The Lancaster County Commissioners are NOT going to approve an increase in the “hotel tax”. Period. Craig Lehman is a fiscal conservative, and Scott Martin has been pushing for severe cuts to existing programs. Stuckey would not look good if he were to vote for a tax increase of any kind in today’s economy.
A significant portion of the convention center’s marketing comes from the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau, which would be forced to treat the convention center on an equal basis with all other facilities in Lancaster County if revenue from the “hotel tax” was lost. Interstate Hotels and Resorts is focused on marketing the “integrated facility”; they claim that there is no differentiation between the hotel and convention center when they interact with potential customers. Without the added marketing push from the PDCVB, it would be quite difficult for the convention center to maintain its current level of sales initiatives.
Kevin Molly is absolutely correct in saying what he did; he’s only following a path that was laid out for him years before he ever applied for the job in downtown Lancaster. Those of us who were carefully watching the proposed figures pointed out long before the construction bonds were sold in March of 2007 that the need to increase the “hotel tax” would be inevitable. But without that increase, the convention center will be in serious trouble.
