The Metropolitan Tucson Convention & Visitors Bureau, facing a possible 25 percent cut in city funding, argues it is one of few agencies actually generating revenue for the city and wants their budget spared the axe.
With a possible $51 million budget deficit, the Tucson city government is considering slashing the funding of all outside agencies by at least 10 percent.
The visitors bureau would be happy if that were all it was cut.
MTCVB has found support from some council members. Regina Romero and Rodney Glassman wrote to Mayor Bob Walkup and City Manager Mike Hein, to encourage the council to rethink the visitors bureau funding cut.
“One reason we asked the city manager to consider cutting it to 10 percent,” Romero said, “is that everybody is receiving a 10 percent cut, and this would be a disservice because the MTCVB helps bring people to the region and (into the) city.”
Romero said she understands funding must be limited to offset the city’s budget deficit but points out that the bureau “helps spur economic development.”
Promotion of the city’s tourism sector should receive more and not less money for its efforts, she said.
Felipe Garcia, vice president for community affairs at MTCVB, said the cuts come at a time when advertising efforts should increase, not decrease.
He points out that other cities are now investing more in tourism promotion because of the dollars visitors bring into a city.
“We have to compete with more cities with more funding for marketing tourism.”
Advertising efforts are critical at a time when the U.S. dollar is now the lowest it has been to the peso since 2002.
Mexican shoppers have an incentive to spend money in the United States, Garcia said.
Tourism is a revenue-producing vehicle that brings in over $2.3 billion in revenue to Tucson from not only sales tax, but a bed tax collection paid when tourists stay at area hotels, said Garcia.
Since 2005, the visitors bureau has been marketing hotel stays, casino trips, and concert packages and is further expanding promotion beyond typical tourist venues.
In upcoming months, MTCVB has plans to offer new promotions for Mexican businesses and medical patients, Garcia said.
The visitors bureau has been working with its Mexican partnering agency, Centro Oficial de Visitantes de Tucson (Official Center for Tucson Visitors) in Hermosillo, Son., to provide services for Mexican business investors who may be enticed to set up shop in Tucson.
The office will begin by hiring lawyers and accountants to help investors set up bank accounts and acquire tax ID numbers to start new businesses in the United States.
“We want there to be one-window ready for them because it’s an unfamiliar process,” said Garcia. “We want to make it easy for them to streamline.”
In addition, Lourdes Monteverde, the director at El Centro de Visitantes de Tucson, said their agency in Hermosillo is working to fund a new shuttle service from Mexico to bring visitors to medical centers in Tucson.
A packaged weekend trip, for example, is in the works that will give discounted wellness exams for women at Tucson Medical Center.
“We’re trying not only to get them to go to Tucson, but to stay there and spend more time and have medical services and personal services like going to a spa,” Monteverde said.
Shawn Page, administrator for international services and relations at the hospital, said TMC has consistently advertised to this “untapped market” with the potential to have “a cascade effect on Tucson’s economy.”
The future of these new projects is uncertain with the bureau’s budget threatened.
“Ten percent is a challenge,” Garcia said. “But 25 percent would be critical.
We would have to cut some marketing programs and several of our community contributions.”
But cutting services in the Hermosillo office would be the last the agency would consider, Garcia said.
Deputy City Manager Mike Lechter said he understands council member appeals to the 25 percent cut, but the city must make compromises to deal with its deficit.
“We are doing things we wouldn’t have contemplated years ago,” but as far as re-evaluating the cut, Lechter said, “there’s always room for negotiation.”
