[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Local News
| News
| Sports | Business
| Opinions | Columns
| Entertainment |
| Science/Technology | Weather
| Archives | E-mail
Us |
Saturday, May 6, 2000
Groups promote Aransas Pass
Chamber, association have same goal but different methods
By Michael Hines
Caller-Times
There's no reason why a newly formed tourism group and the Aransas Pass Chamber of Commerce can't work together to promote the city, chamber officials said.
However, members of the fledgling Texas-Cowboy Northbay Area Hospitality Association, which was formed last month, said they have a different agenda than the chamber.
"The group is taking the broader view of the whole North bay area," said Jay Masterson, the association's newly elected board member for strategic planning. "Everybody's tired of football rivalries deciding the future of how people work together."
Masterson said some members of the organization would continue working with the chamber of commerce, as well as the hospitality group. The association also may ask the Aransas Pass City Council for funding from the hotel/motel tax by 2001.
But Kay Wolf, president and chief executive officer of the Aransas Pass Chamber of Commerce, said the hospitality group's efforts could be implemented through the existing chamber.
"Bring us your ideas and we'll work with anyone and anybody," she said. "It's our goal to get tourists here and to keep them here once they're here."
Already, she said, the chamber is involved with the Coastal Bend Regional Tourism Council, which distributes a 70-page guide to the state's welcome centers. The guide includes individual tourism information on regions in the council's 14-county area.
'We do the very best'
As for Aransas Pass itself, Wolf said the chamber is spending more money on tourism than it receives from hotel/motel tax funds, which are earmarked for tourism issues.
The chamber receives 70 percent of the revenues generated from the city's hotel/motel tax. The tax is 7 percent on every hotel or motel room filled and has totaled about $217,000 during the last three years. Even with nearly $82,000 coming in from the tax last year, Wolf said about $100,000 on average is spent on tourism each year.
"We do the very best we can with the money we receive," she said. "We always spend more than we get."
Available information
Those funds helped pay to promote the area's fishing, birding and similar tourist attractions in trade magazines such as Texas Outdoors and Texas Fish & Game.
But questions about how the funds were spent spurred the creation of the hospitality group. Those concerns cropped up following an April 4 meeting where 40 business leaders gathered to discuss tourism in the area.
Nancy Allen, owner of Lighthouse Lodging Development, called for the meeting because she thought the city needed a group to spread more tourist information to new businesses moving into the area.
She also said she couldn't get information on how the chamber spends money on tourism.
Proper advertising
Other members of the hospitality group have said that too much money has been devoted to the city's fall festival, Shrimporee.
Wolf said just the opposite has been true and that an audit of the chamber's expenses was started last October. About $10,000 of the hotel/motel tax funds are used only to advertise for the annual event, Wolf said. As the chamber's primary fund-raiser, Shrimporee brings in about $200,000 annually, she said. Most of the profits fund the festival's expenses. The rest is divvied into various projects, such as magazine advertising and visitors center expenses.
The hospitality group officials will meet again on Tuesday.
Staff writer Michael Hines can be reached at 886-3758 or by e-mail at hinesm@caller.com
| Talk
about this story | Next Story
| Home |
© 2000,
a Scripps Howard newspaper. All rights reserved.
|
 |
 |
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
|
