Recently we reported that Tennessee tourism’s direct domestic and international travel expenditures reached an all-time high of $18.4 billion in 2015, up 3.7 percent over the previous year, as reported by the U.S. Travel Association.
For the 10th consecutive year, tourism topped $1 billion in state and local sales tax revenue, reaching $1.6 billion, up 7 percent over 2014. Tourism-generated jobs for Tennesseans reached 157,400, an increase of 2.9 percent.
WMSR News has now learned that Coffee County has demonstrated some of the strongest growth in the state in each of the five major categories measured in the economic impact study. As a County, we ranked 7th in Expenditure Growth, 7th in Payroll Growth, tied for 7th in Employment Growth, 6th in State Tax Receipts Growth, and 7th in Local Tax Receipts Growth.
In late 2014, the Manchester Tourism and Community Development Commission started developing a strategy that would later become known as the “Strengthen, Develop, and Grow” strategy. This strategy focuses on each of the five metrics (expenditures, payroll, employment, state tax receipts, local tax receipts) the State of Tennessee uses to determine the impact the Tourism Industry has on our community. In 2015, the Manchester Tourism and Community Development commission fully launched their strategic plan to stakeholders, which focused on growing our tax base through various tourism avenues including Occupancy Tax (Hotel/Motel) and sales tax.
Ryan French, City of Manchester Vice Mayor and Tourism Commission Chairman said, “We are thrilled with the early results of the Strengthen, Develop, and Grow strategy; However, we are just getting started. The beginning of our strategy was designed to focus on growing the impact of tourism has on occupancy and sales tax collections. Manchester is currently experiencing some of the strongest sales tax growth in its history. We as a commission are focused on continuing to grow those numbers.”
Tourism Growing in Manchester and Tullahoma
