I recently received an email from Buffalo Niagara Convention and Visitors Bureau’s Ed Healy regarding the status of the Erie County Legislature’s cuts to bed tax funding in the 2008 County budget. I spoke with Ed this morning and he relayed to me that, “This year we’re going to collect more Bed Tax dollars than we’ve ever collected in any previous year.” That’s exciting news. It means that there are more people (many of them Canadians) who are coming to Buffalo to spend money. The Bed Tax is an interesting animal. It was created for the sole purpose of generating tourism dollars in the WNY Region. The tax is paid for by the visitors who stay at the hotels, with the intention of generating more marketing dollars, in order to bring even more visitors the Buffalo. It’s a cyclical process that has somewhere along the line broken down. Over the years the percentage of money that goes to the CVB has dwindled. From Ed Healy’s email:
While our community is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in new or improved tourism products such as the Darwin Martin House, the Burchfield-Penney Art Center, Graycliff, the Botanical Gardens, the Roycroft Campus, the Nash House Museum, Erie Canal Harbor, the Buffalo Zoo, etc. our elected officials are misappropriating bed tax dollars and undercutting marketing efforts that would begin to get Buffalo the attention it deserves as a tourism destination and help drive admissions to these attractions. A cut to the CVB is a cut to the out-of-market promotion of each and every tourism attraction in Erie County.
Maybe that’s why the Film Commissioner’s position was most recently axed. How does Buffalo’s small but important film industry get by without a Film Commissioner? It doesn’t. That’s why the CVB has allocated it’s own funds to keep the position intact. The CVB will retain Tim Clark until the next budgetary allocations are announced next Fall. For Ed and the CVB there was no choice but to re-divert funds that could have been used to market Buffalo. That’s a tough call, but one that will put a bandage on the problem through 2008.
I asked Ed why the CVB decided to allocate the money needed to keep the Film Commission in place. “The cut to the Film Commissioner was a big loss,” he told me. “Film producers must work with so many different levels of government. Our board has decided to fund the film commission with our own bed tax dollars. We’re making sure that the film commission stays operational. Tim Clark has done a good job as the Film Commissioner. In a sense we’re taking a second hit by allocating money to keep Tim on board. If a major motion picture comes to Buffalo, then we need a liaison. We used to have a Director of Cultural Tourism until that position was cut. At one point we had a grant writer. How much more can we take on as our roles? When you look at other cities like Pittsburgh and Cleveland, we are getting nowhere near the funds to market our city. This is a no-brainer. Investing back into tourism is so important. We can’t rely on the Canadian tourism industry forever. We need to prepare a long-term marketing effort. The Canadians know how to get to the Galleria… and the Bills games. We should be pointing out to the Canadian visitors that there is so much more here to take advantage of. The Bed Tax was created to be self-funding. The only reason that the Bed Tax is there is because of the efforts of the CVB. Unfortunately the money passes through the Erie County Government. I don’t think that’s the hoteliers had that in mind when the Bed Tax was put in place.”
If you ever wonder why you never see a Buffalo billboard in Toronto, just know that it’s a proposition that would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The WNY community is currently getting a big bang for the buck considering the allocated budget that the CVB has to work with. If you think that convincing people that they want to come to Buffalo is easy… you may want to think again. “The overall negative brand that is Buffalo,” Ed states. “Means that we need a serious budget to work with. We’ve had a good year in 2007. We’re going to collect more bed tax than we’ve ever collected in any previous year… but when the percentage that comes to us is down, that means that tourism is going to be down.”
If you feel that more tourism dollars should be allocated to the CVB to put Buffalo back on the map, please ontact your Erie County legislator. Let them know that "bed tax legislation should be honored and funds collected by Erie County hotels should be re-invested in the marketing of our community as a visitor destination."
1st District The Honorable Daniel M. Kozub Erie County Legislature 609 Ridge Road Lackawanna, NY 14218 Phone: 716-822-0462 Fax: 716-824-0675 E-Mail: kozubd@erie.gov
2nd District The Honorable Timothy M. Kennedy Erie County Legislature 1928 South Park Avenue Buffalo, NY 14220 Phone: 716-824-6180 Fax: 716-825-9484 E-Mail: eriecodistrict2@hotmail.com
3rd District
The Honorable Barbara Miller-Williams Erie County Legislature 427 William Street Buffalo, NY 14204 Phone: 716-842-0490 Fax: 716-854-5722 E-Mail: bmw@erie.gov
4th District The Honorable Michael H. Ranzenhofer Erie County Legislature 8860 Main Street, Suite 201a Williamsville, NY 14221 Phone: 716-631-8695 Cell: 716-983-6370 Fax: 716-634-4321 E-Mail: ranzenhofer@erie.gov
5th District The Honorable Kathy Konst Erie County Legislature 41 Central Ave Lancaster, NY 14086 Tel: (716) 601-3030 Fax: (716) 601-3033 Cell: 716-444-9007 Email: konstk@erie.gov
6th District The Honorable Maria R. Whyte, Majority Leader Erie County Legislature 286 Lafayette Avenue Buffalo, NY 14213 Phone: 716-874-3257 Cell: 716-884-8020 Fax: 716-874-4779 E-Mail: whytem@erie.gov
7th District The Honorable Betty Jean Grant Erie County Legislature 790 E. Delavan Avenue Buffalo, NY 14215 Phone: 716-894-0914 Fax: 716-896-1463 E-Mail: bjg@erie.gov
8th District The Honorable Thomas J. Mazur Erie County Legislature 1214 Walden Avenue Cheektowaga, NY 14227 Phone: 716-893-4385 Cell: 716-609-7795 Fax: 716-894-4539 E-Mail: mazurt2@erie.gov
9th District
The Honorable Cynthia E. Locklear
Erie County Legislature
12 School Street, Upper
West Seneca, NY 14224
Phone: 716-675-8817
Cell: 716-803-4794
Fax: 716-675-8818
Email: locklear@erie.gov
10th District
The Honorable Michele Iannello (Chair – Community Enrichment Committee)
Erie County Legislature
92 Franklin Street, 4th Floor
Buffalo, NY 14202
Phone: 716-858-6757
Fax: 716-858-8895
Email: iannello@erie.gov
11th District The Honorable Lynn M. Marinelli, Chairperson Erie County Legislature 1701 Hertel Avenue Buffalo, NY 14216 Phone: 716-832-0493 Cell: 716-983-4996 Fax: 716-832-0494 E-Mail: marinelli@erie.gov
12th District The Honorable Robert B. Reynolds Erie County Legislature 3 Buffalo Street Hamburg, NY 14075 Phone - 649-2640 Fax - 648-1757 Email: reynolds@erie.gov
13th District The Honorable John J. Mills (CVB Board – Minority Appointment) Minority Leader Erie County Legislature 431 Main Street East Aurora, NY 14052 Phone: 716-655-5650 Cell: 716-982-2666 Fax: 716-655-5396 E-Mail: jmills13@erie.gov
14th District
The Honorable Thomas A. Loughran (Community Enrichment Committee)
Erie County Legislature
7 Bernhardt Drive
Amherst, NY 14226-4446
Phone: 716-836-0198
Fax: 716-836-0199
E-Mail: loughran@erie.gov
15th District The Honorable Barry A. Weinstein, MD Erie County Legislature 5500 Main Street, Suite 204B Williamsville, NY 14221 Phone: 716-633-0617 Cell: 716-465-1445 Fax: 716-633-0618 E-Mail: drbarry15@erie.gov