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Travel and Tourism Board trims spending, creates ambassador line and draws on reserves to smooth grants and visitor management
Summary
The Jackson Hole Travel and Tourism Board proposed a FY2026 budget that trims overall spending about 12.8%, establishes a new Ambassador Services line for visitor-management grants, and plans to draw roughly $968,000 from reserves while leaving about $1.47 million in reserve at year-end.
The Jackson Hole Joint Powers Travel and Tourism Board presented its FY2026 lodging-tax budget April 29, saying it will reduce overall expenditures from the highs of recent years, create a new Ambassador Services line focused on on-the-ground visitor management, and draw on reserves so the board can support multi-year grants to local visitor-management partners.
Vice Chair Julie Calder and board staff described a $6.875 million lodging tax revenue projection for FY2026 (a 4.87% increase in the board’s forecast compared with the current year) and said the board had pared budgeted spending to about $7.49 million, reducing overall spending by roughly 12.8% to lower reserves. The board said it expects to end FY2026 with a reserve of roughly $1.47 million.
New and shifted priorities
- Ambassador Services: a new program line of $550,000 (shared town/county side) to fund local organizations doing face-to-face visitor-management work. The board said awards will be made through a May application process and that it is creating a multi-year contract option for some applicants.
- Marketing and brand: the board proposed $3.1 million for marketing, PR and advertising (down about 6.5%), with a shift away from a full-service social-media agency position toward contracting specialized talent and trimming paid-media buys.
- Events and destination development: allocations for community and signature events were reduced from recent years (signature events and community-event grants combined total about $1.3 million in the FY2026 plan), reflecting a deliberate drawdown of multi-year reserves the board used after the pandemic to seed events and community programs.
Reserves and process
The board said expenditures will exceed projected revenue by about $968,000 in FY2026; that gap will be filled from reserves. The board’s leadership said the reserve target of roughly $1.0–$1.5 million reflects common practice and helps preserve operating security.
Board members repeatedly emphasized that they had told recurring applicants — organizations that count on lodging-tax funding year after year — to expect declines and to look for other funding sources. Several commissioners asked the board whether the withdrawals this year would make next year much more difficult; board members acknowledged the concern and said the board aims to strike balance: continue funding essential visitor-management work while moving toward a smaller, sustainable reserve.
Quote
- "We are a board tasked with finding balance," Vice Chair Julie Calder said. "This budget is the result of a board with differing perspectives trying to allocate lodging-tax funds across marketing, events, visitor management and community partnerships."
Next steps: the board will complete its application round for Ambassador Services in early May, award grants at a special meeting, and return to joint elected bodies as part of the remaining budget calendar.
