Recommendation from a private consultant could play a major role in new rules regarding the city of Jackson’s tourism tax.
The Mississippi Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review (PEER) recently released its study on Visit Jackson, the agency formerly known as the Jackson Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The study outlines several problems within the agency, as well as recommendations to address them. The study was required as part of the 2018 legislation, which extended the city’s tourism tax through 2019.
“We want to take this information to the Jackson delegation and use it as a spring board that helps with the reauthorization and to make sure the legislation has the right checks and balances going forward,” said District 26 Sen. John Horhn.
Horhn was expected to host a public meeting at the Mississippi State Capitol Building on December 12 to discuss Visit Jackson further.
The report highlights a number of problems within the bureau, including the lack of a strategic plan with “specific measurable” goals and objectives, as well as the agency using “outdated or inconsistent” metrics to determine whether it is using tourism tax dollars efficiently.
Lawmakers required the study after reviewing a PEER memo released earlier this year.
According to the memo, between 2013 and 2016, the Jackson Rhythm and Blues Festival, an event put on by Visit Jackson, lost nearly $2.4 million, or an average of $597,000 a year.
Recommendations from the consultants include re-evaluating its organizational structure and its allocation of resources, developing a strategic plan with measurable goals, and seeking stronger partnerships with tourism-related industries in the city, like the Jackson Convention Complex, the Mississippi State Fairgrounds and other hotels, motels and restaurants.
“We have to put in some requirements that would encourage the city to make appointments (to the board) in a timely fashion,” Horhn said.
The study also calls out the city of Jackson for failing to make timely appointments to the Jackson Convention and Visitors Bureau board of directors.
“We have to put in some requirements that would encourage the city to make appointments (to the board) in a timely fashion,” Horhn said.
Some ideas being considered would include dissolving the commission if board members aren’t appointed within 90 days or allowing hotel/motel and restaurant representatives to be appointed by those respective industries, rather than the mayor.
“The biggest hole that we’re seeing is that no action has been taken by the mayor or council to bring on the hotel and restaurant representatives called for in the legislation,” Horhn said. “Those seats are vacant, but they represent the industries from where the bureau gets its funding.”
The bureau is funded by a one-percent sales tax on restaurants and hotels/motels in the capital city. In 2016 and 2017, the tax generates about $3.5 million a year.
Visit Jackson Board of Directors Chairman Robert Gibbs said the agency had already begun implementing some of the changes prior to the report being released.
He said some of those changes are being implemented by the new Visit Jackson president, Rickey Thigpen.
“The president we brought in just had a different position on where the bureau should go and started working on it from day one,” Gibbs said.
Officials with Mayor Lumumba’s office couldn’t be reached for comment.
A copy of the report can be found on PEER’s website, at peer.ms.gov.
