Mayor of Oklahoma City: Vote yes on Tuesday and support tax increase for hotels and motels
Together, we’ve built a city that attracts more visitors, conventions and special events than ever before. In fact, Oklahoma City’s tourism economy generates billions of dollars in economic output and hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes each year. On Tuesday, we have an opportunity to support and build on that growth – without taxing our residents.
We probably don’t talk about it enough, but through the tax dollars they leave behind, visitors make a vital contribution to our city’s most important services, like police, fire and roads. Visitors also provide improvements to amenities and services we all enjoy, like nonstop flights at our airport. And, of course, thousands of jobs and hundreds of businesses depend on visitors.
So we would love to welcome more visitors, and we can. After three decades of investment, we have the venues, hotels and attractions. We just lack the funds to market the city to visitors and support the events and venues that draw visitors here. We have built a world-class city, but we have to spend money to attract people. That’s just the name of the game. Traditionally, those funds have come from one source – the hotel/motel tax.
OKC’s hotel/motel tax rate was last adjusted 20 years ago. Since then, our sister cities have raised their rates well above ours, meaning they spend significantly more money marketing their cities than we do. It also means that when you visit their cities, you are paying for their marketing efforts while they don’t have to pay the same amount for ours. It’s time to address this issue, and that’s why we have the opportunity on Tuesday to vote to increase the hotel/motel tax, which will put more funds into these efforts without raising taxes on our residents.
More: OKC Mayor Holt praises the benefits of tourism and industry in his State of the City address
Of course, you don’t want to raise too much of a hotel/motel tax because it could hurt convention business. But with the proposed increase, our new rate will simply be in line with (and even lower than) comparable cities. That’s why the city’s hoteliers are some of the strongest supporters of a “yes” vote on Tuesday. They are clearly the constituency that would be most cautious. But they recognize that it won’t hurt their ability to compete and see the great benefits that these new funds bring.
On Tuesday, voters will have the opportunity to vote on whether we receive the funding we need to keep OKC competitive. We will use these funds to market OKC, support events and also support our two major venues that drive the events business – the Oklahoma City Convention Center and the OKC Fairgrounds.
When we last adjusted the hotel/motel tax in 2004, 89% of our voters voted for it. There’s a very simple reason for this high level of support. They don’t pay this tax. That’s why this is such a uniquely useful tool. It’s pretty much the best deal there is. We tax visitors and use their taxes to attract more visitors, and all of those visitors contribute significantly to paying for city services they rarely use. It’s the ultimate win-win, so join me and vote yes on Tuesday.
David Holt is the mayor of Oklahoma City.
