Councilmember Tim Burgess
Statement by Councilmember Tim Burgess on legislation to create jobs and bring more tourists to Seattle
Seattle – The Seattle City Council unanimously approved legislation (Council Bill 117258) this afternoon that will help create new jobs in the tourism and hospitality industries and draw more international and domestic tourists to the City. Councilmember Tim Burgess, who spearheaded the new tourism initiative, issued the following statement after the vote:
"Today’s vote is a major step for international and domestic tourism promotion for Seattle. This initiative will protect the 20,000 hospitality jobs in our City and help to create new ones. Our major hotels stepped forward and agreed to impose a $2 per night room fee and then pool these funds to aggressively market what Seattle has to offer visitors.
"Washington is the only state not to fund tourism promotion efforts, so it is important for the City to step up and develop alternative funding plans. That’s exactly what the hotels and the City have done today through passage of this important legislation that Councilmember Jean Godden and I proposed."
The new fee will be imposed on hotels in the greater downtown area beginning November 1. More information on the Tourism Improvement Area is available here.
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