New bureau splits from Chamber of Commerce-Bed tax could be up for grabs

A group of self-described tourism professionals, dissatisfied with the promotional efforts of the Missoula Chamber of Commerce, has launched a new organization to boost Missoula as a destination for tourists.

By MICK HOLIEN of the Missoulian

"There’s not one board member, except to exclude our attorney, that’s on our board, that tourism doesn’t affect the bottom line of their business," said Kimberly Roth, marketing director at Southgate Mall and the president of the new Missoula Convention and Visitors Bureau.

If the name sounds familiar, that’s because the Missoula Chamber of Commerce has used it for more than 15 years as its tourism-promotion arm, but hadn’t registered the name with the state.

The fledgling group recently held an informational meeting which was attended by more than 100 people.

"What you saw Thursday night" at that meeting, said Roth, "was a room full of people that nobody listened to."

That’s not the view of Chamber of Commerce Board President Bob Boschee, who said the organization made every effort to avoid the split.

A prime issue was how the chamber’s Convention and Visitors Bureau used money from the state’s bed tax on hotels – money that’s used by the state to promote tourism outside the state. Another issue revolved around how the chamber used the director of its bureau.

Members of the new group contend that the chamber used the bureau director and bed-tax money for work not related to tourism. They also wanted a change in policy which would allow a business to belong to the bureau without full chamber membership.

While chamber officials didn’t agree, they tried to address the group’s concerns.

"We thought we had come along and made a pretty good effort and a good proposal to address what we understood their concerns to be," said Boschee.

The group also was offered a chance to submit an alternative proposal but decided to strike out on its own, he said.

"It’s disappointing to me that we couldn’t come to a resolution of those issues within the structures that currently exist," said Boschee.

"We went and tried to work it out the best that we could and just found out the two philosophies were different," Roth answered. "It was a group formed out of pure necessity, out of professional business people that do tourism every day. My job is to make sure that I’m positioning this shopping center for the benefit of their business. I cannot turn my back on the tourism industry or the promotion of the tourism industry because another entity has a different mission."

While chamber executive Kim Latrielle said she’s concerned the group’s moniker could cause confusion – in fact, she said, it already has received calls and correspondence meant for the other organization – the chamber plans to continue its tourism bureau.

"The confusion is, I think, that a section of the chamber has moved out and the chamber is no longer doing tourism and that’s not the case," she said. "We’re doing everything that we’ve always done."

"We’re going to try to support them in the best manner we can but we also want them to recognize, we’re not abdicating our role in the promotion of tourism," added Boschee. "We’re still going to be the first place the vast majority of people come to."

Roth and Theresa Cox, of A Carousel for Missoula, the new group’s vice-president, stressed in a recent interview that expertise in the tourist business makes their entity capable of accomplishing what they contend the chamber’s bureau could not.

And, they say, the stakes are high for businesses: State government estimates that tourism brought $1.6 billion into Montana in 2001.

"The whole city, whether you have any idea that you depend upon tourism, depends on tourism. People don’t think of that," said Cox.

Added Roth: "People don’t understand tourism. They don’t understand the economic impact it brings."

But members and potential members of the new group, she said, understand tourism.

"I think you’ve probably got a group of professional tourism people that are committed, full of passion and we know how to do it," said Roth.

"We’re going to make sure that people understand the great avenues that we have to enjoy," she said. "We don’t want to be a lunch stop. We want people to come and plan out an itinerary with three days full of things for them to do, be it going to the Missoula Children’s Theater, discovering our art museums, taking the historical walks downtown or fly fishing, all these things people don’t know about."

They said the new group will have a wider focus than the chamber: The new group, they said, will promote the entire valley, while the chamber just promotes its own members.

"They have to protect their members," said Cox. "We have to promote everybody and the thing is mutually exclusive."

"Chambers do what chambers should do," added Roth. "They’re a broad-based representation of communities. Thirty-seven percent of mall sales comes from the tourism industry. I don’t have that luxury, to have any outside organization run something that I know how to do and do it better."

For her part, the chamber’s Latrielle said that a strength of the chamber is that it promotes the area from an unbiased view.

"We don’t have anything to sell here at the chamber," she said. "When they come into our organization, we’re very neutral. We promote everybody equally."

But she’s hopeful the emergence of a second group promoting Missoula will magnify the community’s effort to attract additional tourists, and thus, increase revenue.

"I’ve been taking the high road through this whole thing," she said. "They do have a vision trying to do a good thing. It’s just how we get there that’s so important to the community and the ability to talk and work together is where we need to be."

The chamber hopes the new group raises "new" dollars by attracting members who currently don’t belong to the chamber rather than coaxing existing members away.

"We’d be crazy to stand in anybody’s way that wants to bring more business to town as long as it doesn’t cause businesses to have to pick," said Latrielle.

Roth said hotels and motels, which are highly competitive with each other, make up the bulk of the fledgling group’s initial membership but diverse attractions make the area a natural for increased promotion.

"We are going to be Missoula’s marketing arm for the whole community," Roth said.

They’ll do that, in part, by setting up four tourist information centers at various spots around town.

The new CVB will sell memberships on a sliding scale and try to attract grants and private dollars. The new group’s first-year budget is $225,000.

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Bed tax could be up for grabs

By MICK HOLIEN of the Missoulian

Another issue is in the air as Missoula’s new Convention and Visitors Bureau sets up shop and the Missoula chamber also aims to continue serving tourists: Who will receive the yearly bed-tax allocation from the state?

That money – and the total payment from the state for the 2002-03 budget year is estimated at about $105,840 – has helped pay for the chamber’s Convention and Visitors Bureau director, a call center, and a four-color tourism guide, all meant to help lure tourists from outside Montana.

Yearly, the Missoula chamber has been the designee, but if both entities seek the state funds, in January the city probably will request proposals, said Janet Stevens, the city’s chief administrative officer.

"What concerns me as a city official is whether we will spread ourselves too thin with money and various organizations but I think with what I’ve seen over the last year or so I can understand why another organization is forming," she said. "I’m just hoping frankly that they both will benefit the city."

Kimberly Roth, president of the new group, said the new organization could benefit, but is not dependent on, the bed tax dollars.

"Our goal when we started was to not rely on the bed tax as a economic substance for us," she said. "We identified early this year that if we ever received the bed tax, it was going to be a plus for us, but it was not going to be a substantial part of our economic base to run this organization."

Because of the limits on what bed tax funds can be used for, the new group plans also to work on promoting Missoula within the state, not only with memberships, but with grants and private funds.

"We have a tremendous amount of residential tourists, people who take their vacation inside the state," said Roth.

But Bob Boschee, president of the board of the Missoula chamber, says the chamber doesn’t plan to cede tourism responsibilities to the new group.

"We do have the responsibility now and I think we’re well prepared to continue our role as the administrators of the bed tax," he said. "I think their general objective, to increase the promotion of tourism and attraction of people to Missoula, is certainly a worthy objective and if there’s some things they can do to complement what the chamber’s doing, that’s the best thing for Missoula."

"I just know it’s our responsibility to fulfill our obligation to promote tourism and market Missoula as we’ve been chartered to do … until such a time as someone could be doing it better or someone tells us it’s time to get out of the tourism business," added Kim Latrielle, the chamber’s executive director.

"We’ve got the responsibility of tourism, the bed tax responsibilities, so we have to fulfill our obligation," she said. "We have to make sure that there’s a group that can sustain (itself) before we (consider) doing away with our whole infrastructure."

Boschee did, however, suggest that if the chamber didn’t receive Missoula’s portion of the bed tax proceeds, it may force a re-examination of the organization’s mission.

"It’s a little bit premature to look too deeply into it, but without those resources … it definitely would change our approach to our role in its entirety," he said. "It would require a refocus of both the people and financial resources within the chamber to determine how we would move forward."

Reporter Mick Holien can be reached 523-5262 or at [email protected]

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