MONROE - The City of Monroe Visitor and Promotion Board may be looking at suspending its meetings and its funding for 2014, which may be hard on local non-profit organizations that have little money to promote their events.
After its meeting Thursday, June 27, the board had approved funding totaling $50,000 into next year's revenues.
"We'll just run out of money and have to quit," Mayor Bill Ross said. "That's why I ask the board at every meeting what they want to do."
Like more than 260 other Wisconsin municipalities, the City of Monroe collects a room tax paid by travelers staying overnight at hotels, motels and other lodging accommodations.
Monroe receives about $65,000 annually in room taxes, paid $16,000 quarterly.
The state's room tax law directs these room taxes be spent on marketing tools or projects, tourist information services and municipal development that are used by tourists and "reasonably likely to generate overnight stays."
Both small and large organizations coming with funding requests to Monroe's Visitor and Promotion Board often cannot produce evidence of how many out-of-towners are staying overnight. Board members must then surmise how many, if any, "heads on beds" each request will generate.
One quandary for board members is determining how far a visitor travels to Monroe before he can be expected to take a room for the night. The board expects a Madison visitor would probably drive back home for the night.
So, their guideline usually requires requests for funding to be for marketing efforts reaching outside a 60-mile radius of Monroe.
But even local visitors spend their money "to eat at restaurants and to shop," said Richard Thoman, a member of the board and owner of AmericInn hotel in Monroe.
A day-only visitor is a visitor from whom Thoman and other hotel and motel owners in Monroe won't see any revenue, but that lost revenue also means the Visitor and Promotion Board will see fewer tax dollars that help promote the next event whose organizers are hoping to draw out-of-towners.
In general, board members recognize investing room tax dollars into effective tourism promotion and development results in more visitor spending, more jobs, and more state and local tax revenue. According to the Wisconsin Department of Tourism, for every $1 spent on tourism promotion, local and state governments receive at least $7 in return.
After its meeting Thursday, June 27, the board had approved funding totaling $50,000 into next year's revenues.
"We'll just run out of money and have to quit," Mayor Bill Ross said. "That's why I ask the board at every meeting what they want to do."
Like more than 260 other Wisconsin municipalities, the City of Monroe collects a room tax paid by travelers staying overnight at hotels, motels and other lodging accommodations.
Monroe receives about $65,000 annually in room taxes, paid $16,000 quarterly.
The state's room tax law directs these room taxes be spent on marketing tools or projects, tourist information services and municipal development that are used by tourists and "reasonably likely to generate overnight stays."
Both small and large organizations coming with funding requests to Monroe's Visitor and Promotion Board often cannot produce evidence of how many out-of-towners are staying overnight. Board members must then surmise how many, if any, "heads on beds" each request will generate.
One quandary for board members is determining how far a visitor travels to Monroe before he can be expected to take a room for the night. The board expects a Madison visitor would probably drive back home for the night.
So, their guideline usually requires requests for funding to be for marketing efforts reaching outside a 60-mile radius of Monroe.
But even local visitors spend their money "to eat at restaurants and to shop," said Richard Thoman, a member of the board and owner of AmericInn hotel in Monroe.
A day-only visitor is a visitor from whom Thoman and other hotel and motel owners in Monroe won't see any revenue, but that lost revenue also means the Visitor and Promotion Board will see fewer tax dollars that help promote the next event whose organizers are hoping to draw out-of-towners.
In general, board members recognize investing room tax dollars into effective tourism promotion and development results in more visitor spending, more jobs, and more state and local tax revenue. According to the Wisconsin Department of Tourism, for every $1 spent on tourism promotion, local and state governments receive at least $7 in return.