In 2024, greater than 68 totally different neighborhood tasks have been supported by the CEDC fund.
THUNDER BAY — Representatives from the Tourism Business Affiliation of Ontario (TIAO) attended the Rural Ontario Municipal Affiliation (ROMA) convention this week for a chance to talk on to provincial authorities caucus members and ministry workers to suggest vital enhancements to the present Municipal Lodging Tax (MAT) laws.
The lodging tax possibility was made accessible to Ontario municipalities in 2017.
It has been applied in 50 of the 444 municipalities throughout the province, typically changing charges collected below industry-led vacation spot advertising applications.
TIAO president and chief government officer Andrew Siegwart mentioned there have been some actually nice outcomes from the primary era of the regulation.
“It has delivered some great investments for tourism, marketing, product development, investment and promotion for the tourism sector. And it has also brought in revenues for municipalities to be able to pay for and support some of the infrastructure and the services that municipalities often invest in to support tourism,” he mentioned.
“Our recommendations come from a point of view of, ‘we’re seven years in now and we’ve had a lot of lessons learned.’ We see some opportunities to really improve collaboration to improve how consultation happens between municipalities and industry so that we can get faster decisions made and hopefully encourage more municipalities to overcome some of the barriers so that they can implement MAT and reap the benefits as well.”
Siegwart and his workforce introduced forth a number of suggestions to enhance the lodging tax. They embrace decreasing crimson tape, higher transparency on charge adjustments, and together with school and college lodging.
The suggestions additionally search to make sure short-term rental companies, akin to these discovered via airbnb.ca, take part within the tax — one thing that’s presently on the discretion of the municipality.
Thunder Bay’s lodging tax was set at 4 per cent in 2018.
In January 2024, metropolis council voted to extend it to 5 per cent. Greater than $3.7 million was collected in 2023 alone.
Paul Pepe, supervisor of Tourism Thunder Bay, mentioned the tax is collected by the Metropolis with 50 per cent stored for tourism recreation tasks and the opposite 50 per cent distributed to the Group Financial Growth Fee Tourism Growth Fund.
A big portion of the Metropolis’s share has been dedicated to the proposed indoor turf facility. Different points of interest supported by the Metropolis’s share embrace the cruise line dock, rides at Centennial and Chippewa parks, the Centennial Conservatory and Fort William Gardens.
“We’ve been able to, support a really wide range of community tourism initiatives that help build a stronger tourism economy here in the city.” Pepe mentioned.
“Through the Tourism Development Fund, we reinvested those dollars back into destination development initiatives in the community that supported business conventions, sports event attractions, cultural events, festivals that have a tourism value, and new experiences and attractions that help bring more visitors to the city and get them to stay longer.”
In 2024, greater than 68 totally different neighborhood tasks have been supported by the CEDC fund, together with the Central Canada Mining Expo, Wake the Big, Pageant of India, Cineplex Indoor Skate Park and Magnus Theatre’s enhancements.
The Chronicle Journal / Native Journalism Initiative
