Gov. Dan Malloy’s plan to spend $15 million each year to promote tourism in Connecticut does not include any funding for the three regional tourism districts, leaving questions as to whether those agencies will exist at all in the next fiscal year.
“Unfortunately, it looks like they did eliminate the regional districts,” said Anne Lee, executive director of the Central Regional Tourism District.
In his proposed budget made public on Wednesday, Malloy included $15 million for statewide tourism marketing, up from a single dollar the previous two years. That money will go directly to the Commission on Culture & Tourism.
However, the budget also eliminated all funding for the three tourism districts that market the state on a regional level. In the previous budget, they received $1.7 million in funding. In Malloy’s budget, they received zero dollars.
When asked if that means the regional districts are being eliminated, Benjamin Barnes, secretary of the Office of Policy & Management, said, “That remains to be seen.”
The regional districts have been decimated over the years as their funding has been lost. Once 11 districts covered the state, but that number was whittled to five then to three last year. Three years ago, two agencies and eight people were responsible for marketing the 65 towns in the Hartford and New Haven areas. Now two people and one agency do the work.
“It really needs to be a two-tiered structure,” Lee said. “The state is responsible for making the big statewide efforts. The districts can really provide the grassroots efforts.”
Before the budget came out, Malloy’s administration floated the idea of raising the hotel tax from 12 percent to 15 percent. The regional districts and organizations such as the Greater Hartford Convention & Visitors Bureau hoped that some of that money would go toward local tourism promotion, because that’s what the hotel tax traditionally funded in the past. Instead, Malloy budget raised the hotel tax to 15 percent, taking 14 percent for the General Fund and giving 1 percent to local cities and towns.
With the Connecticut General Assembly yet to take up the governor’s budget, Lee is hopeful the legislators will restore funding for regional promotion of tourism.
“Leading up to the budget, I heard the districts would be funded, so yesterday, it was a complete curveball,” Lee said.
