inn in Old Saybrook, and the leader of the tourism group.

Tagliatela said although the administration of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy restored tourism funding that had been reduced to nothing when predecessor M. Jodi Rell was in office, the $15 million annually that state lawmakers initially appropriated to fund the Connecticut Tourism Council when Malloy first took office has been reduced to $8.5 million.

“All the money the state now gets from the room occupancy tax goes into the general fund and that puts it at the whim of legislature,” Tagliatela said. “It’s hard for the Tourism Council to promote the state when the amount of funding they are going to get is in doubt every year.”

The amount Connecticut spends on promoting tourism is significantly less than neighboring states, he said.

“New York has a $50 million war chest to promote tourism,” Tagliatela said. “Massachusetts has around $20 million.”

Getting Connecticut lawmakers to provide a dedicated funding source for tourism given the current budget crisis the state is mired in could be a hard sell. Calls to the governor’s office and to leaders of the legislature’s Democratic majority were not immediately returned Tuesday.

But state Sen. Paul Formica, R-East Lyme, told the New London Day Tuesday that he is interested in forming a “tourism caucus” of lawmakers whose districts are home to tourist attractions.

Tagliatela said the state’s tourism industry “wants to be part of the solution to the economic problem that they have in Hartford.”

“For every dollar they invest, they get $3 back in tax revenue,” he said. “And that’s the most conservative estimate that I’ve heard. The point is that we can show a very rapid return on their investment.”

The data the state has regarding the tourism industry in Connecticut are very convincing:

• $14 billion in total traveler spending.

• $1.6 billion in total tax revenues coming from the industry, including $513 million in state taxes and $345 million in local taxes,

• The industry pays out $1.8 billion in wages to the 118,500 people that work in its businesses.

The Connecticut Tourism Coalition trying to get businesses from across the tourism spectrum to remind lawmakers that the industry is an important economic engine. Robert Galiette, chief executive officer of Essex Steam Train & Riverboat, appeared with Tagliatela at Tuesday’s rally and together the two men are recruiting other businesses and tourism-related trade groups to join their coalition.

“We’re starting in our backyard and working our way outward,” Tagliatela said.