The Alexandria City Council, on Tuesday night, unanimously approved Visit Alexandria’s grant application request to secure nearly $1 million in federal tourism recovery aid.
Virginia Tourism Corporation received $50 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds last October, and $990,000 has been set aside for marketing to improve the city’s hospitality sector.
The funds will be spent over the course of the next two fiscal years (FY 2023 and FY 2024), since the city’s ARPA allocation to Visit Alexandria will dry up when the current fiscal year wraps up at the end of June.
The pandemic hit the city’s tourism industry hard, and it’s estimated that a full recovery for hotels and business travel is several years away.
“This will provide critical support to our small business sector and will help support increases to the City’s consumption tax revenues (lodging, meals and sales) by way of tourism marketing,” City staff reported to Council.
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