The City of Durango is asking us to vote on a lodgers tax increase to fund something called Sustainable Tourism Marketing.
There is a thing called sustainable tourism. It involves putting in place a system of proactive monitoring and checks and balances in order to try to prevent tourism from exceeding the resources of a community and overwhelming the local citizens and environment.
Durango has not adopted a system of sustainable tourism. We are not voting to approve a system of sustainable tourism, just funding something called Sustainable Tourism Marketing.
Without this system of monitoring, checks and balances, sustainable tourism marketing is just regular old marketing – creative and, in this case, deceptive labeling.
If approved this will more than double the amount of money the city contributes to marketing tourists to come to Durango - every year for years to come. Tourists will return en masse post-COVID-19 with the marketing already budgeted. Doubling the tourism marketing funding without constraints and oversight is taking a large step toward over-tourism. This not sustainable tourism.
With this ballot measure we also get funding for local transit needs. We should figure out a way to have the lodgers tax pay for local transit and other underfunded needs of local citizens without attaching it to something with such obvious negative long-term consequences.
Please join me in voting “No” on the lodgers tax referendum. Please join me in voting “No” to taking a large step toward over-tourism.
Ken TempleDurango
