More "tourism" nonsense | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    We were treated at the November 13 County Commissioners' meeting, once again, to what is apparently a continuation of the nonsense that parades as Beaufort County's approach to economic development. The issue was whether to impose yet another layer of government on the small businesses of Beaufort County. It already exists in the City of Washington. The leviathan in this case is a Tourism Authority.

    A group of people, principally from Belhaven, led by Julian Goff and Al Kutzing, want to create a county counterpart to the Washington Tourism Authority. At the heart of this idea is a special "add-on" occupancy tax on businesses that provide lodging and presumably benefit from "tourism." The money is supposedly then used to advertise to attract more "tourists."

    To their credit, the idea received a cool reception from the Commissioners with Hood Richardson and Stan Deatherage opposing the basic concept and Al Klemm not knowing what he thinks about it until he can see the results of a "study" on the return on investment. In the end however the vote was 5-2 to agree to do the study, with Richardson and Deatherage voting no. You can watch the presentation and discussion in this video clip:

    Private citizen Warren Smith has crunched the numbers for the BOC in an email he sent 11-14-12, a copy of which was provided to the media:

    Commentary

    This is classic. Some folks come up with the idea that we need to promote Beaufort County as a tourist destination. They base this conclusion on debunked data and research methodology. Then they propose to tax small business such as motels and bed and breakfast establishments and use the money raised by the tax in whatever way a select group believes would be better than the way the businesses would use that money to promote their own business. Pure wealth redistribution by elitists.

    And Al Klemm wants another study. That would be the umpteenth such study of the same issue, none of which has ever produced any measurable results. In fact, the City of Washington is now doing another such study to supplement the many they've already had done.

    One reason these "studies" have not produced any measureable results is that the methodology used to supposedly measure the economic impact of "tourism" is bogus. Click here to read why that is true.

    We'll offer the fine folks from Belhaven who want to promote tourism in their area and Mr. Klemm an alternative suggestion for promoting economic development of tourism: Let the businesses who market their products and services to tourists keep the money the tax would suck out of those business and let them decide how to best use the money to promote their business. If several businesses want to join together and pool their resources in support of a cooperative approach to marketing, all well and good. But the business owners and managers are the ones who know what works and what does not work in promoting their business. We dare say that you can't find a one of them that will not tell you that they could promote their business better if they had more resources with which to do so. Yet we're going to study confiscating more money from them and increasing their operating costs.

    It is nonsense, as Gary Brinn said during the campaign, to tax these businesses and thereby increase their operating costs to give the money to a select group to decide how that money will be spent. Just let the businesses decide.

    Stan Deatherage hit the nail on the head when he said he would consider voting for a Tourism Authority if the businesses that would be impacted by such another layer of government came forward and asked to be taxed more for what the TDA would do for them. Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen. That's common sense. Nonsense is thinking that a select group knows better what is good for a business than the owner/manager of the business knows.

    And Hood Richardson also hit the nail on the head when he said that maybe the more effective marketing plan for Belhaven and the tourist Mecca of Chocowinity and other municipalities might be to cut the taxes on these businesses and then advertise that people can stay in Beaufort County for less than they can in places which have succumbed to the liberal nonsense that government knows better how to run a business than business owners know.

    But if our august leaders decide to raise taxes to fund a TDA we would suggest that a combined plan would be more efficient than Belhaven and Washington having their own separate marketing programs. That would be more nonsense.

    If Mr. Klemm wants a "study" to determine whether this is a good idea or not, we have a suggestion for him. Talk the City of Washington into abolishing its TDA for three years. Then use the Department of Commerce "study" to see if tourism declined or not. We will guarantee that it will increase....for reasons cited in the article linked above.

    Moreover, to Mr. Klemm we would suggest that this "study" he wants done--before he decides if increasing the cost of doing business in Beaufort County is a good idea or not--should be done by an independent outfit, not by those who are promoting the idea in the first place.

    Our point in all this is simple: Reducing the cost of doing business in Beaufort County is the best way to promote economic development (tourism). And that is just common sense.