The Greater Burlington Partnership will have to scale back efforts to promote the City of Burlington as a direct result of Burlington’s efforts to improve its financial standing.
Following several months of discussion, the Burlington City Council last night cut the distribution of Hotel/Motel Taxes to the Partnership. City Manager Jim Ferneau called the cut “very significant” but added that it was part of the shared sacrifice felt by most branches of city government as the city edges its way towards financial stability.
“When we did the budget we were anticipating that we would have about $770,000 in overall revenues in to Hotel/Motel Tax, and based on that their reduction was going to be from $340,000 to more like $250,000 range, so close to a $100,000 reduction,” Ferneau told KBUR.
Greater Burlington Partnership’s Chelsea Tolle went over how the organization plans to scale back.
“We will have to significantly reduce our marketing efforts. No more TV advertising, we’ll have to reduce our print marketing,” Tolle said, “But we are looking into partnerships with other entities in the community so that we aren’t saturating one part of the market so we spread out our resources and do things more strategically.”
Tolle also told the Council that hours will be reduced at the Port of Burlington welcome center.
