Resort District act will be 'tax relief' City, county are placing more focus on tourism for economic development by Ron Schaming • The Courier

Pickwick Landing State Park and the Hardin County Convention & Visitors Bureau have both been selected among ConventionSouth magazine's 2006 Readers Choice Award winners. A two-decade old trade publication, ConventionSouth reaches more than 18,000 meeting planners throughout the U.S. , covering tourism news, how-to articles for planners, speaker and planner profiles, and city by city profiles of meetings destinations. Meeting planners who book events held in the south were asked to nominate convention and visitors bureaus and meeting sites based on their actual experience with the nominees. Award winners were chosen by an awards selection committee based on the quantity and quality of nominations received, and comments and interviews with some of the meeting planners who made the nominations. Only the top vote getters out of some 2,000 meeting sites and CVBs received awards. The recognition comes at a time of increased focus on tourism in Savannah and Hardin County . Both local governments voted last month to accept Tennessee River Resort District status. The act, specifically authorized by the Tennessee General Assembly for eight “economically distressed” counties along the Tennessee River, allows qualifying cities and counties to keep about a quarter of a percent more in locally generated sales tax revenue. By the 2007 fiscal year, the TRRD is expected to funnel about $313,000 into the county's tax coffers according to the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental affairs, half of which must be dedicated to tourism-related expenditures under the bill. Savannah stands to gain $10,000 to $20,000 the first year the bill is in effect, according to the acting interim city manager. The TRRD, which includes a provision allowing liquor by the drink within three miles the Tennessee River bank, was modeled after a special act for Gatlinburg, a crown jewel in Tennessee 's tourism industry. In financially challenged Hardin County , the idea of retaining more sales tax revenue was welcomed with open arms. The prospect of liquor by the drink, though, has not been received without some resistance. No one challenged the notion of liquor by the drink when the Savannah City Commission approved TRRD status, but a handful of citizens attended the Hardin County Commission's meeting to urge officials to reject it. Pastor Randy Isbell of Hopewell Baptist Church called the linking of the financial assistance to liquor by the drink a “cheap shot.” “Why do the two have to marry each other?” he asked. State Rep. Randy Rinks (D-Savannah), who sponsored the bill in the state House of Representatives, indicated Friday the idea behind the TRRD is to help the distressed counties help themselves by providing them with more money to promote and enhance tourism in their communities. More tourist dollars being spent locally also means more money for the state. “If you're going to attract the Holiday Inns and chain restaurants,” said Rinks, liquor by the drink is “a piece of the puzzle you have to put in. That's part of the tools you have to have.” “By including that in the bill,” agreed Hardin County Tourism Director Rachel Baker, “it could possibly help bring in bigger conferences or events. The people attending those, they do like to go to the chain restaurants.” Baker said any additional money the county tourism program might receive through the TRRD would be put to good use. “I would hope that the city and county would want to work together with the Hardin County Convention & Visitors Bureau to find the best ways to allocate the funds. I think advertising would definitely be number one, including more billboards in and out of state,” she said. With a current fiscal year budget of $184,972 and two full-time employees, Baker said the bureau's tourism-promotion efforts include participating in travel shows in St. Louis and Cincinnati , Paducah , Ky. , and Jackson and Franklin in Tennessee . She said the HCCVB has recently had ads in West Tennessee Outdoors, and Gallivant magazine, a travel guide for the south which has a feature story in its spring 2006 edition about Shiloh National Military Park . The story also mentions the Tennessee River Museum in Savannah , and Corinth , Miss. Among the eight southwest Tennessee counties, tourists spent $25.2 million in Hardin County in 2004, second only to Madison County at 129.4 million, said Baker, citing state figures. “Tourism could be considered tax relief in Hardin County ,” according to Baker, who said the industry brought in $142 in tax revenue for every man, woman and child in the county last year. But according to Rinks, the TRRD is likely to be a drain on the state budget–at least in the short term. “You may not see another one,” he said of any possible similar state bills for other areas.

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