The Chamber is supporting an effort to increase the City’s hotel tax to provide more funds for the promotion of Oklahoma City as a visitor destination. –
“The improvements made in this community over the past 30 years have created a dynamic destination for meetings and tourism,” said Christy Gillenwater, president of the Chamber. “Unfortunately, the money available to really share that story with the world has not grown, and that hampers our ability to tell the story and sell what we have to offer.”
The tax is only charged to people who stay overnight in a hotel or rent a home-sharing property in the City of Oklahoma City. The current tax is 5.5% and the increase would take the total tax to 9.25%. The increase would bring in an additional 11.6 million annually, with 75% of the increase going toward direct funding to promote and/or foster convention and tourism development. The remainder of the increase would go toward event sponsorship(13.3%), a vital tool for attracting events, OKC Fairgrounds improvements (6.7%) and OKC Convention Center improvements (5%).
“The amount provided for promotional purposes hasn’t been increased since the tax was instituted in 1972,” explained Zac Craig, president of Visit OKC. “This destination has changed so dramatically. Our competitive cities budgets are more than double what we have to spend, so for us to really be able to compete for business and sell this city the way it deserves to be sold, this increase is vital.”
Competitive cities budgets are significantly higher, but so are their hotel tax rates. Oklahoma City, at 14.13% currently, is significantly lower now that competitive and surrounding cities such as Tulsa (16.52%), Austin (17%), Kansas City (18.35%) and Fort Worth. At the new rate of 17.88%, Oklahoma City will still be competitive for meetings and events.
The additional funding for tourism and meetings promotion and development would attract more visitors by scaling marketing efforts to attract meetings and conventions, large events, and leisure travelers.
“We know that today’s tourist is potentially tomorrow’s resident or business owner,” said Gillenwater. “It is so important for our community’s growth to create a stronger tourism brand – it grows our hospitality industry and employment, and it also importantly has a positive impact on our business development efforts and goals of attracting critical workforce.”
The vote would be held on August 27 and registered voters within the City of Oklahoma City would be eligible to vote.
