KGWN –Cheyenne, WY– Scottsbluff, NE News,Weather, SportsMead Giving Tourism Budget a Boost

Mead Giving Tourism Budget a Boost

Tourism is Wyoming's second largest industry and thanks to Governor Matt Mead, it's going to receive more funding.

When Governor Mead made his budget request last month, it included a one time allocation for over $4.4 million to the Wyoming Office of Tourism for the 2013 and 2014 fiscal year.

"There's $3.9 million going into new advertising and then there's $500,000 that'll be used for a new website that will launch this spring and support all the ad campaigns that we place," said Alan Dubberley, Deputy Director of the Wyoming Office of Tourism.

The advertising dollars will help Wyoming invest more in existing markets and gain a presence in new markets.

"We'll use $2.4 million to deepen existing markets. Deepening existing markets means adding TV, print, web, online ads in markets that we're already advertising. But then there's also $1.5 million that we'll be using for a new market and we're looking at Seattle," Dubberley said.

Seattle is a market that's shown up on their radar because of the amount of inquiries their office has received from that area.

Wyoming's tourism budget has doubled since 2004, but the number of inquiries they've received in that time frame has risen by five times.

In fact, the tourism industry has been a major reason why the state has not been nearly as affected by the recession the last few years as other parts of the country.

"When you talk about the dollars that it brings in that are new dollars to the state of Wyoming. They're not re-circulated dollars that's a big help and then you talk about the dollars spent in the businesses that then re-circulate in the communities, that's a big help as well," Dubberley said.

There was $2.6 billion in spending in Wyoming from tourism in 2010, that generated $108 million in taxes for the state.

"The 2.6 billion that were spent in the state in 2010 was a 6.2% jump over 2009 so that's a good jump for us. The $108 million that was spent in taxes was a 1% jump which isn't huge, but is a good number," Dubberley said.

Tourism officials are scheduled to face the Legislature's Joint Appropriations Committee next month to defend the agency's budget requests.

"We've had increases every year and not only in general spending, but in tax dollars to the state. So it's been a strong investment for the state of Wyoming so the track record really is what we'll lean on to defend that budget," Dubberley said.