What Qualifies as Tourism?

The members of the original Tourism Board took almost a year to interpret the mission they had been charged with by law--"to take all steps it determines desirable, necessary and proper to market the City of Hudson as a destination for overnight and day-trip visitors"--and to decide how best to invest the money allocated to them to accomplish their goals. They ultimately decided what was needed was a strategic plan to market Hudson in a way that respected the integrity and the character of the city, didn't relinquish telling Hudson's story to the whims of travel writers, and made Hudson's popularity as a destination more dependable and sustainable. Lofty goals, but goals with long term benefits.

The Tourism Board's mistake perhaps, after a long RFP and interview process, was selecting a consultant from Tennessee. When the Tourism Board sought approval from the Common Council to spend the money to hire the consultant, that fact, the use of the dirty word branding, and the opening sentence of the consultant's cover letter inspired much of the criticism from members of the public as well as at least one member of the Common Council. Hudson didn't need to be branded. Someone from Tennessee couldn't possibly "get" Hudson in the short time he planned to spend here. Hudson was much cooler than any of the cities on his resume. We didn't need an outsider to make us a "destination of distinction"; we already were. What he was offering could be done by volunteers. Tourism was displacing locals as it was.

The brouhaha over marketing and branding and hiring a consultant led to the Common Council amending the law that created the lodging tax and the Tourism Board to defund the Tourism Board. No longer would a percentage of the revenue from the lodging tax be designated for the use of the Tourism Board. Instead all the revenue from the lodging tax would go into the general fund. But until the amended law took effect, the money appropriated to the Tourism Board continued to accumulate. When the new, reconstituted Tourism Board began its work in April of this year, there was $435,000 in the fund. (The total amount the previous Tourism Board had proposed to spend on the consultant was $75,000.)

The new Tourism Board didn't seem to waste any time agonizing about its mission. Essentially they saw their task as doling out $435,000 to projects they believed would bring visitors to the city and hence support tourism and bolster the city's economy in the midst of a pandemic. They have been very efficient in carrying out their task. At the last meeting of the Tourism Board, which took place on Tuesday, September 1, it was calculated that to date they have awarded $292,000 in grants to various projects and have only about $125,000 to $150,000 left to give away.

The clear understanding of their mission doesn't mean there aren't things they struggle with. Last month, the Tourism Board recommended a grant of $14,707 to Rolling Grocer to enable the grocery store to continue and improve on its curbside pickup and delivery service, a service that was initiated when the store was closed to customers during the pandemic shutdown. When the grant came before the Common Council for approval, some of the aldermen had a little difficulty seeing what curbside pickup and delivery from a grocery store had to do with tourism, but they seemed persuaded by arguments put forward by members of the Tourism Board and proponents of the business that Rolling Grocer made Hudson "a more livable space to come and weather the storm" and "a good place to visit as well as to live." No one mentioned that the visitors most likely to be buying groceries rather than dining in restaurants were those staying in STRs. The grant to Rolling Grocer was unanimously approved by the Council at its August meeting.

The Tourism Board seems to be having a hard time applying the same arguments to a proposal for funding presented by Alderman Dominic Merante (Fifth Ward). Merante is asking for $5,700 to install two solar-powered speed monitors, like the one now installed on Harry Howard Avenue, at two major entrances to the city: Glenwood Boulevard and Worth Avenue. The argument for the signs, which are proven to be 80 to 85 percent effective in slowing traffic, is that they would help to create "a safe environment for tourists and residents."

Merante was at the Tourism Board Zoom meeting on Tuesday to present his case for the second time. He brought with him HPD Chief Ed Moore to attest that the two locations identified were the two with the highest number of speeding complaints in the city and that the signs were more effective in slowing traffic consistently than issuing speeding tickets. Also at the meeting, at Merante's request, was a woman who lives on Parkwood Boulevard and is spearheading a campaign to slow traffic in the entire Boulevards neighborhood. The discussion of Merante's proposal, which was postponed until the very end of a two-hour meeting that began at 7:00 p.m. and ended at 9:00, inspired several members of the Tourism Board to complain about speeding in their own neighborhoods but to opine, "This is not a tourism issue." Tamar Adler finally reminded her colleagues that "what we talked about was improving the place" and suggested there was "an argument for pedestrian and family safety being a tourism issue." 

It was decided that the proposal would be tabled until the Tourism Board's next meeting, which will take place on Wednesday, September 9, at 7:00 p.m. 
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