CVB Travel: City's sales force seeks funding boost via tax

Susan Wade is the public relations manager with the Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau.

When it comes to booking conventions in Springfield, the city's Convention & Visitors Bureau is the first place to turn for help.

CVB staff members have the knowledge and network that can make the process easier for meeting planners. Dozens each year take advantage of CVB services, such as assistance with booking lodging and providing information to convention delegates, making sure facility arrangements are done to planners' specifications and much more.

The CVB's function, however, involves more than acting as a liaison and providing services to groups coming to Springfield.

"The bureau is the city's primary marketing agency for travel and tourism," said CVB Executive Director Tracy Kimberlin. "We are responsible for creating a positive economic impact on Springfield through growth in the tourism industry."

Think of the CVB as the city's sales force because the bureau's staff, through a variety of strategies, pursues events and groups that can convene in Springfield.

Sales staff members, for example, contact meeting planners by attending trade shows, making traditional sales calls and conducting sales blitzes and cold calls. The CVB also places advertising in a variety of media and conducts public relations campaigns to raise awareness of Springfield as a convention destination.

The reason for all that effort is the positive economic impact generated by tourists. A study conducted in 2002 showed visitors spend an average of $91 per person per day in Springfield. More than 2 million people visit the city each year.

That spending creates jobs and tax revenue to support a variety of public projects and services. Besides sales tax, tourists who use hotels and motels also are paying a tax.

The current lodging tax is 4.5 percent; 2 percent goes to the CVB (less a 6 percent collection fee). The remaining 2.5 percent is distributed for civic park development (1.5 percent), Wonders of Wildlife Zooquarium (0.5 percent), the Jordan Valley Ice Arena (0.25 percent) and matching grants to assist nonprofit organizations, such as Discovery Center, the Gillioz and Landers theaters and Dickerson Park Zoo, in development of tourism-related facilities (0.25 percent).

Other taxes charged for hotel and motel rooms are: 4.225 percent state sales tax, 0.5 percent county sales tax, 0.25 percent county law enforcement sales tax, 0.25 percent county parks sales tax, 1 percent city sales tax, 0.25 percent city capital improvements sales tax and 0.125 percent city intersection improvement sales tax. (The city's lodging tax is a gross receipts tax, making the effective total tax rate 11.3 percent.)

Voters will be asked next spring to increase the hotel-motel tax by 0.5 percent. The proposed tax would generate about $250,000 to enhance CVB marketing programs to attract conventions and sporting events to facilities throughout the city. Another $40,000 in anticipated revenue would be used to help fund the Tourist Information Center at 3315 E. Battlefield Road.

"If voters approve the tax, they are in effect approving resources for their sales force and marketing agency," Kimberlin said.

The tax referendum will be on the ballot Feb. 3.