Tourism attractions get money to help draw in visitors

EVERETT — Snohomish County recently doled out lodging-tax grants to 18 tourist attractions around the county, including the Arlington Fly-in, the Marysville Strawberry Festival and the Edmonds Center for the Arts.

The County Council approved nearly $220,000 Wednesday out of about $322,000 that organizations requested. The county makes the awards twice a year, with another round expected in the fall.

The tourism money comes from a special fund generated by a 2 percent tax on hotel and motel rooms. By law, it can only be spent on tourism-related activities and is meant to boost the local economy, not only hotels, but also at gas stations, restaurants and other businesses as well. The county’s Lodging Tax Advisory Committee makes recommendations on where the money should go.

The largest award during this cycle was $21,000 to the Village Theatre in Everett, followed by $12,625 for the Arts Council of Snohomish County and $11,000 to the Arlington Fly-In Corp.

“There’s always the hope that you expand the audience and increase the number of people who stay overnight or stay multiple nights,” said Barbara Tolbert, executive director of the aviation event, which typically attracts 50,000 to 60,000 people every July. “Forty-five percent of the Arlington Fly-In’s attendees come from outside the state of Washington.”

At the lower end of the tourism awards, there was $3,000 for the Marysville Strawberry Festival, $1,885 to Edmonds’ Write on the Sound writers conference and $500 to help Arts of Snohomish with marketing and advertising.

Applications from tourism-related projects for lodging-tax money this fall need to be turned in to the county’s office of economic development by 5 p.m. April 26.

The county also continues to work on a five-year strategic tourism plan. The $75,000 study should be done by July, county economic development program manager Donna Ambrose said. The county originally expected to complete that plan by the end of 2009.

The tourism plan should help county leaders decide how to spend additional lodging-tax money from a separate fund that normally goes to the Snohomish County Tourism Bureau, Everett and the Lynnwood Convention Center. More than $2 million has accumulated over several years. Last year, the County Council turned down the county airport’s request to give most of that money to the Future of Flight aviation center, saying other potential recipients needed to have adequate notice. The county tourism bureau agreed with the council’s action.

“Paine Field requested those funds, but there wasn’t a public announcement about the use of those funds,” said Amy Spain, the bureau’s executive director. “We want to make sure that the strategic plan is done first and that there’s a fair and open and strategic process is done to access those funds.”

Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465, nhaglund@heraldnet.com.

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