La Plata County commissioners approved a letter Tuesday notifying Visit Durango – an entity that technically no longer exists – that the county is terminating its contract for tourism marketing services.
The Visit Durango Board of Directors voted April 11 to dissolve the tax-exempt organization, and the city of Durango absorbed it, operating under the same name, into the new Prosperity Office effective April 28.
“Our contract with Visit Durango can’t exist because Visit Durango doesn’t exist,” said county spokesman Ted Holteen.
County officials never received a marketing plan or operating budget this year, according to a letter approved by Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday. And although the Durango Welcome Center remains in operation, the entity contracted by the county to run it no longer exists.
The county is also requesting the return of its share of any unspent funds.
Both County Manager Chuck Stevens and Visit Durango Board Chair Ken Stone told commissioners that the letter followed months of clear communication and is a part of a planned winding down of the nonprofit.
Historically, the county and the city contracted with the independent organization to spend lodgers tax revenue on tourism marketing and destination management. Until this year, La Plata County passed through all of the revenue from its 2% tax on short-term overnight stays – about $1 million last year – to the organization. The city passed through just over half of its 5.5% lodgers tax, or about $ 2.2 million.
But in November, voters opted to redirect 70% of the county’s lodgers tax revenue from tourism marketing and toward housing, child care and other community needs related to tourism and the service industry. The vote came near the end of a turbulent period for Visit Durango.
The organization’s executive director resigned in May 2024. The next month, the board chair resigned after her extensive criminal history, including convictions for fraud and similar offenses, became public. The city, already concerned about Visit Durango’s financial practices, requested a forensic audit, which later revealed poor spending oversight.
The letter, more a formality than a renunciation of Visit Durango, prompts an important question: How will the county spend the approximately $300,000 it collects annually for tourism marketing?
County officials have contracted with Visit Durango for that service in recent years. But they aren’t obligated to do so and could decide not to work with the city, given the chilled relations between the governments stemming from the ongoing strife related to the use of the county jail and 911 dispatch services.
“That’s really up to the lodging tax committee,” said La Plata County Strategic Management Director Megan Graham.
That statutorily prescribed panel dictates how the county uses its tourism marketing fund.
Conversations between the county and Visit Durango have been “ongoing and haven’t been hindered in any way,” Stevens said. Both he and Stone deflected the notion that other city-county disagreements are muddying the waters on the matter.
rschafir@durangoherald.com
