Borough staff and elected officials are considering contracting out the borough tourism department’s work.
Haines Chamber of Commerce director Andrew Letchworth presented the idea to the Haines Borough Commerce Committee on Tuesday. The committee didn’t take action at the meeting, and details of a formal proposal have yet to be worked out.
Borough manager Annette Kreitzer said she has delayed hiring a tourism director — a position that’s been vacant since Steven Auch stepped down last month — because she’s waiting to see if the assembly wants “to go in a different direction.” She said she had heard some assembly members were interested in turning the taxpayer-funded tourism department, which advertises Haines to cruise companies and potential visitors, into a contracted operation.
“This is something that is being explored. This is not something that has been decided,” Kreitzer said. “We’re just having that conversation at this point to see what it looks like, what are other communities’ experiences, what have they done.”
Sitka has had a good experience with paying a contractor to do tourism marketing, Sitka Chamber of Commerce executive director Rachel Roy told the Commerce Committee. Sitka’s Chamber runs the community’s equivalent of a tourism department, using a combination of public and private funds to market the town and attract visitors.
“Basically, what we became is the marketing arm for the city,” Roy said. “There’s an understanding that the city doesn’t have to do everything, that there is an ability for them to work with a partner…versus them trying to do it all themselves.”
Before the Chamber took over, Sitka had a quasi-city department called the Sitka Convention and Visitors Bureau, Roy said. Unlike Haines’ tourism department, that bureau didn’t have city (or borough) employees, but it received city funds and its board members were appointed by the city assembly, Roy said.
She said Sitka’s assembly decided in 2015 to dissolve the bureau and contract out its work as a way to clarify its 30-year-old “quasi-city” structure. The Sitka Chamber was awarded the contract and created its own department called “Visit Sitka” devoted to tourism marketing, Roy said.
“Visit Sitka” is funded 75% through Sitka’s bed tax revenue and 25% through local tourism business contributions, according to Roy. She said Sitka has seen an increase in both cruise and independent travelers since the program started, and the Chamber’s tourism operation has grown.
“This year we actually for the first time took on an additional contract to help support the city with operational support (due to the large increase in tourism passengers),” Roy said. “There is an opportunity as tourism develops to be able to do more with a contractor.”
Were the Haines Borough to move ahead with the idea, there’s no guarantee that the Chamber would be awarded the contract. But there was an implication in Letchworth’s presentation and in committee members’ comments that the Chamber would be a likely choice to be the contractor. Letchworth said applying Sitka’s model to Haines would be a “win-win-win” for the Haines Chamber, the borough’s small business community and the borough administration.
Assembly member and Commerce Committee chair Debra Schnabel said she’s interested and excited by the idea and would like to discuss next steps with Kreitzer. She said she thinks Haines could have more success attracting visitors if its tourism program were run by people and businesses invested in that success. “My goal would be to have a more vital and engaged marketing plan for our community—by those who are invested,” Schnabel said.
When Schnabel was borough manager in 2019, she delayed hiring a tourism director because she thought the borough should create a public-private partnership with the tourism industry and she wanted the assembly to weigh in. Tourism Advisory Board (TAB) members were frustrated by that move, which came without assembly approval, according to a CVN report at the time.
Haines Rafting Company owner and former TAB member Andy Hedden told the CVN this week he thinks the borough’s tourism director is an important position. “I think it would be a loss to the borough not to have it,” he said. “I’m afraid if the borough doesn’t have more skin in the game, it’s going to be harder to maintain the facilities that we’ve already got.”
Local fly-fishing guide and travel broker Greg Schlachter said he wasn’t necessarily opposed to the idea, but both he and Hedden questioned whether the Chamber would be the right fit. “I think the role of the Chamber is advocating for its members, not necessarily managing local tourism efforts with a singular focus on generating cruise and independent tourism,” Schlachter told the CVN.
Still, he said if Sitka has a model that’s working, it’s worth considering and maybe emulating.
Years ago Haines voters approved reallocating a 1% sales tax to generate revenue for promoting tourism and economic development. The borough’s budget for tourism is $477,035 this fiscal year, up from $421,186 last year, and $238,208 and $235,091 the two years prior (during the pandemic). The sales tax revenue that feeds the Tourism and Economic Development Fund also increased, with $677,000 in revenue budgeted this year compared to $419,649 last year, $591,007 two years ago and $530,812 the year before that. The fund’s projected balance at the end of the fiscal year is $384,058.