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The number of foreign tourists visiting the United States is not what tourism boosters would like it to be, and Congress is taking steps to promote what America has to offer to foreigners thinking of coming to this country.
Congressman Roy Blunt (R-MO7) is among the co-sponsors of what is known as the Travel Promotion Act (HR 1035), which has been approved overwhelmingly in the U.S. House and is expected to pass the U.S. Senate when brought to the floor for a vote. [Read more...]
A $7 million cut to the state tourism budget is seen as a crippling blow to tourism efforts and counter-productive to those in the industry.
Governor Nixon, faced with slumping state revenues, ordered belt tightening throughout the state. He ordered $430 million to be withheld. The money will be released only if the economy turns around and state revenue rebounds.
The Department of Economic Development chose to cut $7 million from the Division of Tourism . The cut to Tourism and the Missouri Arts Council spared the department’s economic development programs from deeper cuts.
The past president of the Missouri Travel Council , Gary Figgins, says the move discloses a misunderstanding of the impact of tourism.
"Tourism employs somewhere in the neighborhood 290,000 people in Missouri," Figgins says. "Those aren’t jobs that pay $20 to $30 an hour, but they’re good jobs, they’re safe jobs and they’re jobs that are not going to be shipped overseas."
A spokesman for the Economic Development Department says the decision to cut $7 million from Tourism was based, in part, because Tourism has a $4 ½ million budget balance. Figgins counters that that’s a false balance, reflecting money allocated and spent in the last fiscal year. The bills just haven’t come due yet.
"Make no mistake about it, it’s a $7 million cut," Figgins says. "They’re just looking at numbers there that, for one reason or another, they just don’t understand how the advertising purchases are made."
The Missouri Travel Council calls the cut to Tourism inequitable. It contends the cut to Tourism represents nearly 64% of the $11.3 million in withholding requested of the Department of Economic Development. The cut will cause Tourism to drastically reduce advertising as well as hurt efforts to promote the state to group tour operators and other niche markets Missouri attractions rely on.
Figgins says the cut to Tourism ultimately is counter-productive. He points to studies that indicate every dollar spent on tourism returns nearly $50 in visitor expenditures. The Division of Tourism claims it generates $2.46 in state tax revenue for every dollar spent. Tourism ranks second behind agriculture as the top industries in Missouri. The Missouri Travel Council predicts the cut will have dire consequences both in the near and distant future.
St. Louis basks in the aftermath of the 80th Major League Baseball All-Star game and it appears Missouri tourism reap a windfall.
Baseball’s mid-summer classic couldn’t have come at a better time for a state stuck in recession.
Chief Marketing Officer Brian Hall with the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission says the All-Star Game made an estimated $60 million direct impact on St. Louis. That doesn’t take into account the positive publicity St. Louis reaped from national television exposure on ESPN and FOX, about 2,000 visiting press which included 500 foreign journalists.
"The international impact of this is quite pronounced as well," says Hall.
Hall says the research that the commission collects indicates that more and more international visitors are interested in visiting the Midwest. One of the attractions is baseball.
Then, there are the intangibles. Sure, the festivities drew an estimated 230,000 people to take in the five-day Fan Fest St. Louis sponsored, the Futures Game, the Home Run Derby and, finally, the All-Star Game itself. Those traveling to St. Louis spent money on hotel rooms and meals in restaurants. They bought souvenirs and visited other area attractions. It also gave people a chance to forget about their day-to-day struggles and enjoy being in the center of the baseball universe.
"It was like a five-day party," Hall says. "I think the people were able to forget about the economy. They were able to forget about some of their challenges and just let loose a little bit and have fun with America’s favorite part-time"
The success in St. Louis has sparked even more interest in Kansas City, hoping that a renovated Kauffman Stadium will host the All-Star game in 2012.
Travel clubs have been a boon to Branson, but not all travel clubs are legitimate.
A new law, HB 83 , seeks to crack down on those unscrupulous travel clubs. Gov. Nixon has signed the bill into law. Nixon says travel clubs deserve more praise than criticism, but some have blemished the industry.
"For too long a few unscrupulous travel clubs have tarnished the reputation of reputable clubs that play by the rules," Nixon says. "This bill will help sort out the bad apples and protect the rights of Missouri consumers. HB 83 will also give consumers from Missouri and across the country greater confidence in our tourism industry and help bring more visitors to the Show Me State."
Consumers have three days after joining a travel club to change their minds. Some clubs give away tickets or other token gifts and claim that by accepting, consumers give away that right. The new law doesn’t allow clubs to do that.
It also requires travel clubs to keep $250,000 on hand, so consumers can be refunded if they go belly up.
Rep. Dennis Wood (R-Kimberling City) sponsored the bill.
"I want to state clearly today there are many travel clubs that are honest and fair and do a great job, but this bill just protest us," Wood says. "If people coming to Missouri can’t trust us they won’t come."
Some Branson businesses have been burned by the unscrupulous clubs, honoring tickets the clubs never purchased so tourists don’t leave Missouri with a bad experience.
Governor Nixon says the Tour of Missouri will go on this year.
Nixon has rejected a recommendation from the Department of Economic Development to slash the $1.5 million state appropriation needed to fund the professional bicycle race. Supporters of the tour say that the race would have had to be cancelled without the state money. The Tour of Missouri is in the third year of a three-year contract.
In a written statement, Nixon acknowledged that state government must reduce spending, but that he believes the 2009 Tour of Missouri should go forward. Nixon did call for additional accountability and transparency on how state funds are spent.
Nixon has ordered the Office of Administration to seek complete accounting of how money was spent on the tour in 2007 and 2008. He wants a review of contracts for this year. According to the governor’s office, a representative from the Office of Administration has met with representatives of the Department of Economic Development, the Division of Tourism and Tour of Missouri, Inc. The governor’s office says the Division of Tourism and Tour of Missouri has agreed to share financial information and budgets with the office.
A spokesman for Nixon, Scott Holste, says the governor’s office received plenty of feedback from the public when it became news that state funding could be withheld.
"Well, on Friday of last week and on Monday and Tuesday of this week we did receive a fairly large volume of e-mails and telephone calls from people who were concerned about the race going on," Holste says.
An emergency conference call was held Friday by the Division of Tourism in an effort to save the race.
