Congress Needs to Lead and Act for the Travel and Tourism Industry

August 12, 2020

The Quad Cities is a quirky, unique, and compelling place to live, work, experience, invest, and visit. Our summers are usually busy with visitors and active Quad Citizens, a packed special event & festival schedule, outdoor activities, and the season is our sweet spot for travel and tourism. This year’s spring and summer months have hit us hard.  Tourism builds a sense of community and puts Quad Citizens to work in our hospitality industry. In the QC, 8,240 jobs are attributed to this industry which is critical to our identity and future success. Jobs have been and continue to be seriously in danger at the local and national level. 51% of the industry’s 15.8 million jobs have been lost and Travel and Tourism is experiencing its Great Depression. A lot is at risk for our entire community.

Quite simply, tourism empowers and is a community-builder. The non-resident revenues that are generated by tourism are re-invested in our quality of life and quality of place initiatives we all enjoy. This is all vulnerable if Congress does not step up and put politics aside for the sake of an industry that means so much to communities around the country. Do we need to be safe and responsible during these uncharted waters? Absolutely. Do we need to sustain our economy for the sake of our future? Absolutely. Do we need an economic recovery plan that is meaningful, smart, and focused on survival, resiliency, and growth? Absolutely. So, why are politicians standing in the way instead of fulfilling the leadership position we elected them to do?

Visit Quad Cities is proud to represent, promote, market, advertise, and sell our bi-state (Illinois/Iowa) regional destination daily. We live for telling and selling our story and working alongside the hospitality industry, most of which are small, locally-owned businesses. Our charge is to promote and attract leisure visitors, meetings, conferences, conventions, sports events, group tours, and business travel which leads to economic prosperity. It also leads to talent attraction and retention and creates a sense of pride as our community continues to grow stronger. We compete every day to produce wins for the QC and we need to regain momentum. Every engine needs a source of energy and fuel to successfully operate. Visit Quad Cities is an economic engine that puts people to work while travel and tourism feeds our soul and is proven to be positive for one’s health and well-being. Memories are made and local economies thrive as a byproduct of this industry’s success.   

Now, this is all in jeopardy because we, and our counterpart Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) around the country, are still not eligible for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Non-profit organizations which operate as 501(c)(6) entities are not eligible because Congress has not acted after repeated efforts by hundreds of destinations and the U.S. Travel Association. Advocacy and communication have been significant for months but for some reason there is still no resolution. We have made progress and are close with the U.S. Senate’s latest stimulus bill, the HEALS Act. The U.S. House created the HEROES Act and with the latest Senate bill, DMOs are included in the PPP expansion. We are incredibly grateful that we are included in the Senate bill, but we need our Illinois and Iowa leadership to align and support the HEALS Act so that we can have access to PPP. It is important and is why we continue to push.

We are a valuable resource for the Quad Cities and will continue to be a champion for the hospitality industry. However, we need support and understanding so that we will be positioned to help lead the way with our short and long-term economic recovery. An expansion of the PPP for non-profit organizations like Visit Quad Cities will sustain and empower us to do what we need to do, which is to share our QC story with the world.

We strongly encourage you to let your elected leaders know that you care for and want your destination to thrive, once again.

Thank you for listening, supporting Visit Quad Cities, and the travel and tourism industry.

Dave Herrell

President and CEO and Proud Quad Citizen

Visit Quad Cities