Chambers receive tourism grants
<p>SHAWN GUST/Press Lindsay Bengry, with the house keeping department of the Coeur d'Alene Resort, vacuums a room Wednesday while preparing the suite for a guest. For the first time since 2008, the chambers of commerce in Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls each received more grant funds from the Idaho Travel Council than they had the previous year.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - Confidence that Kootenai County's tourism industry will continue to rebound was shown in dollars Wednesday with the Idaho Travel Council's announcement of its annual grant awards.
For the first time since 2008, the chambers of commerce in Coeur d'Alene and Post Falls each received more grant funding than they had the previous year.
"We're very delighted about that. We've got a lot of hope for the future," said Jame Davis, the Post Falls chamber's vice president of tourism.
The Idaho Travel Council, an eight-member advisory board whose members serve by gubernatorial appointment within the Idaho Department of Commerce's Division of Tourism, oversees the grant program.
The grants are funded annually by 45 percent of that year's collection of lodging taxes - a 2 percent tax charged to those who stay at Idaho's hotels, motels and private campgrounds. The grants must be applied for, and the awards are subject to some discretion.
Grants totaling $3 million were made to 24 applicants for the 2011-12 grant year.
The Coeur d'Alene chamber received $364,500. In 2010, it was awarded $347,000.
Steve Wilson, interim director of the Coeur d'Alene chamber, said the award shows the state believes the return on investment in tourism marketing dollars is strong in the Coeur d'Alene area.
The Coeur d'Alene Convention and Visitors Bureau, a division of the chamber, serves as Coeur d'Alene's official tourism marketing agency.
The Convention and Visitors Bureau has, according to the chamber's website, an annual marketing budget of $500,000 which includes Idaho Travel Council grant dollars and cash matches from industry partners.
The Post Falls chamber was awarded $59,500. Last year, the organization received $57,200.
Although the grant awards have not yet risen to the point they were in 2008, when the Coeur d'Alene chamber received $407,423 and the Post Falls chamber was awarded $69,190, local tourism developers are hopeful the trend will continue.
In April, when Karen Ballard, administrator of the Idaho Division of Tourism, spoke at the North Idaho Tourism Summit held at the Kootenai County Fairgrounds, she said the region was pulling out of the recession more quickly than the rest of the state.
"We're just very thankful that Idaho still has tourism grant dollars, at least we're not going in the direction of Washington," Davis said.