Committee advances bill to help tourism industry

Committee advances bill to help tourism industry
 
By Tom Coulter
Wyoming Tribune Eagle
Via Wyoming News Exchange
 
CHEYENNE - Following the cancellation of many summer events in Wyoming, including Cheyenne Frontier Days, state lawmakers advanced a bill Friday designed to offer relief to organizers trying to keep their operations afloat, as well as to lodging businesses that have seen a downturn in activity.
Wyoming lawmakers already approved a trio of grant programs to help businesses recover from the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic during their special session in May. The stipend program approved Friday by the Joint Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Interim Committee follows a model similar to those programs, which have been run by the Wyoming Business Council.
The bill, which would need to gain approval from the full Legislature during a special session sometime this fall to become law, would provide grants of up to $2 million to community events forced to cancel due to the pandemic.
Diane Shober, executive director of the Wyoming Office of Tourism, told the committee that providing help to those events was essential to ensure they continue in coming years.
"It's just a big part of the visitor economy, and we won't really understand the impact of the loss of some of these events until much later," Shober said. "When you have overflow events, in an example like Cheyenne Frontier Days, which not only fills the lodging here in Cheyenne and Laramie County, but also in other areas over in Albany County, there will be a lot of impacts."
The cancellation of CFD has forced its organizers to dip into essentially all of the rodeo's savings to get to next year, but the canceled events cover more than just rodeos. Cheyenne Animal Shelter CEO Sue Castaneda told lawmakers Friday that the shelter was forced to cancel its annual Fur Ball fundraiser back in March, leaving them without the roughly $200,000 that usually comes from the event.
The bill advanced by the committee earmarks $100 million from the state's federal CARES Act money for the canceled events, which only qualify for the stipends if they have at least 100 attendants annually, a charitable branch to their operations, and a proven, local economic impact.
The bill also appropriates an additional $250 million for Wyoming hotels, dude ranches and other lodging businesses that had to close during the COVID-19 pandemic.
House Speaker Steve Harshman, R-Casper, has previously said bills sponsored by a committee stand a far better chance in a special session than ones that haven't been vetted. While no specific dates for another special session have been announced by legislative leadership, lawmakers were compelled to advance the bill out of committee Friday.
"The alternative is we kill this bill, and they're guaranteed to have nothing," committee co-chair Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, said. "Some really good events that have gone on won't have the funding to come back on any scale."
The committee advanced the bill by a 13-1 vote. Even if a special session isn't held to consider the bill, Gov. Mark Gordon's office could still earmark some of the state's $1.25 billion in federal relief funds - which must be spent by the end of this year - to help those events and businesses.