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Drive Wyoming; optimism center stage at Travel and Tourism
Published
4 years agoon
Sheridan County Travel and Tourism is remaining optimistic about the upcoming tourism season in Wyoming.
Tourism is vital for the Wyoming economy, according to a Wyoming Office of Tourism study, travel spending by all domestic and international visitors in Wyoming was approximately $3.95 billion in 2019. This is equivalent to approximately $10.8 million dollars per day.
It is unknown how much of those funds Wyoming will miss out on this year amid COVID-19 restrictions as commercial airlines experience hardship due to the coronavirus.
According to Sheridan County Travel and Tourism executive director Shawn Parker, excluding the Jackson Hole area, the majority of visitors to Wyoming travel via car, bus or other motorized vehicle.
On Sheridan Media’s Public Pulse, Parker said this, combined with the remote settings of Wyoming, may prove to be just what tourists are looking for as citizens begin to travel.
That’s good news for the lodging industry, who have taken large losses since virus restrictions were enacted throughout the nation.
According to Wyoming’s tourism study, visitors who stayed overnight in commercial lodging facilities spent $2.2 billion in 2019 – more than half (57%) of all visitor spending in the state. Visitors who stayed in public and private campgrounds spent $811 million, or about 20% of all visitor spending.
Dennis Fox
May 19, 2020 at 3:49 pm
Not sure the newly-imposed 15% tourism tax will entice as many visitors as when we topped the Low-Tax Tourism list nationwide. In just 24 months we’ve tripled the tourism tax rate. Tax hikes are a bad idea in good times and now that the economy has cratered, it’s a devastatingly bad idea. Perhaps the tourism czar who pushed this terrible idea on us, should be looking for other employment? At least that would lighten the load on the State’s already over-burdened budget. We’ve got to cut costs everywhere we can and “bad-idea pushers” are a great place to start.
mark steingass
May 20, 2020 at 9:59 am
I agree that “bad idea pushers” are a good place to start focusing attention…voters need to decide for themselves and consider not voting for these types of wanna’ be politicians…taxes should be and are carefully considered by all voters…we don’t need unnecessary taxation we need “wise” well-spent taxes and so far because of the wisdom of voters including past elected officials the state of Wyoming (and Sheridan) is a very nice place to live.
Dennis Fox
May 20, 2020 at 3:47 pm
Some may have been mislead by gov’t-led propaganda, to vote for higher taxes in the past. But the only wise course going forward is to cut gov’t spending and reduce the tax burden on our citizens. Lower taxes and less government is now the rally cry and the ONLY way to solve this economic crisis we’re in.
Dennis Fox
May 20, 2020 at 3:55 pm
An X-president once said, “The era of big gov’t is over.” Even though he was on the left, he was right way back then. Just wish is wasn’t just words and that his actions had matched his rhetoric. We have to understand the economic lessons from history. The crash of 1929 would have only been a short recession, had the gov’t not intervened. FDR expanded gov’t and raised taxes. His Keynesian/Socialist approach turned a recession into the Great Depression. If we’re not smart enough to cut taxes and spending this time, we’ll repeat our mistakes and this will become the second Great Depression. The voting of the past is done. What matters is that we put smart people in office who know that lower taxes and less gov’t is the only way forward.
Dennis Fox
May 20, 2020 at 4:09 pm
There will always be economic illiterates, who want to impose their high-tax, big-gov’t ideas on others. That is one of the inherent problems with democracy. It always degenerates into a mob-ocracy where the 51% majority impose their will on the rest of us. That’s why we created a republic, with individual rights. If you think paying a 6% tax rate is a good idea, then you pay it, but don’t ever impose your idea of the “correct” tax rate on your neighbors. It’s un-American to force your will on others….even if you vote to steal your neighbor’s money, it will never make it right. Never in history has a country taxed it’s way to prosperity. We need lower taxes and less gov’t, going forward. That is the only way to solve our economic crisis.
Dennis Fox
May 21, 2020 at 12:55 pm
Wyoming is a great place to live because our people embrace the important American principle of Liberty. The hard-working people of Wyoming made us great, not high taxes. We’ve been saddled with the state’s highest sales tax because we’ve been mis-lead and propagandized by some of our so-called “leaders.” Since they get to decide how to spend the money they collect from us thru taxes, the politicians always want more. They always point to the “goodies”, but never discuss the damaging high cost on taxpayers. The cost of the mandatory one-percent alone is about $10,000 per household over a working lifetime. But all the pol’s ever mention is that the tax is “only” a penny. It’s not a penny it’s one-percent added to every good and service in Sheridan county (except food). Buy a new truck for 40K and that’s $400 in one-percent alone. ($2400 total tax), and that’s just a single purchase in a single year. Spend $25K a year and that’s $250 annually on the one percent. That adds up to $10 k over a fourty-yr. working lifetime. And that’s just the one-percent tax. Invest the one-percent wisely and the average household would have 200-250 thousand dollars for their retirement. That’s a quarter-million dollars wasted on the mandatory one-percent. Hope those flowers on main street are worth it.
It’s high-time we look at the true cost of imposing Wyoming’s highest sales tax We may be entering a depression and we need to get rid of the high-tax burden in Sheridan County. Know the truth and the truth will set us FREE!
Dennis Fox
May 21, 2020 at 1:12 pm
We are not “experiencing hardship due to the virus” We are seeing economic devastation because of our over-reaction to it. The closure “orders” issued by our governor are killing us. If we don’t return to a legitimate, republican-form of government, whereby only the legislature makes law….then we will destroy our economic base and descend into tyranny. If we don’t open soon, there will no tourists, no minerals mined and vastly reduced commerce of any kind. We’ll sink into the second great depression, if we don’t restore our right to Liberty, ASAP. Wyoming’s future hangs in the balance and is dependent on getting the governor to let his illegal “orders” expire by 1 June. The socialists are about to “drive” us over an economic cliff and it’s up to us to grab the wheel to avert disaster.