CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — The Chattanooga Tourism Company says they fear Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp’s proposed 2024 budget will threaten large future events in the city.
Mayor Weston Wamp presented his new budget earlier this month, which consists of limiting some of the funds given to Chattanooga Tourism Company.
Previously, Chattanooga Tourism Company received all hotel-motel taxes the county received.
Now, Mayor Wamp wants to take a percentage of those taxes and put them towards facilities that could attract better youth tournaments to the area, specifically, Camp Jordan in East Ridge.
“Our desire would be to enhance recreational assets of the county as we’ve got a great opportunity to do youth sports,” says Mayor Wamp.
Mayr Wamp told commissioners in a June 7th commission meeting that the revenue from the hotel motel tax has significantly increased since past leaders decided how to fund the tourism board.
“That arrangement was made when there was $3.8 million of hotel motel tax revenue. This year, we project just over $12 million,” says Wamp.
His plan consists of giving Chattanooga Tourism Company the same amount of funds that they received last year.
“What we’ve proposed in this budget is to hold them at the roughly $10.4 million that they got last year. And a commitment that we would support them pursuing funding from the city,” says Mayor Wamp.
But Chattanooga Tourism Company says the plan will hinder their ability to bring large events to Chattanooga such as IRONMAN, TSSAA Championships, and the World Cup Rally Championship.
“We cannot commit to these without the ability to fulfill our current and future financial commitments.” says Barry White, President of Chattanooga Tourism Company.
White also stated Mayor Weston Wamp informed them of this budget plan too late.
On June 7th, the Mayor notified the Chattanooga Tourism Company about his proposal to reduce Tourism Co. funding that we estimate would be an 18.4% reduction in the organization’s budgeted revenues, totaling $1,908,000. This was only two weeks prior to the June 21st commission meeting where the budget will be presented for approval,” says Barry White.
The Tourism Co. says this reduction will adversely affect their ability to attract people who spend money in the city’s restaurants, hotels, retail, and entertainment businesses.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
