March/April 2015
For the past four years, our staff and board of directors have supported the Washington Tourism Alliance (WTA) in its efforts to craft legislation establishing a privately-funded tourism program in Washington State.
As many of our stakeholders are no doubt aware, Washington remains the only state without a statewide marketing program. This has created serious hurdles to economic growth, which we have detailed in past updates and alerts. Simply put, we lose money when we lose visitors. As the numbers demonstrate, visitors support our businesses, events, and community projects through the dollars they spend and the taxes they generate.
Fortunately for both our state and local communities, WTA's legislation for a privately-funded, statewide tourism program has reached both the House and Senate of our state legislature.
In support of these bills, we have shared an opinion editorial with the Vancouver Business Journal. The op-ed details the process behind the creation of the bills and shares why tourism matters to the future of our great state. After reading the op-ed, we hope you'll agree with us: tourism means business and it's time for Washington State to get busy again!
