Together, we have built a city that is drawing visitors, conventions and special events like never before. In fact, each year, Oklahoma City’s visitor economy now accounts for billions of dollars in economic impact and hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. On Tuesday, we have an opportunity to support that growth and build upon it — without taxing our residents.
We probably don’t talk about this enough, but through the tax dollars they leave behind, visitors are significant contributors to our city’s core services, like police, fire and streets. Visitors also drive improvements in amenities and services that we all enjoy, like nonstop flights at our airport. And of course, thousands of jobs and hundreds of businesses are dependent on visitors.
As such, we would love to welcome more visitors, and we can. After three decades of investment, we have the venues, the hotels and the attractions. All we lack are the resources to market the city to visitors and to support the events and venues that draw visitors here. We have built a world-class city, but we have to spend money to attract people. That’s just the name of the game. Traditionally, those resources have come from one source — the hotel/motel tax…