Communicating with Legislators: 2025 Legislative Session
It’s time to meet with legislators in advance of the 2025 Legislative Session!
Many of our usual industry champions were not reelected this past cycle, and there will be many new faces in the Wyoming Legislature for the 2025 Legislative General Session. There is a huge need for information about tourism and its importance to your business and community. It is critically important that we, as an industry, meet with as many of your legislators as possible before the upcoming session to provide the needed information and answer their questions.
The 2025 Legislative General Session will start on Tuesday, January 14, 2025, and will run until Friday, March 7, 2025. It is important that you meet with them before the session starts in January. Please start planning today.
Why: Legislators, both brand new and seasoned veterans, need to hear directly from business leaders in their respective communities. There should be at least 5-6 industry leaders in your meetings who can talk about how much they rely on the visitor economy to keep their business successful throughout the year. Restaurants, lodging properties, museums, rodeos, and all other businesses that benefit from visitors coming through their doors are who should attend. Please identify one leader in your community who can organize the industry attendees.
Step 1: Done no later than Friday, Dec 6
Identify 5 business leaders willing to engage in outreach (private sector preferred)
Step 2: Done no later than Sunday, Dec 15
Send an email to your specific legislator congratulating them on their reelection and inviting them to your meeting.
You can find who your Representatives are here and your Senators here
Have a brief meeting in advance (virtual if needed) with the industry leaders who will attend to ensure everyone is on the same page. The key is for business owners in your community to discuss why tourism and the visitor economy are important to their employees and businesses!
Individual county impacts can be found here, starting on page 31, and are great to have on hand to talk about how big of a local impact (visitor spending, local tax revenue generated, local jobs, etc.) tourism has, but the bulk of the meeting should be focused on business leaders and how important tourism is to their specific business.
In preparation, please review the frequently asked questions and our responses below:
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The statewide lodging tax is 5%. Research shows approximately 80% of that is paid for by out-of-state visitors. 3% of those dollars fund the Wyoming Office of Tourism and the Wyoming Tourism Board. These funds are used for operations and all marketing efforts, promoting Wyoming as a vacation destination for both domestic and international travelers and local destination development grants.
The other 2% is sent back to the counties and municipalities that collected it, for local marketing, promotion, events, etc.
Each county and/or municipality also can put an additional 1% or 2% on the ballot every four years for a local option lodging tax. These additional local lodging taxes help showcase all that each community has to offer potential visitors.
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There will always be a base of travelers that would come to Wyoming anyway, but tourism is an incredibly competitive industry, and all of our surrounding states invest more than Wyoming to attract them. If we want to maximize the amount of visitor spending that our state and local communities see, then we need to be as competitive as possible in showcasing all that Wyoming and the incredible assets in every county have to offer.
Marketing campaigns drive incremental travel (travel above the base). Incremental travel contributes an additional 35-40% of all travel economic impacts, including visitor spending and associated sales and use tax.
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To the best of our knowledge, exempting residents from the lodging tax while charging visitors is unconstitutional. Exempting residents would also place a significant administrative burden on businesses to track and retain records of who was exempt. This could also leave businesses vulnerable to additional liability in the event of an audit.
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They do! Wyoming’s visitor economy is maximized by using a “three-legged stool” approach. The Wyoming Office of Tourism, funded by the statewide lodging tax, is the only entity that markets the state of Wyoming as a vacation destination both domestically and internationally. Marketing the state as a whole equalizes the exposure and visibility of small communities and many hidden gems located in areas where there is little to no marketing dollars. Without the statewide campaign, those with the largest budget have the greatest potential to drive visitation. (i.e. Little America is only promoting their hotel and the community where they are located. That doesn’t benefit Wheatland.)
Local Lodging Tax Boards, funded by both the statewide and local option lodging taxes, then market the unique assets their local communities have to offer. “You have come to Wyoming, now come to X county to see our rodeos, natural assets, museums, sporting events, etc.”
Private Businesses round out the third leg of the stool, marketing their business directly to consumers. “You have come to Wyoming and to our community, now come check out our restaurant, hotel, museum, rodeo, etc.” Surveys done by the Wyoming Hospitality and Travel Coalition regularly show that the private sector is consistently the largest investor in marketing dollars to the three-legged stool, maximizing visitor economy growth in Wyoming.
Tourism is an incredibly competitive business, and it takes ALL THREE LEGS of the above stool to ensure our local communities benefit from Wyoming to their maximum potential.
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Yes. Every county in Wyoming benefits from visitors spending money locally. The tax revenue generated by visitors significantly offsets costs for critical local services, bolsters local jobs and keeps Main Street Businesses thriving.
A county-by-county impact report can be found here to support this discussion.
Local business leaders explain why and how they and their employees benefit from tourism/the visitor economy.
Where: Ideally, one of the industry leaders in your group will have some meeting space.
Please act today, organize who will attend, and plan your meetings. WHTC Executive Director Chris Brown can help you at any time. He can be reached at chris@wyohtc.org or by calling 307.218.7734.