NJ Sen. Chris Brown
TRENTON - The New Jersey Senate recently passed a bill sponsored by Sen. Chris Brown that increases the funding formula for tourism advertisement and promotion.
"The tourism industry employs 30% of the families in Atlantic County with our beaches, casinos, restaurants, boardwalk shops, lighthouse, fishing and boating opportunities, cultural and historic sites, and even Lucy the Elephant drawing millions of visitors a year, Brown said. However, with fierce interstate competition for visitors, we need to up our game by increasing our advertising efforts.
Brown pointed out the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority spends $101 million in tourism advertising, while New Jersey spends $9 million.
Even if you add in the $7 million advertising budget of Meet AC, New Jersey is spending less than a fifth of what Las Vegas invests to promote its tourism industry, Brown said.
Brown's bill, S-247, would increase the minimum dollar amounts that the director of the Division of Taxation must allocate for tourism advertisement and promotion.
Current law requires the director to allocate 12.76% of hotel and motel occupancy fees collected to the Division of Travel and Tourism in the Department of State for tourism advertisement and promotion, provided at least $12.76 million is allocated. S-247 does not increase any taxes.
Unfortunately, Brown noted, the state budget has failed to fully fund the formula.
Atlantic County sends over $3 billion in tax revenue to Trenton each year thanks to our local families and businesses working the tourism industry, Brown said. We need to keep fighting to make sure we get our fair share of money to keep our tourism economy thriving.
S-247 is now waiting for Gov. Phil Murphy's consideration.
