Tourism Industry Challenged to Get Involved in Politics
By Steve Yencich, President of the Tourism Industry Coalition of Michigan (TICOM)
and President/CEO of the Michigan Hotel, Motel & Resort Association (MHM&RA)
 
Why should an overworked tourism business operator care about legislative issues?  More importantly, why should they take time to become involved in the political process?  The answer is simple.  You should care, get, and stay involved in the democratic process because every year the Legislature makes decisions that dramatically affect our industry and your business. 
 
For example, look at what has happened to the tourism promotion budget for Travel Michigan in the past 13 years.  In 1990, TM’s promotion budget was $8,775,000.  Unfortunately, with no identifiable group or groups consistently advocating on its behalf, that figure has dropped precipitously in the years since. 
 
This fiscal year, the State Legislature has appropriated just $6,417,500 for tourism promotion.  That’s a 27% reduction in monies expressly spent to help produce business for this state’s second largest industry.  However, those figures have not been adjusted for inflation, so the actual impact is dramatically worse.  What’s more, the tourism promotion budget for FY2003-04 has been chopped even further and at just $5,717,500 represents an incredible 35% loss in promotional support for our industry.
 
However, be advised that there is significant potential for funding to go from bad to horrific as the legislature engages in the budget making process for the upcoming fiscal year.  As a result of partisan bickering over budget priorities, a group of legislators has recommended the total elimination of Travel Michigan’s promotion budget.  And there is potential for the proposal to get legs in the highly charged debate growing between the Republican-controlled Legislature and Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm.
 
All this comes in spite of the fact that every dollar spent on tourist promotion results in $23 in total tourist spending.  That’s a 1:23 return on investment! Even if you consider only the sales tax implications, that results in $1.38 in tax proceeds going into Michigan’s Treasury for every dollar appropriated for tourist promotion.  
 
The trouble is such facts are not self-evident.  If our industry fails to share them with legislators, such important information becomes much like the proverbial falling tree in a forest that nobody’s around to hear.  In the absence of eardrums and eyeballs, nobody hears the falling tree or attends to the facts regarding the importance of protecting and growing Travel Michigan’s tourism promotion budget.
 
There are numerous other reasons why you should care about what happens in Lansing.  The budget deficit is causing all sorts of governmental entities to be on the scramble to replace revenues.  We know for a fact that one statewide association was giving serious consideration to imposition of a statewide hotel bed tax as a means to replace monies lost to budget cuts and loss of state revenue sharing.  However, these monies would not be used to promote tourism.  They’d be used for road repair, park improvements and other expenditures with only a tangential relationship to our industry. 
 
Gouging tourists and business travelers is a great way to further damage an industry that’s been brutalized by recession and is entirely dependent on discretionary spending, and doing so would hurt everybody.  For the time being they have backed away from the issue, but faced with increasing budget cuts and the vacuum left by an uninvolved tourism industry, the idea could easily come back to life.
 
The bottom line is there are numerous reasons for tourism industry business owners and employees to involve themselves in state politics.  It will take legislative action on the part of all components of the tourism industry if we are to successfully address the issue of enhanced funding for Travel Michigan.  It will require the active involvement of all concerned industry employees if we are to stave off proposals to totally eliminate funding for tourism promotion.  And it will take concerted and consistent grassroots involvement if we are EVER to successfully address contentious issues, such as Post Labor Day Schools.
 
Farmers have plowed deep furrows in legislative issues affecting them through their involvement in Michigan Farm Bureau and other related lobbying organizations.  Years ago, teachers and school administrators learned that they could better steer their legislative future by joining and involving themselves in their unions and trade associations.  The tourism and hospitality industry would do well to learn from such groups. 
 
We’ll find a much more “hospitable” legislative environment by getting personally involved in politics, joining in the opportunities for collective action provided by various tourism-related trade groups and whenever possible, coming together as an industry under TICOM’s banner.  But it’s important to remember that the success of collective action always starts with the individual. 
 
In other words, the key to a stronger legislative future begins with YOU.  Get involved!  Support your tourism-related association and ask them to support TICOM.  Your career, your business, and our industry will all be better for your involvement.