[BoulderCouncilHotline] Boulder Convention & Visitors Bureau

[Yates, Bob]

Council Colleagues:


I am council's liaison to the Boulder Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB). As you will recall, city council significantly cut the CVB's budget when we finalized the overall 2019 city budget earlier this fall. Last Thursday, I participated in the CVB board meeting as that organization grappled with how to deal with the 2019 budget cut by council, as well as potential further cuts that some council members have suggested as recently as last week. Those reductions in the CVB's 2019 budget total almost 25 percent of the CVB's discretionary expenditures and will impact dozens of services that the CVB provides our community and tax-paying visitors. Cuts for 2019 will include the following:


- Grants made to our local cultural institutions. In 2018, those grants included financial support of the Colorado Latino Festival, the Adventure Film Festival, the Museum of Boulder, and Midori's visit to Boulder a few weeks ago.


- Support of the city's Park-to-Park Chautauqua bus program.


- Printed trail and neighborhood walking maps and calendars of events.


- Maintenance of the Davidson Mesa overlook amenities.


There were dozens of other reductions made to the CVB's 2019 budget, including cuts in some staffing positions. I and members of the CVB board would be happy to sit down with you to walk you through those reductions.

As we consider the city's support of the CVB in the future, I would suggest that we consider the impact that reduced support of cultural amenities and visitor services has on the city's sales, food services, and accommodations tax revenues. By some estimates, between 40 and 50 percent of our sales tax and food services tax are paid by people who do not live in Boulder. And, of course, virtually all of the accommodations tax is paid by visitors. Nationwide and here in Boulder, it is estimated that every $1 spent to encourage visitors yields $19 in direct and indirect tax revenues for the hosting city. And while maximizing city revenues should certainly not be our principal objective, we also need to realistically understand that visitor tax revenues help pay for our libraries, parks, open space, and police and fire services.

Some local cultural events would certainly still occur, and some visitors would certainly still come, without the CVB's support. However, allow me to share with you a cautionary tale: In the mid-1990s, the Colorado state tourism board's funding was cut by $12 million due to unintended consequences of TABOR. Within two years, Colorado's annual tourism revenues plunged by $1.4 billion, and within five years it had dropped by more than $2 billion a year. Colorado lost 30 percent of its tourism market share to other states. All told, direct tax revenues lost by the state were more than ten times the amount saved. The happy ending to this story is that when the tourism board's funding was restored in 2006, tourism revenue quickly returned to its pre-cut level. To this day, visitors bureaus and tourism boards around the world refer to the "Colorado Tourism Disaster" as a mistake not to repeat. Let's think about this as we consider the CVB's funding in the future.

Best,

Bob

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