Three bills introduced in the state’s 2026 legislative session — two by Democrats and one by a Republican — have the same goal: Significantly increase financial support for the state’s Tourism Fund.
The proposals — Senate Bills 55 and 205 and House Bill 5136 — were each separately introduced by legislators from Eastern Connecticut, including Sens. Heather Somers (R-Groton) and Sen. Cathy Osten (D-Sprague) and Rep. Aundré Bumgardner (D-Groton).
According to Osten, who co-chairs the legislature’s Appropriations Committee, there is bipartisan agreement to increase the funding set aside to promote tourism, arts and culture in the state.
“We have agreed on this idea for a while now,” Osten said. “This is probably about the fourth or fifth year that we have been doing this work.”
She said the effort by legislators from the state’s southeastern corner is due to the fact the area has some of the state’s largest tourism attractions, including both the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos and museums, Mystic Seaport and Mystic Aquarium.
Despite legislators’ past efforts, though, state funding for tourism marketing has fallen each year since it received a big federal boost in fiscal 2022, when the budget was $12.1 million.
In 2023, it slipped to $11.7 million, but just $4.1 million of that was state funding; the other $7.6 million was federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds.
ARPA funds supplemented the state marketing budget in each of the next two fiscal years, but that federal money is gone and the budget for fiscal year 2026 is just $4.5 million, 63% below the level just three years ago.
Each of the three bills introduced this session proposes the same change — allocating part of the revenue from the additional 1% sales-and-use tax on meals to the state’s Tourism Fund. The 1% surcharge on certain meals, charged on top of the state’s 6.35% sales and use tax, has been imposed since 2019.
Osten and Bumgardner do not specify how much revenue would be allocated, but Somers’ bill would send 50% of meals surcharge collections to the Tourism Fund.
“I was looking for a percentage but I’m agnostic on how we get there,” Osten said. “My whole point is for the money that’s collected from this should, in part, be returned to bolster” tourism and the arts.
Beyond the marketing budget, the overall appropriation for the Tourism Fund was $18 million in fiscal 2025. The funding beyond the marketing budget is used for grants to tourist attractions and arts and cultural programs.
In his budget bill released earlier this month, Gov. Ned Lamont appropriated $18.7 million for fiscal 2027, but Osten said that isn’t nearly enough.
She believes the Tourism Fund needs to be “closer to $50 million in total.”
“When people who know these things have done the research, they found it’s a 9-to-1 return on investment,” Osten said. “For every dollar we spend on tourism, we get $9 in return.”
That’s because tourists who visit an attraction, like a museum or a theater, also often stop at a restaurant for a meal or a bar for a drink, she said.
The intent of the bills is “to get people to pay attention to an industry that (contributes) around $8 billion” to the state’s economy, Osten said.
All three bills have been referred to the legislature’s Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee.
