Seattle City Council Economic Development, Technology & City Light Committee 9/11/23

Good morning, everybody.

The September 11, 2023 special meeting of the Economic Development, Technology, and City Light Committee will come to order.

It is 9.30.

I'm Sarah Nelson, chair of the committee.

Councilmember Strauss has asked to be excused.

Will the clerk please call the roll?

Council President Juarez?

Here.

Councilmember Sawant?

Present.

Councilmember Herbold?

Here.

Chair Nelson?

Present.

Four present, one excused.

Thank you very much.

So first of all, I'd like to thank my colleagues very, very much for agreeing to attend today's special meeting.

We have one item on our agenda, a briefing and discussion on an ordinance related to the Seattle Tourism Improvement Area, or STIA, that makes changes to the way STIA calculates its assessments on rate payers and what STIA can do with those funds.

Are there any objections to the agenda?

Seeing no objection the agenda is adopted and we'll move into public comment on on that item.

Today for the first time I do want to note the Seattle Channel will be broadcasting the image of public commenters and this is a result of a successful amendment that I put forward to the council rules which we update every two years.

It provides committee chairs the discretion to determine that policy for their committees and apply it consistently for at least a year.

And I put it forward because I believe that speakers should be seen.

It's by the public when they come all the way down here to make comment.

And it also helps council members attending remotely to see the people who are making public comment.

And I think that this hues more closely to the spirit of the Open Public Meetings Act.

So with that, I will move into public comment.

I'll call speakers in the order they've signed up to speak, starting with in-person commenters.

And speakers will have two minutes, starting with Jurjana Spierenberg, and then followed by Shota Nakahima.

Good morning, Councilmembers.

My name is Juliana Spierenberg.

In addition to serving as the Seattle Area Hotel Manager for two Citizen M hotels in District 7 and District 1, I'm also the Chair of the SDIA Advisory Board, and I'm here today representing the rate payers within the BIA.

I'm speaking today in support of CB120641, the conversion of the Seattle Tourism Improvement Area.

The STIA rate payers are in strong support of this conversion, both in the amended use of the collections to include the sales and marketing for meetings and conventions, in addition to the leisure market, as well as the modified funding model, shifting from a flat rate to a percentage of nightly room rate.

This conversion is imperative to the continued success and growth of the tourism economy here in Seattle, and the impact reaches far outside the boundaries of the district.

Driving visitor spend into every district, supporting small businesses, and preserving the authentic experiences found in our neighborhoods throughout Seattle and King County.

This conversion of the SDA has the power to make Seattle a more dynamic city because it puts us in line with the spending power of other major U.S. cities.

Please support the conversion of the Seattle Tourism Improvement Area.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Shota, please.

Hi.

My name is Shota Nakajima, and I am the owner of Taku, located in District 3. I'm speaking in support of CB120641, the conversion of the Seattle Tourism Improvement Area.

I've owned a restaurant in Capitol Hill for the last seven, eight years.

I've lived there as well, and I joined because of the community, the people, the culture.

And one of the things, my parents and I have a lot of friends that live outside of Seattle, and one of the common things I hear is, I don't visit the Seattle area.

I don't visit the Seattle area.

And my big goal of what I want to change is when you turn the media on, you consistently hear about what Seattle is struggling through and negative information.

And with Visit Seattle, I've been working with them for seven, eight years.

And they do an incredible job supporting small businesses like mine from restaurant events to different events within the city and help change the conversation.

And I want to see Visit Seattle take the lead and really push that image of Seattle for our long-term sake so we can be here running a successful business for a long time.

So please support the conversion of the Seattle Tourism Improvement Area.

Thank you very much.

And next up is Monty Anderson.

You ready?

Okay, thank you very much.

And thanks to all the council members for attending here and online.

My name is Monty Anderson.

I'm the head of the Seattle Building Trades.

I represent about 20,000 workers here in Seattle.

And we want to strongly express our support for the Seattle Tourism Improvement Area legislation.

You know, we're smart in the building trades.

We understand that people need to want to come here and be here so we can build stuff.

We know that we don't build hotels and parks and stuff just to look at.

And when I got a chance to join Visit Seattle a few years ago, I got a little pushback from some of my members.

They're like, what are you doing that for?

And then after these few years here, Everybody's so excited that we're part of this group because they understand the correlation between good press and we've got a good product here and getting stuff built and having good people promote it.

And I work with a lot of groups that promote things and I've never seen anybody ever send such a message globally so clear about how beautiful Seattle is.

I'm even impressed when I'm sitting there and I live here, right?

About what an excellent job they do.

So like I said, I'm here to support them because What they're doing needs to be done after the pandemic.

We took a big hit here, and we need to clean that up.

So I'm all for Visit Seattle and this initiative.

I'm kind of rambling here because I got so excited about being part of that group.

But I just want to tell you again, I support this group 100%, and they're really getting the work done.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I'll note that Monty represents the people who actually built the expanded convention center, which will benefit from this legislation.

So thank you for being in the house.

OK, we've got, I believe, one person signed up for remote public comment.

They are not present yet.

So that person is Laura Kleiss.

If you can hear this, please.

Please come on board and press star six.

Okay, she's having trouble connecting.

Well, that unfortunately, is there anybody else in the room that would like to make public comment?

Okay, well, Laura, you're welcome to submit your public comment by email, and we'll make sure that it is distributed, because I do have to officially close public comment if there's no other speaker.

So I am now officially closing public comment, and we'll move on to our item on the agenda.

Will the clerk please read the item into the record?

agenda item number one, council bill 120641, an ordinance relating to the Seattle tourism improvement area, establishing a new 15-year business improvement area to be known as the Seattle tourism improvement area, levying special assessments upon owners of businesses offering transient accommodations with 60 or more rooms within the area, providing for the deposit of revenues in a special account and expenditures therefrom.

providing for collection of and penalties for delinquencies, providing for the establishment of a rate payers advisory board, providing for an implementation agreement with a program manager, disestablishing the existing Seattle Tourism Improvement Area that was established by Ordinance 123714, the 2011 STIA, and later modified by Ordinance 126552, Suspending the issuance of special assessments and providing for the continuity of services under the 2011 STIA, providing for the transfer of any remaining funds from the 2011 STIA account, and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.

For briefing and discussion.

Thank you very much.

So the Seattle Tourism Improvement Area, STIA, is a business improvement area formed in 2021 in accordance with Washington state law to establish a new leisure tourism marketing fund for Seattle that enables Seattle hoteliers to compete and grow their market share.

The program started as a flat $2 fee per night, but council amended that last year to become a $4 flat fee.

And rate payers are now looking to convert the flat fee to a performance-based funding model set at 2.3%.

So that's why we're talking about STEA again, in case you're wondering, didn't we already do this?

The rate payers are also looking to allow the use of the funds collected to include sales and marketing for the convention center.

Currently, STEA funds can only be used for leisure market development.

But with the new summit building, we have an opportunity to expand sales and bookings in the meetings and conventions market segments.

The proposed conversion of the STIA has been met with great support from rate payers within the defined improvement area zone.

Currently, over 70% of properties representing nearly 80% of guest room inventory had signed the petition to support these important changes.

And that's a big percentage when anything having to do with BIA, changes or expansions, et cetera, happen.

So that is impressive.

So presenters, would you please introduce yourselves and begin your presentations?

Sure.

I'll start just going down the line.

Excuse me.

My name is Jasmine Marwaha with Council of Central Staff.

My name is Casey Rogers.

I'm with the Office of Economic Development.

I'm Tammy Canavan with Visit Seattle.

Allie Daniels with Visit Seattle.

And I'll go ahead and kick us off just to provide an overview of the BIA process.

As this committee may be familiar with since this is I think our third BIA in recent months, the procedures for establishing and operating a BIA are governed by state law and city policies which were adopted by resolution in 2016. Per the adopted policies, the city will consider a new or renewed BIA when presented with a We also have a petition by rate payers representing 60% or more of the total assessment of the proposed BIA, which as Chair Nelson mentioned, is the case before you today.

And these petitions can be found in clerk file 322704. And again, as this committee may be familiar with by now, creating a new BIA is pretty process intensive.

It involves four pieces of legislation, again, as required by state law.

A resolution that initiates consideration of the BIA, a resolution that establishes the city's intent to establish the BIA and sets a date for the public hearing.

A resolution that expresses intent to disestablish the expiring or existing BIA and sets a date for the public hearing on that.

And then finally, an ordinance that actually formally disestablishes the expiring BIA, creates the new BIA, and then levies a special assessment to fund BIA activities.

So on August 15th, the council introduced all four pieces of legislation and voted on the adoption of the resolutions.

These resolutions set the public hearing date for September 13th at 9.30 a.m.

this Wednesday.

And my understanding is that the notice of the upcoming public hearings was published in the Daily Journal of Commerce and mailed to all potential ratepayers at least 10 days in advance of the hearing already, as again required by state law.

And so today we're hearing an initial presentation on the council bill.

And then looking ahead, the next committee meeting, again on Wednesday morning, will conduct the public hearing, continue discussion of the proposal, consider any amendments, and then possibly vote on the legislation.

So with that overview of the process, I'll turn it over to OED and the proponents.

All right.

Thanks, Jasmine.

And thank you, everyone.

Thanks for hosting us at the special committee meeting today.

Appreciate it.

My name is Casey Rogers.

I'm a business district program and policy advisor with the Office of Economic Development.

I'm going to give a very high-level overview of the BIA program.

and what we're introducing under this ordinance, and then I'll pass it over to Tammy and Allie at Visit Seattle to go into the details.

So next slide, please.

So our BIA program.

So we currently have 11 BIAs across the city of Seattle, including STIA, Seattle Tourism Improvement Area, or Visit Seattle.

And across all 11 BIAs, they generate $35 million.

That money goes back to enhanced business services and programs in the neighborhoods.

BIAs provide local control with funding and then predictable and sustainable funding as well.

So it allows the business improvement areas to hire staff to look forward and plan for the future.

The revenue that's collected through the assessments is 100% allocated to the district.

So it all stays within the neighborhoods itself.

And the program is supported by OED and the city's treasury services.

Next slide, please.

So how a BIA is formed or renewed.

So the first thing is that they must demonstrate 60% of support from the rate payers via a petition process.

And then the proponents of the BIA can utilize really any reasonable factor that relates to the benefits received, including hotel occupancy, business and occupation property values, building square footage, lot square footage.

When a BIA is proposed or a change is proposed, it comes to Office of Economic Development, and then we evaluate the proposal to make sure that it's commensurate with city policies and state laws, and that the rate payers are receiving benefits proposed with the BIA.

And then lastly, the BIA, oops, excuse me.

Lastly, the BIA needs to be approved by city council, which is why we are here today, under the RCW listed here on the slide.

Next slide, please.

So STIA, a little background.

They were formed originally in 2011 through the process that I mentioned on the previous slide.

And for this change, for the ordinance change here, they actually have secured 72% of support through the petition process, which is much higher than the 60% minimum.

And I believe actually it's now 74% since we've submitted these documents, if I'm right.

Next slide.

Just a little context here.

So here are the boundaries of STIA.

You can see it's broadly downtown with the red outline there.

And just wanted to note that the boundaries are not changing with this ordinance.

Next slide, please.

Just another map to show the rate payers or the hotels that are in the STIA.

So there's 71 in total.

And again, the boundary is not changing under this ordinance.

Next slide, please.

So there's really two main updates with this proposal.

The first being expanding the type of travel that visit Seattle can market to include business travel.

They're currently restricted to only marketing leisure travel, which precludes the convention center, which is particularly notable right now with the new summit building.

So this update would actually allow them to market business travel as well.

The other main component to this ordinance is transitioning from a flat-free model to a percentage model.

So right now it's $4 per night, and this would actually change it to a 2.3% charge, so of the guest room rate.

The percentage model is a little more equitable.

You can think of a $100 a night hotel versus a $400 a night hotel, right, spending $2.30 per night to I can't do the math right now, but you understand what I'm saying.

And also the percentage model is more in alignment with what other jurisdictions are doing across the country and around the world.

Next slide, please.

So I mentioned before that 100% of the assessments go back to the BIA for various program areas.

And I just wanted to highlight some of the program areas that STI has.

And Ali and Tammy will get into the details with this, but I wanted to kind of show advertising, international market development, group sales, you can see the breadth of what Visit Seattle does.

Let's see, next slide.

I think that's it.

Maybe we move questions to the very end.

That's a good idea.

OK, great.

So with that, I'll pass it over to Tammy and Ali.

Thank you.

Thank you.

OK.

Thank you.

So thank you so much for having us here today and making the time to listen to our presentation.

My name is Tammy Canavan.

I am the president and CEO of Visit Seattle, and we are the program manager for STEA.

I am here presenting with Ellie, who is our chief marketing officer.

Next slide.

We have been around for a long time.

So just a little bit of history about the STIA.

It was established 12 years ago as a flat fee added on to the room rate of hotels with a minimum of 60 rooms within the BIA boundaries.

An 11-member advisory board works with us to determine how funds are invested, and final budgets must be approved by the rate payers each year.

In general terms, and we'll talk a little bit more about specifics, these funds have been invested to grow the tourism economy through advertising, media relations, special events, sales missions, and other work that increases awareness of Seattle as a leisure destination.

Well, the STIA is mandated to benefit the ratepayers.

It is important to note that benefits extend far beyond the hotels.

Our ratepayers recognize that people stay in hotels to enjoy the destination and all of the things that make it special and so this really is a very collaborative effort.

Visit Seattle has more than 700 members representing every Seattle neighborhood, and these are businesses and non-profits across the city.

We've had amazing success as a result of the fund, and in order to do more, we're looking for just a couple of adjustments.

The objectives have remained consistent over time.

We leverage the STIA with other funds, and we use it to build awareness, build business in the fall, winter, and spring, essentially not summer, and to tell the story or the stories of Seattle.

This has been very successful economic development work, and we're looking to do more of this with the new STIA.

Next.

Thanks.

While we've had great success, we have found ourselves in a new chapter.

And with that, have discovered some challenges with the STIA.

We mentioned the fund was set up for leisure marketing only, which means we can't use those funds for any other purpose.

The other main funding source for tourism marketing comes from the Seattle Convention Center.

And right up until 2020, those two funds were working really well together.

We've now opened a second center building, which brings great opportunity, and it has also brought great cost to the Convention Center Public Facilities District, and the pandemic and their debt service obligations have resulted in an erosion of available sales and marketing funds.

This leaves us with a gap of about $30 million over a five-year period, money that we were counting on to be able to spend to promote that new convention center, to staff up, and to recover from the pandemic.

So it has greatly affected our momentum in building convention business.

The STIA, as it is now, cannot help us bridge that gap.

In addition to that, the flat fee model does have its limitations.

And as we see inflation's effect on everything and our competitors' budgets grow, we are in danger of being more and more under-resourced if we leave things the way they are.

Next.

We are still working on recovery.

We've had some good moments.

We've had some great moments.

We've had some great weekends.

We've had some great weeks, some great months.

But we are really truly not fully back and certainly we have much ground to make up in the shoulder season.

We're still 18% below 2019 in overnight visitor levels.

We're 10% down in visitor spending, and that's nearly a billion dollars.

So 10% is no small change.

And employment is still lagging by about 24%.

On the next slide, it shows a graph about convention center bookings.

Conventions are a segment that need runway.

They book well in advance, generally, of their actual meeting.

They traditionally book several years out.

So we track where we should be in order to meet our annual booking targets.

And right now, we should be where the yellow line is right now.

Where we are is the blue line.

So you can see that we've got some ground to make up and need a little bit of help there.

On the next slide, Joriana mentioned that we are falling behind our competitive city budgets.

Post-COVID recovery is on everyone's radar, as is inflation, of course.

And when we began this survey in the early spring, Washington, D.C.' 's budget was at $25 million.

If you look at the grid now, they're at $50 million.

Just in a few short months, they've doubled the resources that they have available to grow the same kind of business that we are pursuing.

We already lag behind Denver and San Diego, Los Angeles, and Portland and San Francisco are predicting significant funding increases in 2024. So on this graph, we are the little blue line on the right-hand side.

We aspire to be not on the right-hand side.

So we are proposing two simple changes to the STIA.

And when I say we, I am including the rate payers.

We have continued to collect petitions since we originally submitted.

We have 51 signed out of the 71 hotels.

So that's 72% of the hotels representing 79.4% of the rooms and likely more of the actual rate paying.

So the first adjustment is changing from a flat nightly fee to a percentage of the nightly rate.

This change makes things more equitable for rate payers and allows the fund to grow with both rate and occupancy.

With the flat fee, there's limited opportunity to grow the fund as we don't have a pipeline of very many hotels, new hotel rooms coming anytime soon.

And the percentage rate has been chosen quite purposely.

We did do a great deal of studying.

We looked at our competitive markets and we landed on 2.3% precisely to generate as much revenue as possible while still under the top level of a tax and fees in other destinations.

The other adjustment on the next slide is a modification of the use.

The second change is adding the ability to use STIA funds for the sales and marketing of conventions and meetings.

We are the only place on the planet with two state-of-the-art downtown convention centers in that close of proximity.

And we have a great opportunity, but we need resources in order to maximize that and win the business for which there is incredibly fierce competition.

We have a couple of case studies just to illustrate why the meetings market is so important.

The first one is the International Antiviral Society.

They were here in February of this year.

in a month where traditionally we don't have a lot of leisure visitors in town.

This convention brought over $11 million in economic impact, including $400,000 just in local taxes.

And we worked with them, as we do with all groups, to source local products for their welcome bags.

And Dr. Fauci helped us make some national headlines as well.

The second case study on the next slide is the American Booksellers Association, also here in February.

A little bit smaller than the other group, but still an important and impactful event.

Not only did they infuse our economy with more than $3 million, but they really embraced our community, working with the Seattle Public Library and other local nonprofits to donate books to our teachers.

They had book signings at local bookstores, and they used our local products for their welcome gifts.

When we attract groups like this, it's not just a convention.

It's a community benefit.

It helps us balance the impact of visitors throughout the year, and it brings groups that are aligned with the values of our city.

Got Taylor Swift on the screen.

The tourism economy is multifaceted, and it takes different kinds of visitors to maximize the benefits of tourism to our community.

The revenue and occupancy record-breaking weekend we all affectionately called Taylor Swift Weekend was amazing.

And yes, the Swifties made a big impact, but it wasn't just them.

It was the Blue Jays in town that always pulls a huge crowd.

and six cruise ship dockings, and two citywide conventions, and two citywide festivals.

All of that on one weekend was what made that weekend so incredibly special and profitable.

And we say this just to illustrate that there is no one segment alone that can carry us.

We need diversified customer groups, just like a business needs diversified revenue streams.

The one segment we haven't talked about yet is international.

This crowd is critical to our overall recovery.

They spend more, they stay longer, they come in non-summer months, but overseas is the slowest to recover.

And while there are geopolitical issues and airlift are part of that, we do need to be investing more in growing these markets.

You can see on the screen that our traditional markets of importance and where we are at in recovering those visitors.

Canada, which is actually our largest international market, is not on the graph because when you put that there, you can't read any of the other lines.

It's such a huge market.

But while they're recovering, they're still at 32% below 2019 levels.

And if you look there, you can see that we're anywhere between 20% or 90% below where 2019 brought us.

look at China.

Our largest overseas market traditionally is nowhere near recovering, and there are a lot of reasons for that.

Some of the flights are coming back, but it's going to take a long time, if ever, that China comes back as that important a market to us.

So in addition to investing in the markets that we're already in, we need to explore other opportunities to grow that.

Thank you.

Next slide, please.

This is my third time presenting in front of council on STIA, and each time I get more excited.

I'm so proud to be a storyteller for the city that we love so much.

And these are some of the, a slice of the programs that we work on, but really this is a commitment that we've made not only to ourselves, but to our rate payers.

that we really have a commitment to shine a light on arts, culture, music, historically underrepresented communities, and BIPOC-owned businesses and business owners.

I did a quick count last night across all of our campaigns, and 91% of the work we put out is about or features arts, culture, music, small business owners, BIPOC-owned businesses, and LGBTQ community.

Next slide, please.

The Seattle Museum Month is a perfect example.

10 years ago, we got all of the hotels together and all of our arts and culture institutions together and created Seattle Museum Month.

The month of February, if you stay in a downtown Seattle hotel, Estia Hotel, you receive half off admission at over 30 arts and cultural institutions throughout the region.

Not only did it give us a chance to highlight the diverse art scene that we have here, from the Pinball Museum, to the Burke Museum, to the Klondike Gold Rush Museum, to the zoo, but we have a chance to have our arts and culture community work together with our hotel community and really lift all boats.

We know that February is a rough month for all involved, and this gives us an opportunity to celebrate all of that.

And year over year, we get more press on this campaign than any of our other existing campaigns.

This was created by Visit Seattle.

Visitseattle.tv, in 2015, we launched a TV network.

We created video.

We now have over 160 pieces of video content, ranging from 15 seconds to 40 minutes, telling stories about our city, non-traditional travel content, because we know that people don't always know they're planning their next trip.

It's a way for us to use other people's voices to tell about our beautiful city.

People trust people like them more than they trust people to promote a product, and we really lean into that.

Our latest is called Bookmarked.

It's celebrating the fact that we are a proud UNESCO City of Literature, and we have Seattle authors, Seattle passages, and Seattle influencers all mixed together in one beautiful campaign that we are thrilled to share.

We've also, another highlight is family style.

First generation immigrant chefs sharing their family recipes in restaurants throughout the city as they feel like it is their responsibility to bring these recipes to Seattle and why they chose to do it here and why they're so proud to do it.

Next slide, please.

The I Know A Place campaign, I believe I shared with you all last year, it's grown so much.

It started in cities that knew us already, Vancouver, B.C., Portland, San Francisco, and L.A.

And as we were able to launch into new markets, we didn't want to do it just with billboards and following you around your news channels.

We wanted to do it in a true Seattle way, so we took over local coffee shops in Boise and in Houston.

And when you went in for your morning coffee on a Monday, what a treat that your first cup of coffee was on Seattle.

And then we followed with the billboards and the bus boards.

Coffee is not as popular during the hot, hot months and hot, hot destinations, so we took Popsicles.

We took Seattle Pops, a local family-owned, women-owned, LGBTQ-owned business, and we handed out free Popsicles in Sacramento, in Dallas, and in Minneapolis throughout the summer.

of course, bus boards as well.

And then, once you go to I Know A Place on the website, really using local stories, highlighting people of our community that we love so much, and really asking them to share their favorite places with loved ones.

How you take a loved one around the city is different than how you share things on social media, so we encourage them to take their sisters, their best friends, and show them the part of Seattle that they love the most.

Chef Shota was part of that campaign, DJ Chong the Nomad, musician and songwriter Sassy Black, actor Nicholas Bernard, who is Lumiere, and Beauty and the Beast last year.

Next slide, please.

We talk about negative press coming out of COVID.

Seattle took a hit for sure, and we wanted to make sure that we were in the national news for things not only that brought joy, but things that we could control.

So we took a negative stereotype.

that it rains a lot here, and we flipped it on its head and we created something called Cozy Season.

And we brought Seattle rain, Seattle mist, to hot markets last year, and what resulted was over 167 million earned impressions talking about a reason to come to Seattle in the fall and the winter all across the world.

Next slide.

Cloudbreak, we launched last year in partnership with King County Creative, a celebration not only of music venues, but of our incredible music scene.

An opportunity, again, when you stay in a downtown hotel to receive free access to these music venues through 20 days throughout November, another part of our shoulder season.

and an opportunity not only to drive traffic to music venues, but to bring more people into the city and celebrate everyone from Sir Mix-a-Lot, which was our opening night, to the conclusion with the Dusty 45s.

Next slide.

refract a celebration of glass art in partnership with Chihuly Garden and Glass.

We launched this festival five years ago.

It's four days that really highlights not only what people think of as glass art, but opens their eyes to something new.

Did you know there's an artist that knits with glass?

It is mind-blowing.

And really not only to celebrate this with the art collectors, but with the glass art curious, people that think they might know what glass art is, but has absolutely no idea.

We highlight everything from the art at the airport, to Pilchuck, to Lino Tagliapietra, and through demos and tours and parties.

This year we're actually adding a shuttle service too to make sure that it is as accessible as possible to get visitors and locals around.

Next slide.

We all know MLB All-Star Week was here earlier this year.

When all eyes were on our city and some people were here for the first time, we made sure we used this opportunity to introduce them to more than just baseball.

We had pop-up concerts.

We created window clings in partnership with The Intentionalist, highlighting black-owned, women-owned, indigenous-owned businesses for them to place along the green path.

So as visitors were traveling between their hotel and the stadiums, we encouraged them to support our small businesses.

For the first time in 50 years, the monorail let us put art on the monorail columns as a surprise and delight.

A local artist with over 100 community members creating these 16 murals, ages 6 to 60, not only highlighting baseball players, but the fans and locals alike.

and free events, such as movies at Seattle Center and watch parties, to make sure this event was as accessible and inclusive as possible.

And finally, Seattle Good News.

We've talked a lot about it today.

Brand reputation is something very important to us.

Coming out of the pandemic again, I guess it was right in the pandemic, in 2020, we launched SeattleGoodNews.com, very creative name, and really a curation of all the stories that celebrate Seattle, not only from a tourism and business perspective, but at Seattleites.

how we weathered the pandemic, how we are recovering.

And we also encouraged partners to share those messages as well.

So we created visual assets for them to add to e-signatures to their websites to really help spread the word of all the good that comes out of this place.

Back to you.

Oh, I'll take this one.

Supporting Seattle, we do this in all kinds of ways.

We mentioned Laura Kleist earlier today.

We partnered with The Intentionalist and Seattle Bank to uplift BIPOC and LGBTQ-owned businesses throughout Seattle.

Last year, we sponsored 20 businesses to become part of Visit Seattle.

And not only does that give them partnership benefits, but it's also an opportunity for us to highlight them throughout the media and give them national media exposure.

We are a key part of the downtown activation plan.

We have multiple members that sit with that group.

And we are aligned with all five strategic pillars in the new future of Seattle economy agenda.

And Tammy mentioned about using local products and gift bags.

Any opportunity we have to tell our story through products of the people that live here and make this place so special, we take full advantage of that.

And now I'll pass it back.

Thank you.

Tourism economy is critical to Seattle's vitality.

The numbers on the screen reflect 2022's impact.

They're lower than 2019, as we've discussed, but they are important and we need to maintain and grow them.

The overall spending equates to an average of more than $20 million a day in King County.

State and local taxes paid by visitors mean that we as residents get a tax break of $775 per household per year.

And nearly 61,000 of our neighbors go to work in tourism each day, nearly enough to fill the loom and field.

And sure, they work in hotels, but they also work in food and beverage, and arts, and culture, and they drive Ubers, and they work in retail, and maybe they have their own business at Pike Place Market or in CID.

The tourism industry makes the dreams of entrepreneurs possible.

It brings vitality to our streets.

It leaves legacies we get to enjoy as residents and supports Seattle's values of innovation and inclusivity.

And with your help, we can make sure the health of this vital industry continues to grow.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for all of that information.

Ali, I really love all the tools that you use.

Oh, is there another?

No, go ahead.

I thought...

Oh, in case you have questions.

Okay, got it.

I was just singing Ali's praises because of all the creative ways that you promote Seattle in other markets.

So I have a question here that might be on other people's minds.

When you were talking about your budget shortfall for, I understand that in general, but last year there was sort of a panicked last minute call for help from the convention center from Seattle to, for funding support for sales and marketing.

And I co-sponsored a budget item to do that.

It didn't fly, but there were a lot of questions about why is this, Why is this money needed?

I mean, didn't the convention center think about how they would end up marketing?

So what was the funding source for that and why is there a shortfall?

Can you just explain that before we go on to other issues?

Absolutely.

So the funding source for the sales and marketing of the convention center comes from the public facilities district of the convention center.

It is room tax.

And so, of course, during COVID, that dropped off significantly.

Their projections were infinitely more optimistic than what really happened.

And they continued to build summit.

And so the debt obligation continues to be there.

They depleted all of their reserves.

They leveraged everything they possibly could.

They've borrowed money from everywhere they can.

And so they did continue to fund us, but at a much reduced level.

And so we were able to keep the lights on, but wound up having to lay off a significant amount of our staff.

Pre-COVID, we were at about 72 staff.

We went to less than 30 during COVID and have had to rebuild that.

but have not been able to get back to the formula that the Convention Center and we had an agreement on because of their other obligations.

So they continue to have money coming through, but not enough to fund at the level that we need in order to sell two buildings and take advantage of that opportunity.

Got it.

And it does no good to have a new, brand new, gorgeous expansion if you can't tell every single association within the country and internationally, note that you do market internationally, if you don't have the staff and the dollars to promote and market and then fill those rooms, help book those conventions.

I do think that's important.

And I'll just enter my boilerplate language that I always say when we're discussing BIAs.

Here we have hotel rate payers that are asking for the permission to change the assessment structure so that they can promote, not themselves, not just downtown, but the money that goes into the overall pot ends up helping the small businesses and arts institutions and museums, all of this all over the city.

And so I always think that if they think it's okay to change how their guests are paying for this assessment that ends up promoting all of Seattle, I think that we should first take our cue from them.

Because you know, and when it comes right down to it, it doesn't matter if it's a business traveler or a leisure traveler that's paying the check at that restaurant, because it really helps that restaurant no matter where that money is coming from.

So in any case, so I will, I'll stop here and ask if my colleagues have any questions.

Okay.

I am good.

I did have one point, Madam Chair, if I may.

Yes, Deborah.

Two things.

Were the original people that are presenting again, and thank you very much for your presentation, were any of you there in 2011 when this was created originally?

You're a historian reporting for duty.

You both were?

Just myself.

So what was the conventional thinking back then?

to distinguish between business and leisure, that the fee could only go for leisure but not business?

Sure.

Well, there's business, and then there's meetings and conventions, and there's leisure.

So we actually talk about three different segments.

Really, Seattle had never had an opportunity to promote themselves as a leisure destination ever.

So this was following the fact that the state tourism office was closing.

So this was a way that hoteliers knew that they needed to compete.

And at that time, we had one convention center.

We were actually turning away more business than we were booking at that time.

We were making sure that the best business as possible could be in that space.

And so this, in 2011, was the best use of this opportunity.

I have a, it's not so much well, it could be a question in a statement, but I'm taking a page out of what the chamber is doing as well.

So.

Are you, are you anticipating working with local tribes, like Muckleshoot, Puyallup, Suquamish?

I understand that they can be competitors and partners.

In King county and contribute billions of dollars to the economy, not just in King and Pierce, but statewide.

And they offer more than just, of course, they have businesses and convention centers as well, but obviously not as big as what downtown Seattle has to offer.

But the music venues, the shuttle services, just bought Kenmore air.

It would seem to me that that would be a great partnership in working with tribes in local events, venues that they have going where people actually come and stay downtown, go to the casino, go to a Mariners game, but still stay downtown.

Because I'm guessing if you have the capacity to hand out coffee cups in Texas, You should probably have the capacity to work with local tribes who contribute billions of dollars to the economy and jobs.

And I know that the chamber, which is, you know, kudos to them, are booking their next big event up at the Tulalip tribe.

And there's a lot of tax benefits as well.

So I don't know if that's something you're going to do, but I would certainly like to leave you with the thought that that might be something you should explore.

Yes, ma'am, and you're absolutely right.

We do already have a good relationship with, we partner with Thule quite often, and also with the Muckleshoot tribe, are probably the most actively invested in the work that we do.

We don't see them as competitors.

We see them as partners that are going to help attract business to the general area, and that's good for everyone.

Oh, okay, well, it would have been great to have a slide on that.

I just just so I can see and can I ask you what what social media platforms you're on?

Because this would be something with I know with our believe it or not with our little D5 North Star newsletter.

We reach about 9000 people and a lot of it is Indian country because I'm probably the.

pretend reporter for everyone to find out what is going on in indigenous community in Seattle, because there isn't an outlet really.

So, is there some social media do you send out like a notice weekly, like some other groups do that we could that we could advertise and put into our and every district, I believe has a newsletter as well as using channel 20 Seattle channel.

Is there something that you guys put out that we could use?

We are active across all channels, and we encourage all of our partners to ensure that they tag us and use the hashtag Visit Seattle.

And then we love to repost all of that good news.

So there's not a social channel we're not on right now.

Oh, OK.

Well, thank you.

Thank you.

Most of those social channels I am not on.

Me either.

None.

Zero.

So, anyway, it's pretty obvious that I'm in 100 percent support of this.

I wouldn't have called a special meeting to try to get this done before the budget season goes into full, you know, full force.

So, I support this, and I'll just talk about next steps here for the next meeting.

We will hold that public hearing that was referenced at the top of the meeting, we'll hold that at our next regular meeting on Wednesday, and so that's at 9.30 in two days, so that there will be a public hearing that is combined public hearing on the intent to establish and the intent to disestablish the existing BIA.

And then we will hopefully, after that public hearing, hold a vote and vote this out of committee.

So that is the plan.

So anybody out there who would like to give comment at this public hearing, please make sure to identify what your intention is.

Don't sign up on the public comment sheet.

Sign up on the public hearing sheet so that there is no confusion and that you have enough time.

All right.

Are there any other questions before we adjourn?

All right, this concludes the agenda of the September 11th special meeting of the Economic Development, Technology, and City Light Committee.

Our next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, September 13th at 9.30.

And hearing no further business, it is 10.18, and this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, guests.