Supervisors last week received an update on outreach to local hotel owners about the creation of a tourism business improvement district, and a county staff official indicated lodging operators weren’t necessarily against the idea.
“They didn’t dismiss the idea of TBIDs,” said Sara Fontanos, a management analyst for the county who met with some hotel owners last week. “It was strongly supported.”
She said the owners were mostly concerned with another way discussed recently to spur tourism funding – an increase in the transient occupancy tax from 8 to 12 percent.
“When this was first presented to us before, I was very cold to it,” said Supervisor Jerry Muenzer, regarding the TBID. “I’m actually warming up to it even more so. I would prefer delaying raising the TOT tax” by doing this instead.
Muenzer has been a champion of raising the TOT, which would increase the additional lodging fees paid by visitors.
Supervisor Robert Rivas said the process needs to be driven by hotel owners.
“The TBID means a good thing for our tourism future,” Rivas said. “Obviously, more outreach (to hotel owners) is needed.”
Out of the 15 hotels and bed and breakfasts in town, four owners came to the meeting last week, Fontanos said.
“My intention is to try to connect with the four that I did meet and see if they were able to meet with other (hotel owners),” she said.
Muenzer said while attending a recent meeting in San Jose, his hotel had numerous brochures promoting tourism in the region, including a brochure for “San Juan Bautista” that did not mention a single attraction in San Juan Bautista but instead listed tourist attractions in neighboring cities outside the county.
“They want to use our name for their rooms,” he said. “If we can come up with a mechanism and funding to promote San Benito County, it would go a long way.”
