A proposed hotel-motel room fee that would fund additional tourism marketing could double the annual economic impact here from conventions and sports events to $105 million from $54.5 million now, backers claim.


The room fee would increase the amount spent on tourism and sports-event marketing by the Spokane Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Spokane Regional Sports Commission to just under $3.4 million a year, up from $1.75 million. The fee would range from 50 cents to $1.50 a night.


We have a great story to tell in Spokane; we just dont have enough money to tell it, says Ron Anderson, president of the Spokane Hotel-Motel Association and general manager of the Red Lion Grand Hotel at the Park.


Other metropolitan areas the size of Spokane spend roughly twice as much on tourism and sports promotion as the current $1.4 million budget of the CVB and the $342,000 budget of the Sports Commission, Anderson says. The commission works to attract events such as the NCAA basketball tournament and Skate America.


The hotel industry not only is solidly behind the new room fee, but came up with the idea and shepherded legislation for it through the 2003 Washington Legislature, Anderson says.


The bill was so popular, (members of) both the House and Senate wanted to be the lead sponsors of it, he says. While the Spokane Hotel-Motel Association crafted the legislation to apply in counties with a population of between 400,000 and 1 million people, smaller counties successfully sought to have the bill amended so it would apply to them, too, he says.


Its a self-imposed assessment on the businesses who want this assessment, Anderson says.


The Spokane hotel group believed it had to do something to boost tourism after suffering through an especially dismal 2002, he says. The weakness of the hotel market in Spokane is reflected this year in results through October, with the supply of rooms in the Spokane area jumping by 5 percent while demand increased by only 0.9 percent, Anderson says. With demand for rooms soft, hotels havent been able to increase their rates, and revenue per available room, a key industry statistic, fell 4 percent through October.


Our average room rate is lower than Yakimas, Anderson says. With rates so low, we have decided to take a calculated risk by proposing the added room fee, albeit, we dont think it is that big of a risk.


Under the hotel industrys plan, a countywide tourism promotion area (TPA) would be created. Hotels that have fewer than 40 rooms would be exempt from collecting the nightly room fee, while establishments that have 40 rooms or more, but that take in less than $500,000 in annual revenue, would collect a fee of 50 cents a night per room. Hotels in the city of Spokane that have more than $500,000 in annual revenue would collect a fee of $1.50 a night. All other hotels in the county would collect $1.25 a night. The fee would be on top of the 2 percent hotel tax dedicated to tourism marketing already.


Under the law, operators representing at least 60 percent of the assessed value of hotels countywide had to approve the new room fee before it could be collected, Anderson says. LeMaster & Daniels PLLC, the Spokane CPA firm, has certified that we received well over 60 percent approval, Anderson says.


LeMaster & Daniels also estimated that the fee would raise $1.4 million to $1.8 million a year, with some $900,000 of the lower amount coming from hotels in the city of Spokane, roughly $300,000 from hotels in the city of Spokane Valley, and $100,000 from all other hotels, he says.


The law that authorized the fee says the proceeds from it could be spent only on additional tourism marketing, Anderson says. He says the funds could be used to hire additional CVB and Sports Commission staff members who would do tourism marketing.


A new commission of eight hoteliers would be appointed to decide how to spend the money. The city of Spokane would appoint four commissioners and Spokane County and the city of Spokane Valley each would appoint two. The commissioners would be from each local governments jurisdiction and would be appointed from lists of names submitted by the Spokane Hotel-Motel Association. Each of the three units of local government also would appoint a non-voting, ex-officio member of the commission.


The county commissioners would sign off on the tourism-marketing budget as suggested by the hotel commission, which would hear all feasible proposals for marketing programs, Anderson says. Everybody who can make a case is invited to suggest a marketing effort, he says.


If the county commission changed the hotel commissions proposed tourism-marketing budget to spend the money for non-tourism reasons, the law provides that hoteliers can disband the TPA, Anderson says.


From the start, hoteliers have insisted that Spokane County had to be marketed as a region, or the program wouldnt be effective at bringing visitors in, Anderson says.


It needs to be regionwide, he says. It has to be. You cannot market downtown. You cannot market the Valley. You have to market the entire county as a region.


The Spokane County Commission, city of Spokane Valley, and city of Liberty Lake will have to give their approval before the fee can be assessed, Anderson says. The city of Spokane already has given its approval, and Spokane County held a public hearing on the matter last week, he says. The other local governmental units are likely to take up the issue, and the county is expected to take final action on it not long after Jan. 1, he says.


If all goes well, hotels could start collecting the fee as soon as April 1 and begin sending the money to the Washington state Department of Revenue by May 1, he says. Under such a schedule, the state would begin sending proceeds from the fee back to the tourism promotion area by June 1.


The Department of Revenue has agreed to charge no administrative fee for collecting and distributing the fee, Anderson says.


If a hotel that is required to collect the fee doesnt do so, It would be an issue between them and the Department of Revenue, he says.


John Brewer, the CVBs president and general manager, says that if the CVB receives an anticipated $1.2 million in additional tourism marketing funds from the new fee, he would hire two salespeople to sell use of the expanded Convention Center, the upgraded Spokane County Fair & Expo Center, and limited-service hotels, which have limited meeting space and/or no public meal service. He says he would expect an additional $21 million a year in convention and meetings business from those efforts, and also would hire staff members to buy strategic national and international advertising, to advocate for the film industry to shoot more movies and commercials here, and to do other tasks.


Eric Sawyer, executive director of the Spokane Regional Sports Commission, says that the additional almost $350,000 the commission would expect to receive from the new fee would enable it to hire two more people and give it a financial resource to make bids for such high-profile events as a PGA golf tournament.