National Tourism Week Editorial, Union-Tribune
By Joanne DiBona, Communications Director
Each year during the first week of May, San Diego joins hands with the rest of the nation in celebration of National Tourism Week. This year’s celebration, May 4-12, marks the 19th year our nation has formally recognized the importance of the visitor industry to our national and regional economy.
Now, eight months after the tragedy of the September 11 terrorist attacks, National Tourism Week takes on an added significance as our country slowly makes its way back to normalcy. In the months following 9/11, we saw first-hand how the nation’s economy was adversely impacted by the sudden downturn in tourism. With leisure and business travel at a virtual standstill, destinations across the country saw their hotel occupancies plummet. Many businesses that feed directly off the visitor industry—restaurants, transportation, leisure activities, visitor attractions, etc.—immediately started to feel the devastating effects of this decline in visitor numbers.
And it got worse. With the sudden loss of visitor and convention business, whole communities began to suffer. The effects trickled down to countless numbers of small businesses whose economic health depends on the health of the visitor and convention industry. A wide variety of small businesses were affected--from the florist, caterer, musician, photographer and trade show carpenter to the paper supplier, taxi cab driver, party planner, and waste removal company, to name just a few.
Even small businesses with no obvious links to the visitor industry were negatively impacted; perhaps indirectly, but impacted nonetheless. Our nation experienced first hand what no amount of National Tourism Week rhetoric could accomplish over the past nineteen years—a recognition of the simple fact that the visitor industry is big business on which the health of our economy depends.
When it suffers, our economy suffers. Tourism is San Diego’s third largest industry and as such is vital to the health of our regional economy. San Diego also suffered substantial decreases in tourism business in the fourth quarter of 2001. But thankfully, because of our reputation as a popular drive market and short-haul flight market, recovery came sooner to San Diego’s visitor industry than to many other destinations across the nation.
Our 2001 statistics registered a decline, of course (the first one is more than 8 years of steady, healthy growth) but remained relatively stable considering the fact that tourism came to a screeching halt for weeks following the September 11 tragedy. Despite those catastrophic events, San Diego still hosted more than 14.8 million overnight visitors in 2001, visitors who poured $5.1 billion into the regional economy. In addition, our local visitor industry provided jobs to 177,000 San Diegans who worked in fields directly related to tourism, including lodging, food service, attractions and transportation.
There were actually some bright spots in San Diego’s 2001 tourism picture. One was business at the San Diego Convention Center, which enjoyed double digit increases in delegate attendance and spending last year. Since the events of September 11th, only one convention was cancelled. In fact, in November 2001, the Center recorded its highest ever number of peak hotel room nights on record for any November since its opening in 1989.
This healthy growth in these volatile economic times is a direct result of the Convention Center expansion. The expansion immediately strengthened San Diego’s reach within the convention and trade show market, resulting in larger conventions booking events in the Center when they were not able to do so in the past.
The San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau (ConVis) embraces National Tourism Week as an opportunity to tell the story about tourism’s importance to our regional economy. Because it is such a clean industry whose ultimate goal is to provide a pleasurable experience, the thought of travel and tourism usually evokes images of sun bathers frolicking on the beach, camera-laden tourists with guide books in hand, or convention delegates scurrying to and from meetings.
What is not immediately evident is the enormous financial boost these visitors provide to our economy and local government tax coffers. In addition to the business generated for our local companies and services, tourism generates transient occupancy tax (TOT). Most San Diegans are unaware of the TOT or its positive impact on our quality of life, because it is, after all, paid for by visitors who spend the night in one of San Diego’s hotels or motels.
But it is hard to ignore the fiscal impact of the countywide “bed tax,” which this year is anticipated to generate approximately $140 million for municipal governments throughout San Diego county. (This is in addition to tens of millions of dollars in other general fund revenues like sales tax, property tax, rents, etc. generated by visitor spending.) By comparison, in 1988 these receipts totaled a “mere” $36 million; in 1995, $72 million. It’s easy to see the astonishing rate at which TOT revenues have grown over the last few years thanks to our vibrant visitor industry. So what happens to these tax dollars, paid by tourists and convention delegates, not local San Diego taxpayers? A significant portion of the TOT is used to supplement the general funds of cities throughout the county and underwrite basic municipal services, such as road repair and park maintenance.
These revenues also help fund cultural events, arts organizations and community-based programs throughout the region. In addition, the TOT provides funding to hire police officers for our neighborhoods, train firefighters and promote economic development.
And it doesn’t stop there. The TOT helps to maintain many of the amenities that are enjoyed not only by tourists, but also by San Diego area residents, such as Balboa Park, Mission Bay Park, and the Trolley.
The TOT is also the source of funding for the expansion of San Diego’s enormously successful Convention Center as well as the downtown ballpark, which will help transform urban blight into a vibrant retail and residential center.
In sum, the visitor industry’s significant contributions to our local economy are quite clear. Not only does tourism pay for itself, it also provides a critical source of funding to underwrite programs and projects of primary benefit to San Diegans.
The events of September 11 showed us that the visitor industry is inexorably linked to the economic health of our nation. National Tourism Week 2002 does more than just highlight tourism’s economic importance. It celebrates our nation’s tenacity in the face of adversity as people begin to travel again in full force.
