CITY OF BRENHAM SET TO OFFICIALLY ASSUME TOURISM RESPONSIBILITIES
Nearly three months after announcing it would take tourism duties in-house, the city of Brenham is working to improve tourism across Washington County.
These tourism and marketing responsibilities were once held by the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau (CVB).
Brenham officials announced in early July that the city would cancel its contract with the CVB, which will be terminated September 30th.
Brenham Tourism and Marketing Director Jennifer Eckermann says upon starting the transition, the city wanted to figure out a tourism plan for the surrounding areas.
These stakeholder meetings took place in Brenham, Burton, Chappell Hill, Independence, and Washington-on-the-Brazos. Eckermann says they have also met with hotel and B&B owners in the area. These meetings were held to set short and long-term goals to improve tourism strategies, and to provide ideas for improvement.
Eckermann says the city chose to work with Signet Strategies because they employ unique plans for different areas, rather than template ideas.
So far, Eckermann believes the transition has been going well.
A topic of much discussion in the stakeholder meetings has been the distribution of hotel occupancy tax (HOT) funds. These are collected by lodging properties in the county to promote tourism.
Recently, Washington County Commissioners met with Brenham's Chief Financial Officer Carolyn Miller, to discuss the distribution of HOT funds and the organizations requesting them. Miller says a HOT Board funding meeting has been scheduled for Wednesday at 2 p.m. in the Washington County Annex building.