About a dozen speakers urged the Douglas County Board on Tuesday to distribute more funds to the Greater Omaha Convention and Visitors Bureau to better market Omaha in other states.
About 75 people attended a public hearing on the topic as the County Board considers extending its agreement with the City of Omaha to fund the tourism bureau. Present were restaurant owners, Omaha City Council members, representatives of several major Omaha hotels, Henry Doorly Zoo officials, business leaders and Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce officials.
The five-year agreement with the city expires March 28.
"We are studying the issue and want to make sure we do it right and do it right the first time," Douglas County Board member Marc Kraft told the audience.
Douglas County receives a hotel-motel tax of 2 percent for the visitors promotion fund and another 2 percent for the visitors improvement fund, which is used for visitor attraction and special event grants.
Jeff Beals, executive vice president of operations at World Group, said that tourism is a valuable form of economic development and that Omaha continues to improve its reputation as a weekend retail destination.
But Omaha still has image problems in many parts of the country, he said.
"We have a 'What is Omaha?' type of image," Beals told the board. "We have done well at building things. Now, we simply need to promote those."
Dana Markel, executive director of the Omaha Convention & Visitors Bureau, said she wants to do more marketing and promotion in Chicago, Denver and Minneapolis.
Her current budget is about $3.1 million, which is significantly less than Kansas City and Milwaukee. The funds include about $2.4 million from the county's lodging tax, about $650,000 from the downtown stadium tax and $40,000 in additional revenue.
"We need the city and the county to work together to determine what the next steps are," Markel said after the meeting.
County Board member Mary Ann Borgeson said she agreed with speakers who suggested that the city's restaurant tax revenue be used to increase the marketing efforts.
"Everyone is willing to sit down and discuss where we should go from here," Borgeson said. "Funding needs to have a more in-depth conversation because it's the city who has all the other revenue sources."
Douglas County Board member Chris Rodgers said he does not favor renewing the funding agreement because it is not beneficial to the long-term interests of the city and the county.
And then there's Sarpy County, he said.
"Sarpy County is a serious competition to us," Rodgers said. "Sarpy County is aggressively competing to be a destination, and we cannot take it for granted what they are putting into their effort. Werner Park is part of that effort, so is Embassy Suites and Cabelas.
"It is happening right in front of our eyes. The fact is, we need to step up our efforts to compete."
Contact the writer:
402-444-1056, john.ferak@owh.com
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