Yes, there is a place in town that does charge $20 per night.

I am fine with people disagreeing with me, I don't like it when EX -residents like you are misinformed. My demeanor is just a reaction to your lack of information. I can assure you that the hotels that were built in the last 15 years at Navarro and the loop are occupied by business travelers. Drive by any night of the work week and you can see for yourself as most companies have their logo on the vehicle or it is a rent a car.

If the hotels at Navarro & the loop have the business travelers paying $100-150 a night, $7-10 per night for occupancy tax then those hotels are generating more occupancy tax than "Teardrop Inn" charging $20 a night. 0 .07 * $20 = $1.4 in occupancy tax.

There is not a poor me. Every city in Texas charges an occupancy tax. If the person living in a hotel had a house they would pay property taxes and if they lived in an apartment their landlord includes in the price of rent to pay for the landlord’s property taxes. We all pay!

And if you look at City Council agenda they did approve the bid to spend the money, yes, local tax payer’s money out of general funds, to fix Sam Houston Drive.

The CVB is doing a good job. Find something else to complain about.

How much essential services, that (hotel) taxes do not pay, come from citizens, I think citizens have a right to protest.

Here is a good question, in what capacity do Victoria’s hotels serve the most, “to house tourist or drug dealers and illegal immigrants”. How much drug, prostitution, and illegal immigrant smuggling is going on at these hotels?

Some “Mexicans”, might get mad at me, but those “Mexicans” need to not be so selfish; it’s time to put the greater good of the community over self serving enterprise. I'm using "Mexican", according to its crimminal meaning.

If anyone thought that I was throwing bricks at someone, I apologize, It’s never my purposes to cast judgment on anyone’s efforts to do right. Just indulge in friendly banter, on issues that concern me, sometimes I may come across in a bad light. You know the old saying, “The road of misery is paved with good intentions”.

Let's hope all these "visitors" don't have to travel on Sam Houston Dr. They might think they left the city and took a goat trail to a plowed field.
$750,000 but we can't fix a street.

OK, for all those complaining and that don't understand where this money is coming from:
By law of the State of Texas, the City of Victoria collects a Hotel Occupancy Tax (HOT) from hotels, motels, inns, and bed-and-breakfast establishments. This tax is 7% of the hotel room rate.
That means that the taxes don't come from local Victorians but from Visitors. The money is to be used to advertise our city by improving and promoting tourism.

For example, for the 2005-2006 fiscal year, 58.7 million was generated from the hotel occupancy tax in San Antonio (yes, it is much larger than Victoria).
So the City of Victoria needs to spend a measly $750,000 to compete for Texas tourism. The CVB has already done a fantastic job in the short time they have had to get this project started. Look around I can already see the improvements.

This project will pay off for ALL VICTORIANS by bringing in visitors who spend their money at restaurants, malls, movie theaters, gas stations, attractions, your business, my business, etc. That will generate more sales tax that can pay for roads, schools, improvements that ALL VICTORIANS CAN BENEFIT.

If you are not on board with the wonderful things the City of Victoria is doing to better our town… frankly find another place to live and COMPLAIN THERE!

Hey folks, Looks like the Ziegfest of Yorktown may be looking for a new home in the near future. Lets bring it aboard in Victoria. We can handle the large crowd.

It is my understanding that this money is being spent not only to advertise Victoria itself, but also events of our local arts community. Their event dates/descriptions are also making the pages of these magazines. How exciting for our theatres, symphony, etc, as they could never afford this type of advertising before!

Also, if you watched Bridgette Bise and Randy Vivian give their recent update to the city council, you would know that the CVB is working on a "signature event" for Victoria. I believe they are taking their time creating the right event for our city, such as Cuero's Turketfest, etc, to make sure it is a profitable event for the city's economy.

Don't you think we should give Bridgette and the CVB at least a year before casting stones?

Basically, events would provide an arena for college students to demonstrate their skills and ability, not only to the local community but the state. Events like I have proposed, require a number of disciplines, that are easily converted into viable experience, for use in other sectors. Accounting, Engineering, Arts, Sciences, Business Administration, and Logistics are a few academic attributes that students would develop through this type of experience. Not to mention, creating aspirations to excel among local students; in order to partake in the activities, upon acquiring the academic skills necessary to contribute.

Costume theme events every month would provide an opportunity for college students to be noticed, and would be an excellent addition to anyone’s academic resume.

I see engineering and artistic students working on floats, journalistic inclined students doing online broadcast, accounting students working on procuring funding through advertisement revenue from businesses, and musically geared students performing on web and state TV broadcast. 3 day events could be sold as a cheap substitute, to out of state trips for families. Day events for families and night events for a more adult atmosphere.

Day care services, taxis, and other businesses could create packages, working together to lower cost; making the difference on the volume of sales those 3 days. The city should divided the process into 12 bids, for each month, a year in advance of course.

If they want to do this next year, they need to have an agreed upon plan no later than June, or they most likely will fall behind or put on lack luster events. College students, church, civic, and innovative groups of citizens in cooperation with small businesses, would provide the best resource, if you have strong, clear, and pragmatic direction by an events coordinator.

Also, we now have a 4 year university with a dorm and plenty of new fancy schools. That's pretty attractive to most people. We need more than cute slogans, we need something of substance to bring people here.

Several comments on the comments.

First, I agree with the poster that said this amount of money could have made a huge difference with hungry children but the reality is this money cannot be used to feed children. The revenue created by the hotel tax can only be used in areas that directly impact people staying in hotels.

Second, I totally agree this amount of money for an advertising campaign is wrong. You must have something already in place to promote before you start spending money to promote it. We need to ensure we have attractions that will bring people to Victoria for an OVERNIGHT stay before just spending money saying how great Victoria is. Don't misunderstand I believe Victoria IS great and has great potential for the future but I think this huge increase in spending is not justified, especially in today's economic climate.

Third, I agree with the poster that stated people will be saying I told you so if any improvement is seen. Unfortunately the baseline to gauge the improvement is going to be 2009, the lowest year of hotel tax collected in 4 or 5 years. When using the lowest year to measure ANY improvement is going to try and be associated with this campaign when in reality improvement should be seen based solely on the economy getting better later this year and into next year.

I attempted to make these points to city council when this was up for a vote but unfortunately the vote for this funding was:

AYES Council Members Rangel Polasek Halepaska and Mayor Armstrong

NAYS Council Members Soliz Hagan and Truman

and $750K was approved. I hope we can do better in the future.

We need to actually offer something to visitors BEFORE we try to make them come here. Sure, some people might read our advertisements, but what about when they actually get here - they are going to be as bored as the rest of us. John has some excellent ideas on how to attract people.

Do we have a visitor's center in town that is open on a weekend? I was approached by a snow bird on Saturday so they could get some ideas of where to go. I mentioned the city website, but otherwise had no clue. Once they left, the Speedy Stop employee looked at me and asked why anyone would come here in the first place.

I concur...great ideas,John!

Excellent ideas John! You have to have events to draw visitors!
Just exactly what is it they're advertising? "Come to Victoria! We're friendly and we work hard!" Wow. Sounds like a great place for a vacation.

Victoria Facebook account = free
Victoria Twitter account = free
City of Victoria website maintenance = inexpensive
Goggle ad = cheap

Just in case no one has noticed, print media is dead.
If you want tourists, advertise the fun stuff. If you want industry to move here improve the unacceptable accreditation of the VISD schools, lower local taxes and TAX REVENUE SPENDING, and keep the District Attorney from needing to have the City Mayor, Police Chief, and City Attorney from being arrested.

Just an observation.

I totally agree. No creativity, and I looked with a fine tooth comb. How can our city council feel so comfortable to allow this amount of money to those with no real plan. We, the citizens of Victoria, are obviously not impressed and if we don't have faith in your chewed gum held plan........

With that amount of money, Someone could have created their own online magazine called “Crossroads Celebrations Excellante ” and paid to have 1 major event each month in Victoria too bring in millions.

Basically, hire an “events company“, to create, promote, and develop platforms enabling local businesses to profit from activities or promotions.

January “New Years After Party”

February “Victoria Rose Hearts Festival”

March “Let It Ride Celebration”

April “Joker’s Wild Event”

May “Schools Out For Summer Celebration”

June “Lazy Victoria Nights Event”

July “Let Freedom Reign Celebration”

August “End of Summer Party”

September “Area School Spirit Parade Celebration”

October “Plaza of Horrors Event”

November “Get That Turkey Celebration” <-does not mean open season on corrupt politicians.

December “Southern Holiday Celebrations”

Each could be 3 day events around town, with parades, music, food courts, and concert areas. People with money like to spend the money, on their enjoyment, not just reading magazines. Tourism usually includes, eating and drinking areas, music, and a theme events. At least that is how I’ve come to understand it. I put this on here to give the city ideas, as to where they should focus their attentions next time; too not spend money but invest it.

$750,000 for advertisments! WOW....that sounds like the type of spending our Government does! They definitely must of got some ideas from the government on how to spend tax payers money on Cr@p that will never do anything else but contuine to make the rich richer and keep poor poorer. JUST THINK of how many homes in Victoria you could of filled with food and blankets in this cold winter we have had. How many children you could of fed. WHAT A SHAME!

Is there a "hotel" in Victoria that can handle attendance of 250 in one large room? That would be the size of a small conference.