Green market

Ecotourism and potential changes to the visitors association

By ANNEMARIE SCHUETZ
Posted 2/10/21

SULLIVAN COUNTY, NY — Legislature chair Rob Doherty has his own goal for tourism in the county, and it’s based on our rivers. Our forests. The network of trails that spiderwebs through …

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Green market

Ecotourism and potential changes to the visitors association

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SULLIVAN COUNTY, NY — Legislature chair Rob Doherty has his own goal for tourism in the county, and it’s based on our rivers. Our forests. The network of trails that spiderwebs through the county. The Bashakill. The beautiful, vulnerable land that draws tourists in. 

“I want to focus more on ecotourism,” he said. “Let’s look at the pluses and minuses of the county.” 

Ecotourism is as much a philosophy as it is about sustainable travel and nature-based businesses. It seems a logical fit for the county.

But at the moment, the tourism infrastructure itself is in flux. The county legislature wants to revisit the Sullivan County Visitors Association (SVCA) contract and the room tax allocation that provides much of its funding. More money could be shifted to ambitions like ecotourism, but the impact on the SCVA is unknown.

The SCVA, started in 1997, is widely credited with reviving tourism here, steadily redirecting it into farm-to-table meals, beautiful hotels and bed & breakfasts, enticing shops and tourist-drawing experiences like 2019’s Dove Trail. Their website promotes businesses in rafting, camping and sports. The Parksville O&W trail is there, and so are local guides.

They market the county’s many wonders, mostly funded by 85 percent of room tax. But another source of funding comes from members. Membership offers “increased exposure and more visibility in traditional, digital and social media channels,” as well as networking opportunities. It’s a big benefit for local businesses that don’t feel able to take on multifaceted marketing by themselves, especially more complex, fast-changing issues like search engine optimization. Its website, www.SullivanCatskill.com, gives member businesses exposure.

But not all county businesses are members. And while the association has expanded its efforts on the western side of the county, promoting member businesses large and small, Doherty and others have said there’s a perception that the SCVA is about the eastern side and more urbanized communities like Liberty, Monticello and Fallsburg.

It’s an open question whether the support and promotion the members receive feed into that dissatisfaction. 

Whatever lies behind it, the sense of being shortchanged matters because the SCVA’s contract, Doherty said, requires them to represent the whole county. (They argue that they do; see story below).

There is also the matter of room tax. As said, the SCVA receives 85 percent of collected room tax; the county takes 15 percent to cover the cost of administering the tax. Under state law, room tax is largely allocated to “a not-for-profit corporation under contract with the county for the promotion of tourism in the county.” Nothing more is specified.

In a recent letter printed in the Sullivan County Democrat, legislator Alan Sorensen noted that the amount of room tax money received by the SCVA has skyrocketed, from $575,000 in 2017 to $1.595 million in 2020. They “have done a fine job promoting the Sullivan County Catskills as a premier tourism destination,” Sorensen wrote. He just questions whether 85 percent is still appropriate. Changing that allocation would allow the county to continue funding the SCVA and to shift funds to “invest in our tourism infrastructure to benefit local residents.” 

The county, Doherty said, doesn’t want to divest itself of the SCVA. But renegotiating the contract would send funds in other directions.

“[The SCVA] contract says they’re going to promote the whole county,” Doherty said. “But if you’re only promoting your members... they’re not going with that contract, that’s the bottom line.”

Sullivan County Visitors Association, Parksville O&W, SCVA,

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