With no tourism office to brag about its beauty, Washington state looks for more funds

Washington is one of the few states that has no tourism office and it’s been that way for years.

That doesn’t mean Washington businesses are hurting though, according to Washington Tourism Alliance board chair Cheryl Kilday. But Washington’s tourism isn’t growing as quickly as it is in other states.

“They did pretty well with the limited dollars they had, but there were things they could have never done,” said Kilday.

The Washington Tourism Alliance hosts its fifth tourism summit Thursday. It’s focusing on the establishment of a “long-term funding mechanism” for a new tourism authority.

“We’ve got a great quality of life here. It’s a beautiful state. It’s easy to think, ‘Oh it’s so great everybody knows that – we don’t need to market,'” she said. “But in fact, every state thinks they’re great and lots of states have beauty.”

Kilday said the summit will focus on holding on to Washington’s market share of tourism dollars.

While national tourism grew by 5 percent last year, Washington’s tourism dollars grew by under 3 percent. Kilday said the state needs to keep pace with the rest of the country.

So, the WTA is pushing a plan to get more money spent on attracting tourists without using tax money to do it.

Dual bills in Olympia would establish a new tourism authority. The authority would handle funds collected from businesses heavily dependent on tourism – restaurants and hotels mostly – and would be in charge of using those funds to promote Washington’s tourism.

Besides adding no new taxes, if the WTA gets its way, the state will collect even more revenue from the tourists spending their money here.

“If you include federal, state and local taxes, visitors contribute about $900 per household every year for taxes that you and I don’t have to pay,” said Kilday. “We want more of those.”