Tourism Marketing Districts have been paramount to providing destination marketing organizations with stable funding. Paid for by lodging businesses who assess themselves, the funds are crucial to promoting a region and attracting overnight visitors. Destination marketing is not inexpensive, but it is crucial to the economic prosperity of a region’s lodging industry and key to its long-term outlook and self-sustainability.
As TMD programs successfully cause hotel room night sales to increase, jobs are created, and the City collects increased tax revenue through transient occupancy tax (TOT). These tax revenues support the city’s general fund to provide for valuable services such as fire, police, road repair, libraries, parks and cultural resources.
Currently, it is estimated that there are 172 TMDs across 14 states. San Diego Tourism Marketing District was one of the first in California and remains among the largest.
Why TMD Matters to San Diego
TMD assessment dollars are crucial to marketing the city. With tourism playing such a key role in San Diego’s current and long-term economic prosperity, it is important in this highly competitive industry that the city constantly explore new and effective strategies to promote and market the region as a preferred vacation and meeting destination.
To put it succinctly, events and tourism attractions that attract overnight visitors to San Diego lodging businesses are extremely important to generating TMD assessment dollars that benefit the city and region. Moreover, guests who stay multiple nights in San Diego create a ripple effect with their dollars spent, impacting not only lodging businesses, but multiple other commercial entities, including restaurants, entertainment, transportation and shopping retailers. Visitor spending supports jobs for residents and results in important tax revenues for the City to support services that make San Diego such a great place to live, work and visit.