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grassroots advocacy

Grassroots Advocacy

The Alliance mobilizes its members, partners and constituents in targeted grassroots communication campaigns to influence legislators at key times throughout the legislative session as well as at other necessary and appropriate times.  We also interview legislative candidates to determine their knowledge and position on tourism issues and to educate them on the importance of our industry to the economic health of the state.

2010 Letter-writing Campaign

Governor Brewer unveiled her proposed budget the week of January 11, 2010 which provided ZERO dollars from the voter-approved tourism formula fund for the Arizona Office of Tourism. The proposed budget also re-directs half of the Maricopa County Prop 302 funds to the state's general fund and the other half for AOT operations and provides only Prop 202 funds (Indian Gaming) for AOT's marketing initiatives. That would be a total budget of approximately $6 million – only a drop in the bucket compared to the tens of millions spent by our competitors.

While we certainly understand the dire straits that our elected leaders face in the current budget year, we do not support this reduction to AOT or the re-direction of Prop 302 funds which are slated for Maricopa County-specific tourism marketing and efforts. This is not the Legislative budget (which has not been released yet), so there is still opportunity for negotiation.

Now is the time to make a difference and ATA and our industry partners are leading the efforts to voice our industry's position on this matter. We will have a few key strategies in our efforts, including reigniting our successful letter-writing campaign, and appreciate any and all assistance that you can offer. To get involved and/or schedule a letter-writing session at your property or business, please contact myself, Lindsey Kuhn, or Debbie Johnson, or we will contact you in the next week or so.

As always, we appreciate your support and will provide updated information as it becomes available.

2009 Letter-writing Campaign

Arizona’s serious and unprecedented budget deficit has forced the Arizona Legislature to look for every opportunity to cut existing expenses and maximize revenue generation. In a proactive effort to avoid additional sweeps to the budget of the Arizona Office of Tourism, the ATA and our tourism partners, Arizona Hotel & Lodging Association and the Arizona Restaurant Association, have launched a grassroots effort in the form of a letter-writing campaign which has taken form in two seperate phases.

It has been critical that all industry members volunteer for this effort.

Members have simply needed to provide meeting space and staff to assist with these efforts and write letters to our legislative leaders. The ATA will come to your facility, provide letter-writing facilitators to guide you on the content of the letters and even provide postage, paper and pens. All it takes is an hour or less of your time, a place to meet and employees willing to hand-write brief letters to our Arizona Legislative leaders in support of tourism in Arizona.

It is essential that the tourism industry reach the Arizona Legislature, encouraging them to hold the line on dedicated tourism promotion funds and not to sweep any of the funds from the Arizona Office of Tourism budget.

We thank you in advance for your support with this critical matter.

Read about letterwriting the campaign in the news:

http://havasunews.com/articles/2009/05/14/news/doc4a0bad25b61d7963844233.txt

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/05/01/20090501sr-tourism0502ONL.html

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