SEQUIM — It’s up in the air who will be manager of Sequim’s 4 percent “heads in beds” tax.
That’s also known as the hotel-motel tax, which last year totaled $172,583.
For 10 years, the head of the lodging-tax advisory group known as the Sequim Marketing Action Committee — SMAC — has been Patricia McCauley, owner of InsideOut Solutions, a marketing firm on Sequim Avenue.
As SMAC’s tourism coordinator, McCauley holds the $11,000 annual contract to promote visits, especially overnight stays in hotels and motels here.
But last week McCauley, 55, announced to the Sequim City Council that she’ll retire on April 30.
In an interview, she said the job of tourism marketer is no longer fun, since the City Council spoke last year of putting her contract out to bid at some point.
“I felt like I was waiting to be kicked out,” McCauley added.
Though she bowed out of the Sequim contract, ¬McCauley still counts among InsideOut’s clients the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce and several tourism bureaus around the country; she said she’ll continue running her company here.
During their monthly meeting on Monday, SMAC’s members discussed how to promote Sequim’s attractions after McCauley’s departure — and eyes quickly fell on another woman.
Vickie Maples, executive director of the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce, “is exceptional,” said SMAC member Sherry Schubert.
“Why spend money on advertising” a request for qualifications, she asked, when Maples is quite capable of taking on tourism promotion.
“I’ve seen her do just amazing things,” added Schubert, who runs A Catered Affair in Sequim.
The Sequim chamber board hired Maples last summer after the organization weathered months of upheaval touched off by the firing of Lee Lawrence, who’d been executive director for about five months.
The reasons for Lawrence’s dismissal were never described in detail.
Maples convenes the chamber’s marketing, business retention and other panels; she and office administrator Jeri Smith organize mixers, luncheons with speakers and other events, run the Visitor Information Center at 1144 E. Washington St. and have increased the chamber’s roster to 471 members.
It looks like Maples could soon have more on her plate.
The SMAC members voted unanimously to authorize Erik Erichsen, their City Council representative, to tell the council that they would rather pay Maples than put the tourism coordinator contract out to bid.
Revised planner
McCauley, meanwhile, will wrap up tasks including a revised Sequim Travel Planner.
During Monday’s meeting she received SMAC approval for production of another 60,000 copies of the brochure.
People still want a glossy planner in their hands, not on their screens, McCauley said. They’re not, however, necessarily coming soon to Sequim amid the country’s financial uncertainties.
Sequim’s lodging tax revenue has plunged 69.8 percent since this time last year, according to the report on the city’s Web site, www.ci.Sequim.wa.us.
In February 2008, local hotels and motels paid the city $21,246; this February the collection amounted to $6,409.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
