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Visit Tri Cities reports strong 2024 results and asks city to approve $549,500 from tourism reserve
Summary
Visit Tri Cities presented its 2024 annual report to the Richland City Council, highlighted major event impacts including Ironman and requested $549,500 from the Tourism Promotion Area reserve for research, marketing and event support; council members asked about short-term rentals and near-term visitation trends.
Visit Tri Cities representative Kevin Lewis presented the organization’s 2024 annual report to the Richland City Council and asked the council to approve a $549,500 draw from the Tourism Promotion Area (TPA) reserve to fund research, marketing and event-support projects.
Lewis said Visit Tri Cities is a 501(c)(6) destination-marketing organization funded primarily by a per-room tourism performance assessment and lodging taxes. He told council the group’s 2024 budget totaled roughly $3.5 million, of which “about 67%” came from the tourism performance areas, “22%” from lodging taxes and “about 10%” from sponsors. He said Visit Tri Cities spent roughly 70% of the budget on marketing, convention and sports sales work and maintained a reserve the organization now seeks to use for specific projects.
The request to use TPA reserves covers a package of items Lewis summarized: multi-year research and reporting services, a short-term rental research…
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