The Mayor of San Diego, Kevin Faulconer proclaimed on 24th April declaring 7th to 13th May as the National Travel and Tourism Week in this region.
He appreciated the efforts of the tourism professionals for enabling the generation of a handsome revenue in terms of tourism sector of San Diego, Barbara Bry, a member of the city council of San Diego said that last year was a record breaking one in this regard.
After the mayor’s proclamation, many people held up placards stating the issue of ‘homelessness’.
It spoke about how this homelessness issue is likely to impact the regional tourism industry if the mayor is not able to deal with it diplomatically. A city council committee voted on 20th April to budget approximately $40 million with an aim to promote tourism in FY2018.
The tourism budget has been derived from the hotel taxes that were collected monthly from properties that are rented out to tourists.
Former city council president Tony Young said that the city council decides the process of distribution of the funds. Generally, the funds are divided in two parts including marketing and the arts. Marketing efforts are conducted to lure in an increased number of tourists to San Diego while the arts aim to make the regional more interesting to tourists.
The Arts and Culture commission enjoys a major portion of the budget to cater to local arts including the San Diego Symphony and local events like Comic Con.
Prior to the proclamation of the mayor, Scott Sherman, a member of the Council kick started the meeting by demonstrating a slideshow of a homeless camp. He said that other cities were used over the issue water quality due to homeless camps like this.
Martha Sullivan from Women Occupy San Diego who was also holding the signs of homelessness called for the mayor to utilize the same Qualcomm Emergency Shelter Plan for addressing the homeless crisis that Mayor Jerry Sanders had used to assist those who were displaced by the 2007 wildfires.
The FY 2018 then proposed budget for the homeless services at $3.4 million.
San Diego Housing Commission’s FY 2018 budget amounting to $433 billion has about $69.8 million to aid the homeless people. Faulconer had allocated $5 million for a special election this November to hike the hotel taxes.
This increase is believed to contribute to the homeless, road repairs and for the purpose of the expansion of the convention centers.
