Council reviews tourism funding

The City of Redmond collects a lodging tax of 1% on each overnight stay at Redmond hotels and allocates these revenues to the Lodging Tax Fund.

The purpose of the Lodging Tax Fund (“tourism fund”) is to increase tourism in Redmond by attracting visitors— especially overnight visitors who stay in Redmond hotels—by funding the marketing or operation of special events, festivals and tournaments.

The tourism matching grant program is intended to provide opportunities for potential partners to bring events and festivals to the Redmond community. The City received 17 grant applications from non-profit and for-profit organizations, in response to the annual matching grant applications request announcement.

Applications are reviewed against the program fund criteria including: tourism promotion, benefit to the community, innovation, community support, evidence of partnerships, scale of the project, other funding sources, and new or ongoing funding. The Lodging Tax Fund Advisory Committee is recommending funding all 17 applications evaluated as they each strongly met the grant criteria and were evaluated as a good fit for Redmond.

A total of $146,000 of matching grants is recommended by the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee for City Council’s approval.  A total request of $194,174 of Community Events and Arts programming is identified through the lodging tax, which is equivalent to the 39% previously identified by City Council for arts and events.

Programing includes:  Redmond Derby Days  Redmond Lights  So Bazaar  Redmond Arts Season  Redmond Moving Arts Center  Downtown Park Programming

Source:  Council Committee memo, 1/8/19