Last week, Sen. Tom James (R-Rock Springs) attempted to convince the Senate to cut state funded tourism promotion claiming the promotion of Wyoming tourism would be better served by the private sector. This amendment would later be withdrawn by the senator as others quickly defended the importance of state-funded tourism promotion.
In an email to the Star, James said the cuts would save millions in taxpayer funding and called the state department of tourism a “black hole of taxpayer dollars,” believing the department to be a subsidy for the private sector.
“The private sector that does all the work and the department takes the credit,” he wrote.
He also cites a Joint Appropriations Committee report where the department sought $7 million to promote places outside of Wyoming and claimed it spent five times as much on travel than it did on advertising in 2019.
While it might be appropriate to have a closer look at the department’s spending, we don’t think the department should be defunded or tourism in general should be left to the private sector. It would not be a smart move.
According to the Wyoming Department of Tourism’s website, the tourism industry is one of the state’s economic generators, resulting in $3.8 billion in direct spending in 2018 and $195 million in local and state tax revenues. The industry is responsible for more than 32,000 jobs across the state. A $5.49 million summer media budget in 2018 generated $1.5 billion in visitor spending, creating a return on investment of each dollar spent bringing back $11.24 in state and local taxes and $289 in visitor spending.
Local tourism spending also contributes greatly to the economy. According to statistics provided by the Sweetwater County Travel and Tourism Board, marketing from the local lodging tax generated $5.4 million in visitor spending in 2019, with visitors spending and average of $149 per person, per day. The board also claims tourism spending supports 1,460 jobs in the county.
Tourism is an important leg on the state’s economic stool and cutting state funding to that leg would create an even more lopsided funding problem when considering the issue the Wyoming Legislature deals with regarding the decline in mineral revenue. As such, calls to cut state tourism funding don’t make a lot of sense because that investment pays dividends throughout Wyoming.
James argues that government is the worst institution to promote prosperity. He also thinks government doesn’t have skin in the game when it comes to tourism.
“Everyone asks where we can make cuts, well this is one obvious place where we can make cuts and feel nothing from it because they are not creating anything new and because government has no skin in the game to do the best possible job due to the fact they have nothing to lose, private sector should be running the tourism industry by creating their own board and using their own money and I believe they would be able to do a far better job than the government ever could,” he wrote.
However, a private group would inherently create a situation where the most profitable areas -- think Jackson Hole, Cody, and Cheyenne -- would dominate spending allocations. Jackson, the Cheyenne Frontier Days and Yellowstone would dominate the conversation, leaving important, yet smaller resources like the hot springs in Thermopolis or local events and the Fort Bridger Rendezvous out of the conversation. The state department of tourism’s website promotes these events while showing visitors more of what Wyoming is known for.
We understand the state is looking to cut its budget wherever it can, but cutting tourism would be a mistake.
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