The Jonesboro Advertising and Promotion Commission has collected over $31,000 through the first six months of the year, which is about $10,000 short from this time in 2017.
“I feel like the biggest contributor to that was in May, we had a lot of wet weather,” Commissioner Jerry Morgan said at the A & P Commission meeting Thursday. Morgan explained that the rain interfered with construction projects which had an impact on the number of full hotel rooms throughout the week.
Morgan said he also talked to hotel owners who reported having the same amount of visitors during the weekends.
“The good thing is,” Morgan said, “I do feel like the next six months the numbers will start coming back up.”
He said a soft launch of one hotel and the projected openings of more will help with the rest of the year’s revenues. Morgan predicts over $715,000 will be collected in 2018 through the Advertising and Promotion tax which is collected from restaurants and hotels. The revenue from the tax goes to fund numerous projects and events in the city.
Commissioners also discussed building a website that can be used for bringing events and tourists into the region. Executive Director Beth Smith told the commission she will be talking to a company about building the website. Morgan said an intern from the Neil Griffin College of Business at Arkansas State will also help in the process.
“Right now, there’s nothing out there that shows our list of hotels, list of restaurants, a map of the city,” Morgan said. “There’s different things, but you really have to be specific and this will give us the benefit of just having one website for the city which is desperately needed.”
Morgan says the website could be used to help attract people to events, like the Jonesboro BBQ Fest. The commission will release information on the Downtown BBQ Fest soon.