The city will meet with local hotel and motel operators next week to see how warm they are to the idea of paying a city tourism levy. According to the plan, a one or two per cent fee would be collected on each room rental and forwarded to the city which would use it to promote tourism in the area.
Right now, Brooks pays around $12,000 to the Newell Regional Tourism Association, a local group which has taken over tourism promotion from the Chamber of Commerce. We also pay a per capita amount to the The Canadian Badlands Ltd., a regional tourism initiative of Travel Alberta.

As for the hoteliers, they already pay a four per cent provincial tourism levy on each room rental which is used by Travel Alberta to promote tourism throughout the province. This totals about $50 million annually.

While we agree that hotels and motels are prime benefactors of tourism, so are campgrounds, restaurants, retail outlets, gas stations, RV centres, grocery stores and ice cream stands and every other business in the city.

Tourism benefits everyone, directly or indirectly, and thus should be funded from general revenues of the city. This could be supplemented with grants from the province for specific endeavors.

When discussing ways to raise revenue, it’s easy for councillors to consider levies on those who directly benefit from any one sector. But we must be carful of this road because once we start, it can morph into a form of user pay. If tourism operators can pay to promote tourism, then library users can pay for the library, recreation users can pay for the leisure centre. And on and on.