MANITOWOC, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Hundreds of thousands of dollars that could be used to promote the Manitowoc area are sitting unused in a bank account.
It’s because of an ongoing conflict between the city of Manitowoc and the Manitowoc Area Visitor and Convention Bureau.
Since the start of 2022, the cities of Manitowoc and Two Rivers have been doing their own tourism promotion, ending the contracts they had with the Manitowoc Area Visitor and Convention Bureau.
“We weren’t getting the results from the MAVCB that the city was looking for,” said Manitowoc Mayor Justin Nickels. “There was no interest in changing how they go about providing tourism services.”
The MAVCB took the city of Manitowoc to court over the issue. Earlier this year, a judge sided with the visitor and convention bureau, citing state law. The ruling required the city to contract with MAVCB for tourism services, but a deal still hasn’t been done.
“The judge sided on our side, but he didn’t go to the effect of forcing a contract,” said Gary Stolp, vice chair of MAVCB. “There was arbitration but no binding arbitration to be able to force this contract to get finalized.”
The year before the city ended the contract, MAVCB received $348,000 or about 52% of Manitowoc’s room tax revenue, according to Stolp.
The judge’s ruling calls for MAVCB to receive up to 70% of the city’s room tax money. Until a deal is done, the money sits in an escrow account.
Stolp believes the city is slow walking contract talks, to hold the money hostage, in an effort to get the visitor and convention bureau to cease operations.
“If we run out of money then they would get 100% of the funds,” said Stolp.
“We’re holding the money that the judge is requiring us to hold and that’s it,” said Nickels. “The city is entitled to 30% as the judge said, so we’re using that to fund Visit Manitowoc and tourism operations and we’re doing just fine.”
FOX 11 asked Nickels if he believes it would be better for MAVCB to start getting some of the funds so more could be done to promote the area.
“Depends,” said Nickels. “I don’t know what their business plan is. I don’t know what their actual plan to promote is. I don’t even really know who is running the organization anymore.”
Nickels says a new hotel going up off I-43 is proof there is demand to visit Manitowoc.
Stolp points out Manitowoc’s room tax revenue has been down year over year 22 of the past 28 months since the city took over tourism services. He says that’s especially troublesome with the NFL Draft looming.
“They’re not promoting outside of the downtown area,” said Stolp. “That hurts the whole economy.”
“The car ferry, the SS Badger, didn’t sail for over half the season last year,” said Nickels about possible reasons room tax revenue has been down. “That is one good big reason right there that was completely outside of our control.”
With no resolution in sight, MAVCB leadership says there is enough money to continue operating for the foreseeable future, but without any room tax revenue flowing in, the ability to promote has been cut drastically.
Manitowoc’s common council passed its budget for next year Monday night. It includes spending more than $653,000 on Visit Manitowoc, the city’s two-year-old tourism department. $202,500 of that is coming from the city’s allotment of room tax revenue.
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