In 2011, Washington’s state tourism office was closed, making Washington the only state without one. The Washington Tourism Alliance (WTA) was formed by industry to take up the slack. From a 2014 report to the Legislature:

In the two years since the state closed the tourism office, the travel and tourism industry has managed to maintain a small marketing and promotion effort with funding from industry partners that provided an annual budget of $481,000 in 2013.

The 2013-15 state operating budget included $1 million for the WTA. The WTA has proposed a “structure for an industry-led funding plan that will provide sustainable funding raised through industry assessments for a statewide tourism marketing and promotion program.” The assessments would raise $7.5 million a year. A 2015 fact sheet notes:

WTA’s current, but slim, annual $780,000 budget (which includes some remaining dollars from state bridge funding which expires June 30, 2015) is essential to maintaining our state’s modest marketing activities, including visitor guide collateral, destination web site, trade show marketing participation, travel publicity, social media and more. The existing budget also allows WTA to maintain tourism research and to ensure geographic diversity through all its marketing which means that small communities get their fair share of tourism’s benefit.

The Senate-passed 2015-17 operating budget would provide $1 million

to contract with the Washington Tourism Alliance for services to expand and promote the tourism industry in Washington. Expenditure of state moneys is contingent upon the contractor providing a dollar-for-dollar cash or in-kind match. These funds will lapse if Senate Bill 5916 (tourism marketing) is enacted, which funds these efforts with an industry-imposed fee.

The House-passed budget does not follow suit. Neither SB 5916 nor its companion bill, HB 1938, have been passed.

Meanwhile, Jon Talton wrote the other day that overnight visitor volumes in Seattle were a record high in 2014. Additionally:

Last year visitors spent $6.4 billion in Seattle and King County. That’s an increase of 6.4 percent. Travel- and tourism-related jobs totaled 70,640, up 4.4 percent from 2013. Hotel occupancy rates increased 3 percent and average room rates rose nearly 10 percent. Tourists also paid $643 million in state and local taxes, an increase of 7.6 percent.

As Talton notes, “tourism is big business here.” The WTA’s point above about ensuring geographic diversity in marketing is important — Seattle will always be a draw, but non-locals are less likely to know about the other attractions Washington has to offer in the absence of promotion.