Many Wyoming voters will see county-level bed taxes on their ballots for the Nov. 5 election.
A lodging tax in tourism-reliant Park County near Yellowstone National Park received widespread support four years ago with 71 percent in favor when it was on the ballot. This year, Park County voters will decide whether or not to renew it.
The local 2 percent lodging tax is in addition to the 5 percent statewide lodging tax, which was passed by the Legislature in 2020. Of that 5 percent, three percent of those funds are managed by the state, while the remaining 2 percent can be spent by counties.
Scott Weber owns Gunrunner Firearms & Auctions in Cody. He said he’s long opposed the Park County lodging tax, as well as the statewide lodging tax.
“Let's just take a person like me. I'm a businessman. I travel the state constantly. This month I was in Laramie for four days. I was in Casper for three. I had to pay that tax,” he said.
Weber is also concerned that the Park County Travel Council is not spending the funds wisely. It’s come under criticism lately for using a Canadian-based marketing firm, VERB.
Ryan Hauck, executive director of the Park County Travel Council, said the travel council has made efforts to work with a Wyoming-based firm. When they went out to bid in 2022, they engaged nine Wyoming firms. But none were a fit. The council will go out to bid again in 2027.
“Eight actually responded back immediately, saying they would not be able to. It would take too much staff. It would take too much bandwidth on their side. It would take too much time,” he said. “We're just too big of an account for them to be able to handle.”
According to Hauck, the travel council’s most recent budget for fiscal year 2025 is $4.3 million dollars, which includes revenue from the local and state lodging taxes, as well as grants. $1.3 million of that is dedicated to a marketing, sales and public relations plan. He said while there are agency fees paid to VERB, the majority of the $1.3 million is spent on advertising.
“That's going to go towards digital and traditional working media, influencer and brand partnerships, creative work, web maintenance, content marketing,” he said, adding that it also includes Google and Facebook ads, as well as the creation of promotional videos.
Cody Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Jennifer Thoma said if the lodging tax isn’t renewed, it would cut the travel council’s marketing efforts in half.
“We would see a very quick reduction in visitors to Park County, which would impact all of our tourism-focused businesses, obviously – very directly all of our residents, our restaurants and our attractions and our hotels,” she said.
Thoma says that most of the lodging funds are generated from tourists and pointed out that the lodging tax in Park County is lower than in other areas of the country.
In fiscal year 2023, the Park County lodging tax generated $2.7 million. Park County and the cities within it receive 10 percent of those funds, with the remainder going to the travel council.
A mailer sent out to residents shared fiscal year 2023 lodging tax collections were spent on the Cody Visitor Center staffing, the Cody Country Art League, Homesteader Museum and other entities.
