The Tourism Commission has changed its stance from last month and approved a recommendation that City Council adopt the Planning Department’s Equity-Based Preservation Plan, which intended to guide the city’s use of hotel taxes dedicated toward historic preservation.
Last month, the commission narrowly voted against supporting the plan, with a handful of commissioners feeling the plan didn’t draw a strong enough connection between how better practices for historic preservation could be linked to boosting the local tourism economy.
In response to those views, Cara Bertron, program manager for the Planning Department, shared data connected to so-called “heritage tourists.” They spend $2.3 billion annually and account for 12.5 percent of all travel spending in Texas. Per day, heritage tourists spend $30 more than other tourists. Bertron also shared that the city has small pockets of land that contain the majority of pre-1945 buildings as well as 20 percent of all arts and cultural facilities that tend to draw tourists.
The plan outlines several goals and strategies for using Hotel Occupancy Tax (HOT) revenues to promote historic preservation. The goals include enhancing visitor engagement with his historic sites, preserving restoring historic structures, increasing equity and representation in the community, and driving economic development through heritage tourism.
Possible steps the city could take include continuing to use hotel taxes for preservation of eligible sites, collaborating with relevant community organizations and cultural groups, increasing public awareness of relevant historic sites, and using data and tourism impact studies to identify the sites with the greatest impact in visitor engagement and economic benefit.
Commissioner John Riedie said City Council and staff need more guidance on how to use the 15 percent of annual hotel tax receipts allocated for historic preservation, with state law requiring those funds to be used to promote tourism.
“We’re the only commission asked by Council to advise on hotel tax usage. And since Council has already committed 15 percent of hotel taxes to preservation, I think it’s important that we weigh in on how that preservation money is spent,” he said. “Council has determined to spend this money on preserving historic sites. The question is, what do we prioritize with that? I support Ms. Bertron’s equity-based preservation plan because it does prioritize those sites that are most at risk that illustrate the history of marginalized communities.”
Commissioner Ed Bailey, who previously voted against recommending the plan’s adoption, said the newer supporting information helped to clarify the link between historic sites and their draw for local tourism dollars.
“The follow-up information was incredibly important and it was instructive and helped me get a better clarity on how this proposal integrates into the overall program,” he said. “I continue to be very interested in how the 15 percent of (hotel tax) dollars on heritage is being spent, and anything that brings more light and clarity to the process that’s going down to determine where those dollars are spent, I welcome. I feel like that area is a little more opaque than some of the other areas that we have responsibility to look over where the (hotel) tax goes.”
Prior to voting against the recommendation for a second straight month, Commissioner Greg Chanon said stronger arguments could be made for using HOT funds to pay for road improvements because tourists enjoy traveling on smooth, well-maintained streets.
“The presentation that was made to us last time had no mention of tourism in it, and the bullet points and the materials received had no mention of tourism in it,” he said. “Just improving heritage preservation generally for improving our city is an ambiguous goal to increasing tourism. I don’t think it is enough. I think that anything that we should throw our support behind on in the Tourism Commission should have something substantive related to tourism.”
Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.
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historic preservation: Official actions of a municipality such as the City of Austin taken to preserve structures with their jurisdiction. Preservation is often accompanied by a property tax exemption.
Hotel Occupancy Tax: A tax on the rental of a room in a hotel or other rental properties (including apartments) that cost 6 percent of the cost of a room.
