By ROBERT JUMPER
Tutiyi (Snowbird) and Clyde, N.C.
I am going to travel to some old ground today. I have advocated for a Chamber of Commerce or a tourism development authority for our tribal community for decades. The concept works in almost every municipality in the country. State-run tourism programs and business support entities under the direct authority of the government often falter because the goals of an economic development-driven chamber or TDA may not always align with the communal, municipal, and political objectives of politicians or government. Politicians appease a constituency, not a clientele. And tourism efforts live or die on the satisfaction of its guests (the clientele).
In state-run tourism organizations, decisions concerning tourism are not necessarily made with the goal of making a dollar, generating overnight stays, or filling up restaurants and craft/art outlets. If a potential tourism project offends or excludes local participation, it has a good chance of dying in the hands of politicians, even if the project has been researched and the data shows it to be a potentially successful project, and even if the project has worked very successfully for other organizations.
Elawodi (Yellowhill) Representative Tom Wahnetah has mentioned during multiple tribal Planning Board sessions that he feels the tribe needs a TDA. In the most recent Planning Board meeting, a once-taboo word was spoken as a viable solution to the upkeep of properties and removal of dilapidated buildings: the word “zoning”. Zoning and business community representation are not new thoughts or concepts. Most municipalities use these tools to regulate out undesirable business elements, institute and enforce community standards, and ensure that resources are effectively and equitably distributed so that the overall health of a community is protected. Bottom line is that tools like zoning, chambers of commerce, and tourism development entities are a good thing for any community, including this one.
Early on, after the turn of this century, an exceptional community leader, the late Mary Jane Ferguson, worked inside the governmental system to create and establish a Cherokee Chamber of Commerce. It was part of Mary Jane’s vision of a Cherokee “renaissance”. She knew that the tribal government would need to lead the effort to establish a chamber but would need to step back from leadership roles in that organization if the chamber was going to function as a true voice of the tribal business community.
Resources were dedicated to help create an organizational structure and office space. A board was formed with Cherokee entrepreneurs making up most of the board and taking leadership roles both on the board and in staff assignments. They established a phone and email presence along with a now-defunct website, cherokeesmokies.com. They took in membership dues and even sold enough ads to pay for a Cherokee visitor guide for several years. The organization was even able to acquire some grant funding to help sustain it. One thing that TDAs have in common across the spectrum is a need for a funding source for the marketing and promotion of the tourism message of their municipalities. Since most of those governments frown on using public funds for tourism promotion, the money typically comes from an occupancy tax. In our community, we call that a privilege tax, but the source is the same. It is money paid by the visitors, separate from the municipal collections like sales tax, that are put in a special fund, and the use of it is predetermined by a law, usually earmarked to be used by a TDA to promote even more visits, visitors, overnight stays, and tourism related purchases like food and sundries. Most municipalities in North Carolina collect the state’s mandated cap on occupancy tax, which is six percent.
In our case on the Qualla Boundary, the privilege tax is not reserved entirely for the tourism effort, and from the beginning, it was cannibalized for other municipal projects (other than funding tourism). Still, some of the privilege taxes are spent on tourism efforts, not by a business-led TDA, but by an arm of the tribal government.
With a TDA’s dependency on the occupancy or privilege tax to fund its operation and outreach efforts, the Cherokee Chamber of Commerce’s days were numbered. Since they did not have a sustainable funding source, the Cherokee Chamber faded away. You can still see remnants of it on the internet: search listings with references to the old phone number, email, and physical address. But it is no longer a presence in the tourism efforts of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
At the most recent Planning board session, the board member representing the business community, Anna Ferguson (Mary Jane’s daughter), said this about establishing (or reestablishing) a chamber-like, tourism business organization (aka a TDA), “Yes, I mean a chamber, business group and I’ve even thought about just going out and starting like a grassroots one. There is no communication among the business members. I don’t feel like there is good communication between the businesses and the tribe. I was thinking of just trying to put something together so that we could communicate with each other. We could hold ourselves to a higher standard. Several new businesses are opening. These people are motivated. They are willing to do something different. They do take pride. We also have several businesses that don’t. A business organization would help a lot. There is potential there to set up an organization that will help us hold ourselves to a good standard.”
Because much of our economic future depends on tourism, and many of our businesses are geared towards tourism, it just makes sense to create and maintain an organization that is led by those business owners and operators who have the biggest stake in the success of the effort. Any grassroots effort to form a chamber or TDA is destined to fail unless legislation is brought in to create it as an entity complete with cleaning up what is typically the funding source for tourism efforts, the occupancy or privilege tax, with protections in law that limit the things those funds can be used for specific tourism promotions and visitor outreach projects.
I have been blessed to volunteer my leadership services to tourism organizations, Travel and Tourism Associations (TTA) and TDAs for nearly 25 years. I had spent several of those years also involved in tribal tourism marketing and events. For over 40 years, I have been involved in business management of some sort relating to sales. I know how important it is to follow successful models and to use data to ensure that you are targeting your audience correctly and with the right product to sell to them.
Our Tribe created the limited liability corporations (LLC) to allow us to compete in the economic development world at the speed of business because we were missing out on too many opportunities while we tried to do business at the speed of government. The same holds for our tourism effort. We need not just local tourism business feedback. We need to tap those hoteliers, campground managers, cabin, and short-term rental owners/operators for their leadership in marketing to their clientele. After all, it is those entrepreneurs who have the most to lose personally from marketing and public relations who miss the target audience. You can bet that they are doing their research to try to entice people to stay with them. And if that expertise can be leveraged to channel our resources more efficiently and effectively, only one question remains: What are we waiting for?
