What is it?
A TPID, formed by hotels within a designated area, is used to generate supplemental funding for tourism marketing and additional sales initiatives to increase hotel business, according to a June 30 City Council retreat presentation.
The objective of creating this district is to positively impact overnight visitation in New Braunfels through smart expenditures, allowing the city to successfully compete with destinations throughout the state of Texas, said Tanya Pence, president of the New Braunfels Convention and Visitors Bureau.
There would be a 2% assessment on hotel room rates—which is the standard—that visitors pay when they spend the night in New Braunfels, said Pence. There would be no cost to residents.
The big picture
There are 10 TPIDs in the state of Texas, which are located in the following cities:
- Dallas
- Arlington
- Fort Worth
- San Antonio
- Waco
- Corpus Christi
- Frisco
- Denton
- Austin
- Addison
“No tourism public improvement district has ever been canceled, and the ones who have come up for renewal have renewed because their return on investment has proven so positive in every single case in the state of Texas,” she said.
The impact
Funds from a TPID would enhance the bureau’s marketing and sales program to generate more hotel business and provide increased funding for sales incentives. The increase in funding for sales incentives would attract and retain groups for additional hotel night activity.
Creation of the district would also provide funding for administration and research activities that measure the effectiveness of tourism marketing and sales, the presentation states.
“With additional dollars, which is what this TPID would create, we’d be able to talk to more people more often throughout the entire year,” Pence said.
Pence said the TPID would help their lodging partners, small businesses and New Braunfels as a whole.
“We are a tourism destination and we want to continue to be able to support that—not just on the weekends but during the week too,” she said.
Looking ahead
The bureau is slated to go before council in September to ask for permission to begin collecting petition signatures from hoteliers, according to the presentation.
“If council grants that permission, then every hotelier who would like to participate must sign the petition, and then we go through the open meeting process from there,” Pence said.
