From Promotion to Stewardship: Funding Sustainable Outdoor Communities

Michigan's trail towns are booming. Visitors are flooding in. But there's a catch: the taxes those visitors pay only fund marketing, not the roads, trails, and emergency services their visits actually wear down. Residents are left covering the difference through property taxes. This session asks a simple question: what if tourism dollars paid for tourism's real costs? We'll look at how Kent County expanded its lodging tax under House Bill 5048, and what new bills (HB 5138, 5139, and 5140) could mean for the rest of the state. The idea is to let lodging taxes fund the infrastructure and amenities that make a destination worth visiting in the first place, not just the ads that bring people there. We'll also tackle an outdated blind spot: lodging taxes usually only apply to hotels and motels. But today's travelers are staying in campgrounds, RV parks, cabins, and Airbnbs, places that pay nothing into the system while putting real pressure on local infrastructure. It's time the tax caught up with how people actually travel. This session isn't about whether tourism growth is good or bad. It's about making sure the places people love to visit can still afford to be great places to live.