Amador lodging industry pitches 2% tourism marketing assessment; supervisors pause adoption pending Jackson data

Visit Amador leaders and a coalition of lodging owners spent more than two hours Tuesday presenting and defending a proposal to create an Amador County Tourism Marketing District that would add a 2% pass-through assessment on lodging receipts to fund centralized marketing.

The Board of Supervisors did not vote on the district. County staff told the board they lack verified transient-occupancy-tax (TOT) data from the City of Jackson and cannot make the statutory finding required to adopt a resolution of intent without weighted-petition calculations that include Jackson’s contribution.

Kathleen Mahan, president of Visit Amador and a leader of the Amador Lodging Alliance, described the proposed structure and fiscal plan, saying the district would be “a 2% assessment pass through” and that the assessment would be collected by HDL on behalf of the county and passed to an owners’ association to fund marketing. Tracy Birkner, a lodging owner and co‑founder of the Amador Council of Tourism, said the group expects roughly 10% of revenues to cover administration, 10% to reserves, 3% for collections and the…