Cape Tourism Officials to Join Lobbying Effort to Restore Marketing Funds

HYANNIS – Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce officials will join all the state’s regional tourism councils to lobby on Beacon Hill next month to encourage lawmakers to restore cut funding for marketing.

Mid-year budget cuts by Gov. Charlie Baker last month, which totaled $98 million, included more than $7 million in tourism marketing funds.

The Cape Cod Chamber’s regional marketing grant was cut by 50 percent, effectively wiping out its spring and summer marketing campaign.

Wendy Northcross, the chamber CEO, says 91 percent of businesses on Cape Cod have less than 20 employees and that the cuts will have an impact.

“They don’t have their own marketing dollars so they are depending on us for that firepower and we’re hearing the pain,” Northcross said. “We’re hearing the concern because spring marketing drives summer and that’s what we have lost.”

The state’s 16 regional tourism councils will gather in Boston on February 8 to lobby the Legislature.

“Our primary message is that tourism matters,” Northcross said. “It supports an awful lot of jobs in the Commonwealth. It supports an inordinate amount of economic activity on the Cape and Islands.”

Northcross said she has empathy for the governor and that cuts need to be made, but that travel and tourism marketing is different.

In 2015 the travel industry generated over a billion dollars in revenue for the state, according to Northcross.

The Legislature could decide to restore the cuts with a supplemental budget pending state revenue figures from December and January.

By BRIAN MERCHANT, CapeCod.com NewsCenter

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