MAINE VOICES: Invest in quality to draw tourists
Portland Press Herald:
Monday, May 14, 2007
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bob Dunfey of the Dunfey Hospitality Group lives in York.
The author of a recent "Maine Voices" column bemoaned the many burdens borne by Maine's tourism industry. These include high property taxes, fickle weather, numerous regulations, high energy costs, distance from population centers and competition from other tourism states.
All significant burdens, to be sure, but not the real keys to growing Maine tourism.
Weather, geography and competition are facts of life. Other burdens cited by the writer seem to be insignificant factors in why people actually visit Maine.
Somehow, I doubt tourists check out Maine's restaurant regulations and fire codes before deciding whether to come.
What is most disappointing is the writer's apparent lack of awareness of the obvious key to the health of Maine's tourist industry -- our incomparable "quality of place."
UNDER OUR CONTROL
This is what sets us apart. This is what draws people back here again and again. It is also entirely within our control. We can take it for granted and fritter away our advantage. Or we can protect and nurture it and grow the tourism industry, as the recent Brookings Institution report recommends.
What is the Maine industry's plan for growing tourism?
The only answer seems to be: throw advertising dollars into the Boston and New York media markets and try to make Maine a low-cost destination.
Tourists are not impressed.
Maine's share of overnight visitors has been sliding since 2000, though it rebounded somewhat in 2005.
We can do better.
We need to broaden our approach. We cannot rely on advertising dollars alone to draw people to Maine. We need to invest in those things that attract people to Maine in the first place -- our working waterfronts, accessible wild places, rural traditions and historic downtowns.
This is what the Brookings report proposes to do by creating a $190 million Quality Places Fund.
The bill is subject to a committee hearing in the Maine Legislature Tuesday.
An investment in quality places would benefit the entire state. It would help the parts of northern Maine that rely on hunters, snowmobilers, rafters and hikers; lakeside communities that depend on anglers and boaters; coastal communities that rely on beachgoers, yachters and sightseers; and all the folks connected to the museum-gallery-restaurant-festival scene.
This kind of investment could be the best thing that's ever happened to Maine tourism.
Of course, the investment would be paid for by an increase in the lodging tax from 7 percent to 10 percent.
Charging overnight visitors a few pennies more is only fair.
Hosting millions of visitors a year costs Maine a lot of money. There's wear and tear on roads, extra park maintenance, and the additional burden of cleaning up afterwards.
Currently, visitors aren't paying their fair share. Maine's lodging tax of 7 percent is among the lowest in New England.
Raising the tax to 10 percent would bring Maine's tax only up to the New England average.
An increase would largely spare overtaxed Mainers, because the lodging tax -- unlike the meals tax -- is paid primarily by out-of-staters.
VISITORS SHOULD BE WILLING
Shouldn't out-of-staters contribute a little more since they would benefit from these investments?
I think most tourists will thank us for investing in those things that make Maine more Maine-ish.
But we need help. The statewide discussion that began with the release of the Brookings report last fall has grown enormously and could go in unpredictable directions. Other proposals to increase the lodging tax have surfaced that have nothing to do with growing tourism.
Folks in the tourism industry need to stand up and insist that any increase in the lodging tax is earmarked for programs to grow tourism.
Let's not sell ourselves short. If we can grow tourism, we've found the key to growing the whole economy.
- Special to the Press Herald
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