ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. — Tourism is the big industry in St. Johns County. It brings in lots of people and lots of dollars. So a proposal at the county level to add a penny to the so-called bed tax got lots of locals talking about where that extra cash should be spent.
The county commission is considering bumping up the bed tax, the tax added onto hotel rooms, from 4 cents on a dollar to 5 cents.
The feelings about where that extra penny should go drew many people to give their two cents about it at the St. Johns County Commission meeting Tuesday.
Tuesday’s arguments basically boiled down to two groups: People who were rooting for more money to go toward marketing the destination or people who want the money to go to beach nourishment and help the eroding beaches.
"I don’t agree with anything going to marketing," resident Elaine Ashourian told the commission. "All of that money should go to protecting our beaches. In all of the county. Not just in Ponte Vedra."
"If we don't get the word out that there’s more to do here than just these few things people have cemented in their head, I think we’re going to lose market share to the destinations that are way more aggressive than we are," Jason Kern, the General Manager at the Embassy Suites Hotel in St. Augustine Beach, told commissioners
It seems to be a “chicken or the egg” kind of argument: Which comes first? Is it marketing that pulls the visitors to the beach? Or is it the beaches that get the tourists to visit?
The commission plans to discuss this issue again later this summer.