The Utah Restaurant Association still believes no new funds are needed — including those from a proposed restaurant tax — to help promote Utah to potential out-of-state tourists.
Melva Sine, president of the Utah Restaurant Association, contended Friday that tourism dollars in the state are adequate but need to be prioritized better.
Speaking at the 2004 Utah Taxes Now Conference presented by the Utah Taxpayers Association, Sine suggested that if the state works with counties and private-sector establishments on advertising and promotion "we can do a good and effective job for the state of Utah."
The association was a critic of the Utah Travel Council's push for legislation that would have increased hotel and restaurant taxes and used more general fund money to create a $15 million fund dedicated to advertising Utah to outsiders. The legislation ultimately died.
But Sine said that while restaurants support such promotional activities, adequate funds exist. Still, she added that the state needs a five-year tourism advertising and promotions program with various stakeholders working together.
And, she said, restaurants are a poor industry to target for outsider tourism promotion taxes because Utah restaurants serve more Utahns than tourists. "A tax on the restaurant industry is a tax that we as Utahns pay," she said.
She also added that before tourism officials ask taxpayers for more money, they should ensure there would be a strong return on the investment in ads and promotions.
Randy Harmsen, chairman of the travel council, said $10 million in new taxes should be combined with $3.5 million from the state's general fund along with existing funding to provide the needed $15 million. The idea of the state taking money from the counties met with strong opposition, he noted.
Meanwhile, the current general fund allocation is less than $900,000 "to advertise the state — the state of the Olympics," he said. "At this trend, in 2008 the Olympics will have happened in Colorado."
The $900,000 figure, when considered as part of the state budget, is so small that "it doesn't even appear as a rounding," Harmsen said.
But tourism, he said, is a $4.2 billion industry for the state and is Utah's sixth-largest employer. "It gets little attention as a funding mechanism" but can produce quick returns on advertising investment, he said, mentioning that for every ad dollar spent, the state would see $8.60 in returns through tourist spending.
Unless people are reminded of the Olympics' ties to Utah, their perception of the state will revert to one of "polygamy, Mormon, dry, sterile, no fun," instead of more-glowing terms that come to mind with the Olympics, he said.
Utah also is facing competition from increased tourism advertising by nearby states.
"Utah isn't a pretty good state. It's a pretty great state," Harmsen said. "It is a wonderful state, and it is driven by people who want to come here and see it, and when they see it they want to stay, they want to build factories, they want to build plants. But they'll never do that unless they come."
E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com