Tourism funding matters

One state after another has learned that if you cut the funds for promoting tourism, you often lose far more in touristic revenues

The travel industry has been badly shocked by the recent decision of a house of the Florida legislature to cut the funds for promoting tourism to Florida by 67 per cent. At a recent meeting of the Destination Marketing Association in Nashville, one speaker after another pointed to the heavy loss of revenue that has resulted from similar recent actions by other states and cities.

It appears that areas ranging from Colorado and Chicago to Pennsylvania and Washington have all periodically engaged in similar cost-cutting, only to learn that they lost far more money from the resulting sharp decline in tourism to those destinations.

What lies behind Florida’s foolish decision? It is the ideological claim that all government is bad and that wise policy is to reduce government spending to the largest extent possible.

A particular politician planning to run for governor in Florida apparently is the chief advocate of the theory that money spent by government on marketing efforts for tourism is always a waste and must be opposed.

At the Nashville conference, dramatic examples were given of jurisdictions that lost large amounts of their tourism income when they ceased or reduced advertising for visiting their state or city.

In other words, there are inevitably poor consequences for savings of that sort.

It may be that these lessons also have some value when considering the wisdom of cutting appropriations for government programs other than those dealing with travel.

arthur Frommer is the pioneering founder of the Frommer’s travel guide book series. He co-hosts the radio program, “the travel show,” with his travel correspondent daughter Pauline Frommer. Find more destinations online and read arthur Frommer’s blog at Frommers.com.