Staff Report/Jefferson Jimplecute
Jefferson’s Hotel Occupancy Tax (HOT) Revenue is over budget with three months still to go, according to reports released at Monday night’s regular Convention and Visitors Bureau Board meeting.
The latest revenue numbers of $29,777.35 reflects HOT collected in April and paid to the City in May by the various hotels, bed and breakfasts, and AirBnBs in the city.
However, board president Coleen Taylor said there is an error, so the total is actually about $11,000 lower. According to Taylor, a large hotel in Jefferson County, Texas, miscoded their payment to Avenu, the agency hired by the city to collect HOT, and paid their HOT to Jefferson, Texas, by mistake. Avenu is working on correcting the error.
“The best we can tell at this point, is we should subtract about $11,000 off the $138,291 collected,” said Taylor. She went on to say the error is over a period of two months. Once the final amount is determined, Avenu will deduct it from future months payments to the City.
With the mistake taken out of the year to date totals, the city will be at $127,291 collected or 94% of the budgeted expected revenue for 2020-2021.
Also according to Taylor, George and Michelle Otstott will soon be opening an AirBnB in the cottage in their gardens. Taylor also asked if anyone knew of or was planning to open an AirBnB in town, to please let her know so she could assist in getting them setup to submit HOT.
The plan for Jefferson to become a Texas Music Friendly Community is still on go, according to Taylor. Board members Chris Bollinger has agreed to be the City’s representative if approved by the State.
According to the Texas Music Friendly Communities website, “Participation in the Texas Music Office’s “Music Friendly Community” program provides Texas communities with a network for fostering music industry development, and sends a clear message to industry professionals that certified communities are serious about attracting and developing music industry growth.”
Taylor will be presenting the program to Council at an upcoming Budget Workshop meeting, with the request for them to approve the City’s participation request.
Pam Thomas told the board that August is the month Jefferson has for their banner ad on the TourTexas.com website and that a banner has been created and is ready to go. Thomas also said the City’s commercial will be airing on KTAL during the Olympics coverage and that KTAL indicates they receive more viewers during the Olympics than they do during the NFL season.
Thomas also reminded the board of this weekend’s concert from the Texas Commission on the Arts. There is a workshop beginning at 1:30p Saturday and the free concert by Adler & Hearne, the “Award-Winning Official texas touring Artists of the Texas Commission on the Arts since 20214” at 3p at the Jefferson Visitor’s Center. The workshop will be on songwriting and the concert will be on original Folk Jazz with deep Texas roots.
Thomas distributed the latest report from Anderson Marketing Group about the city’s current advertising campaign results. Overall, the reports show an increase in traffic to the city website.
The Jefferson CVVB will hold their 2021-2022 budget workshop meeting at 5:30p Monday, June 19, at the Visitor’s Center. Taylor asked the board, and the community to let her know of any budget items they’d like to see regarding tourism in Jefferson.
“I view tourism as you ‘eat what you hunt,’ so you’ll need to project what you expect to receive in income the next two months,” said Jefferson Mayor Rob Baker.
Taylor indicated she knew of a few increases this next year in dues and subscriptions category. Specifically Texas Hotel & Lodging Association (THLA) dues will be increasing as “we’ve added several new BnBs since our last fee increase,” she said. “And MuniServices (Avenu) costs will be increasing as well” for the same reasons.
Hugh Lewis requested the board increase their postage allocation from $500 to $900 to account for the costs of mailing out the Discover Jefferson & Marion County booklet they jointly produce with Marion County Media.
Bob Thomas asked who was responsible for projecting the expenses and revenue on the visitor’s center building.
Taylor told him that Eric Kuykendall, the City Administrator, would be working on that item but she had been discussing the matter with him to see what needed to be purchased for the building. “Tables and chairs are the big item [we receive complaints about]” said Taylor.
Pam Thomas said there needed to be funds allocated to advertising in Houston, as currently there are no advertising done there.