Hospitality professionals throughout Washington are working to fill a void that will occur this summer, if, as appears inevitable, the state government stops funding and shutters the Washington State Tourism Office.

As importantly, industry leaders say they are working to ensure businesses that rely on tourism—a multibillion-dollar industry statewide that brings hundreds of millions of dollars to the Spokane area each year—don't find themselves in this compromised position again.

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire has proposed, in one of a number of measures intended to address the state's budget shortfall, eliminating the state Tourism Office's $1.8 million budget for the 2012-2013 biennium. That biennium starts July 1, but with a projected budget shortfall in the current two-year budget cycle, the office could close before then.

"This has been a wake-up call for our industry," says George Schweitzer, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Spokane-based Red Lion Hotels Corp. and a founding board member of the newly formed, privately funded Washington Tourism Alliance.

The Tourism Office, funded from the state's general fund, oversees efforts to market the state as a tourism destination. Those efforts include maintaining the experiencewa.com website, publishing a number of promotional publications, handling information requests, and organizing familiarization trips—known in the industry as fam trips—for writers, convention planners, and tour operators, among others.

The newly formed Washington Tourism Alliance's first order of business is to make sure the current efforts handled by the state continue, Schweitzer says. The group wants to make sure the website stays live and hospitality personnel continue to field inquiries regarding Washington state as a tourism destination, he says. The alliance currently is talking with the state about ways to keep those operations running seamlessly through the transition.

Schweitzer says the new group's board doesn't expect to raise enough funds to replace the Tourism Office fully, but it has received support already from some hospitality companies and tourism-related organizations. The organization currently is selling business sponsorships and memberships that range from $300 to $5,000 and individual sponsorships for $25.

"With the interest shown so far, we may surprise ourselves on how much we can raise," Schweitzer says.

The industry appears to be rallying in light of a looming funding loss. About 500 people had committed to attend a Washington Tourism Industry Summit that was held on March 31 in Seattle, he says.

The Spokane Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau is one of the founding partners in the Tourism Alliance and is among about 20 entities that have committed to the new organization so far, says Spokane CVB President and CEO Cheryl Kilday.

"We're a big supporter of WTA," she says. "This is something we're committed to helping make work."

Kilday says the Spokane CVB is funded separate from the state, so the loss of funding doesn't hurt the Spokane organization's budget directly. However, she says, the state refers tour organizers, travel writers, and convention planners to the CVB regularly, and the organization would feel the effects of losing those referrals if they went away.

"We need that effort," she says.

Even before the proposal to zero out state funding of tourism, Washington trailed almost all other states in spending dollars to promote tourism. At $1.8 million last year, the state ranked 48th out of the 50 states in terms of the amount of money committed to tourism promotion, according to Tourism Office statistics. In better economic times—and at a time when the state had tourism funding mechanisms in place beyond the state's general fund—the state had an annual tourism budget of about $10 million. Even at that level of funding, though, the state ranked "below the middle of the pack," Schweitzer says.

Ironically, the looming loss of public funding and shift in business practice follows the second-best year on record for tourism spending in the state. The Washington state Department of Commerce says travelers to Washington spent about $15.2 billion in the state last year, a 7 percent increase compared with 2009. That spending, according to the Commerce Department, generated almost $1 billion in local and state tax revenues.

County-specific figures for 2010 aren't available yet, but in 2009, the Spokane Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau reported $741 million in total visitor spending in Spokane County, accounting for about $58.3 million in local taxes.

"People believe tourists just come, and there's no need for devoted funds," Schweitzer says. "I'm here to tell you that's not true."

Kilday concurred.

"Travel doesn't just happen," she says. "We need that effort."

She likens the combined destination-marketing effort to a trail of bread crumbs, with each broad marketing effort leading potential visitors to a more geographically specific destination. The statewide effort draws tourists, tour operators, and convention planners to Washington, which then compels some to look at Eastern Washington, then the Inland Northwest, then Spokane specifically.

The Washington Tourism Alliance is set up as a 501(c)6 organization, which is a nonprofit status established for business organizations. The Spokane Regional CVB also operates as a 501(c)6 organization, for example, as does Greater Spokane Incorporated.

While the primary funding mechanism for the Tourism Alliance will be membership fees initially, the organization plans to look at other funding options. One idea, Schweitzer says, is a statewide lodging tax earmarked specifically to promote the state. Similar taxes could be considered for other hospitality-related businesses, he says, adding that a self-imposed hospitality-business assessment is another option that might be explored.

"Whatever it is, it needs to be dedicated," Schweitzer says. "We need to create a sustainable program."