Leveraging Tourism Funding to Grow Pennsylvania's Economy
Page 1 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
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Leveraging Tourism Funding to Grow Pennsylvania's Economy
House Appropriations Committee
Gettysburg National Park Service Museum and Visitor Center 1195 Baltimore Pike Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - 9:00 a.m. --oOo--
COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:
Honorable William F. Adolph, Majority Chairman Honorable Ryan Aument Honorable Gary Day Honorable Gordon Denlinger Honorable Seth M. Grove Honorable Thomas H. Killion Honorable Duane Milne Honorable Mark Mustio Honorable Donna Oberlander Honorable Scott Petri Honorable Curtis G. Sonney Honorable Joseph F. Markosek, Minority Chairman Honorable Michelle Brownlee Honorable Mike Carroll Honorable Deberah Kula Honorable Michael H. O'Brien Honorable Steven J. Santarsiero Honorable Jack Wheatley
NON-COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Honorable Dan Moul Honorable Jerry Stern
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1 STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT:
2 Ritchie LaFaver 3 Majority Deputy Executive Director
4 Daniel Clark, Esquire 5 Majority Chief Counsel
6 Jeannie Smyth 7 Majority Legislative Administrative Assistant
8 Mike Stoll 9 Majority Communications Director
10 Jeff Clukey 11 Majority Budget Analyst
12 Tom Gwinn 13 Majority Budget Analyst
14 Sean Brandon 15 Minority Budget Analyst
16 Chris Kimple 17 Legislative Assistant to Representative Moul
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1 INDEX OF TESTIFIERS
2 TESTIFIERS PAGE
3 Opening remarks by Chairman Adolph...... 4
4 Bob Kirby, Superintendent...... 7 Gettysburg National Park Service 5 Museum and Visitor Center
6 Norris Flowers, President...... 19 Gettysburg Convention & Visitors Bureau 7 Rob Fulton, President...... 24 8 PA Association of Travel & Tourism
9 Jane Sheffield, President...... 33 HeritagePA 10 Olga Herbert, Executive Director...... 93 11 Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor
12 Richard Farr, Executive Director...... 107 Rabbittransit 13
14
15 SUBMITTED WRITTEN TESTIMONY 16
17 (See other submitted testimony and handouts online). 18
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1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Good morning,
2 everyone. I'd like to call to order the House
3 Appropriations Committee on leveraging tourism
4 funding to grow Pennsylvania's economy.
5 My name is Bill Adolph. I'm the Republican
6 Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
7 It's certainly nice to be here. I would be
8 certainly remised if I did not recognize that
9 Representative Dan Moul was doing an outstanding
10 job in organizing our two-day trip here. Yesterday
11 we saw the fruit belt and some of the historic
12 areas in Adams County.
13 Today, Representative Moul has organized
14 this hearing to talk a little bit about leveraging
15 tourism dollars. We certainly have an excellent
16 panel today to give us the information how state
17 funding can help the tourism industry and grow the
18 economy here in Adams County.
19 I would ask that all guests and members,
20 if they would just take a minute and check their
21 cell phones and iPhones and all the electronic
22 devices that you may have on you so that we can
23 have an interruption-free hearing that doesn't
24 interfere with our equipment here.
25 I also would like that each member of
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1 the Appropriations Committee to identify to the
2 viewers and to the panel of what areas of the state
3 you represent. So, starting to my far right.
4 REPRESENTATIVE AUMENT: Good morning.
5 My name is Ryan Aument. I represent the 41st
6 Legislative District in Lancaster County.
7 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Seth Grove, 196th
8 District, York County.
9 REPRESENTATIVE MUSTIO: Mark Mustio,
10 44th District, Allegheny County.
11 REPRESENTATIVE KILLION: Tom Killion,
12 168th District, parts of Delaware and parts of
13 Chester County.
14 REPRESENTATIVE PETRI: Scott Petri,
15 178th District, part of Bucks County.
16 REPRESENTATIVE CARROLL: Good morning.
17 Mike Carroll, Luzerne and Monroe counties, Wyoming
18 Valley and parts of the Poconos.
19 REPRESENTATIVE KULA: Good morning.
20 Deberah Kula, Fayette and Westmoreland counties,
21 52nd District.
22 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: Good
23 morning. State Representative Joe Markosek,
24 Allegheny and Westmoreland counties, and Democratic
25 Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
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1 REPRESENTATIVE OBERLANDER: Good
2 morning. Representative Donna Oberlander, Clarion
3 and Armstrong, part of the great northwest and
4 Pennsylvania wilds.
5 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Good morning.
6 Curt Sonney, 4th District in Erie County.
7 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: Good morning.
8 Duane Milne from Chester County.
9 REPRESENTATIVE DENLINGER: Good morning.
10 Gordon Denlinger, eastern Lancaster County.
11 REPRESENTATIVE DAY: Good morning.
12 Representative Gary Day, parts of Lehigh and Berks
13 County.
14 MR. O'BRIEN: Good morning.
15 Representative Michael O'Brien, 157th District,
16 Philadelphia.
17 REPRESENTATIVE BROWNLEE: Good morning.
18 Michelle Brownlee, Philadelphia County, 195th
19 Legislative District.
20 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: And good morning.
21 I'm Representative Dan Moul, and welcome to my
22 district, the 91st District where America was
23 saved. And I also put in an order for some
24 beautiful weather for our trip down here. Thank
25 you for allowing me to do this, Mr. Chairman.
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1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: And thank
2 you, Representative. At this time we're going to
3 start, before we get into the hearing, I'd like
4 Superintendent Bob Kirby to say a few words to the
5 committee and to the panel welcoming us to the
6 area. Bob, if you would identify yourself and sit
7 at the table, if you don't mind.
8 MR. KIRBY: No, not at all.
9 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: And we have
10 to use these mics because this is going to be aired
11 a little later on probably PCN and other local
12 cables.
13 MR. KIRBY: Well, very good. Thank you.
14 It's quite an honor to have such a distinguished
15 group of folks here. Special thanks to Dan Moul
16 for doing so many good things for the community and
17 the area, and thank you for the House of
18 Representatives from the Appropriations Committee.
19 This is a real honor for us to host you here today.
20 We are in the Visitor Center of
21 Gettysburg National Military Park, and it's run by
22 the Gettysburg Foundation, our partner, which I
23 think we're gonna talk about at some length later
24 on today. It's a great partnership. It sustains
25 us as a federal entity in these difficult times,
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1 and we've done great things.
2 This past year, some of you are familiar
3 with the successes of the community has been able
4 to carry out as a result of a great opportunity of
5 team effort to host at least the first two-thirds
6 of our sesquicentennial year with our anniversary
7 programs that were conducted here in June and July.
8 Norris Flowers will take about some of the numbers;
9 the numbers are phenomenal, and I have upstairs
10 scores and scores of positive letters about the
11 experience that people encountered during their
12 visit here.
13 We had all 50 states in the United
14 States who sent media representatives and 18
15 countries that were here. Norris will tell you
16 that he estimates, and these are CDD numbers, that
17 235,000 people showed up here in this nine-day
18 period to participate in our anniversary programs
19 here in our community.
20 On July 3rd we hosted a grand march
21 across -- a commemorate march across Pickett's
22 Charge Battlefield. For those of you who are
23 historians know that, in 1863 on July 3rd, only
24 12,500 confederate forces made that trip. On July
25 3rd, 2013, we had 15,000 people who made that same
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1 trip. It was a tremendous spectacle. It was
2 amazing. We had 25,000 people watching us. We
3 have 40,000 people out there.
4 For me, it was an amazing moment when I
5 could transport myself back to the days and think
6 what it would feel like to have 15,000 people armed
7 wanting to kill you heading across that field. It
8 was a chilling moment; an interpretive moment. I
9 think the National Park Service is quite capable
10 and does a very good job of carrying out. We
11 couldn't have done it, though, without the support
12 of the community and without the support of our
13 good friends at the Gettysburg Foundation.
14 I look forward to talking to you about
15 that partnership today, later on at noon. But, in
16 the meantime, I welcome you to a productive, good
17 session here. We're honored, once again, to have
18 you join us. Thank you very much.
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you,
20 Superintendent Kirby.
21 We also have with us today a special
22 guest, certainly a familiar face to all of us,
23 Chairman Jerry Stern, the Chairman of the House
24 Tourism Committee. Welcome, Chairman.
25 REPRESENTATIVE STERN: Thank you,
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1 Chairman Adolph and Chairman Markosek, esteemed
2 members of the House Appropriations Committee,
3 colleagues; a couple tourism committee members here
4 as well. I'd like to also touch on about the
5 impact of tourism.
6 I know this hearing is about economic
7 development jobs, but let's just touch -- I want to
8 present some facts to the committee this morning to
9 get you prepped before you hear the real experts
10 testify this morning, the panel you have assembled
11 behind me.
12 We're talking about a 3 9-billion-dollar
13 industry. We're talking about 185 million visitors
14 to Pennsylvania. We're talking about 460,000 jobs
15 that are related to tourism. We're talking about
16 $3.8 billion in tax revenues that come into state
17 and local government, and if the PA tourism
18 industry didn't exist, you could tack on another
19 $770 to every household in Pennsylvania to upkeep
20 state government. That's how much it would cost
21 every household in the state to replace the
22 revenues that tourism generates in Pennsylvania.
23 Tourism's also a home-ground industry -
24 a home-grown industry, in the fact that, you can't
25 outsource Hershey Park. You can't outsource
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1 Gettysburg and the Battlefield. These are home
2 grown products. These are things we have here in
3 Pennsylvania. We have big city excitement. We
4 have Pittsburgh; we have Philly. We have the
5 history that America started in Philadelphia. We
6 have 150th anniversary of Gettysburg this year, and
7 you'll hear about the success of that. We have the
8 Gettysburg Address coming up here in November, and
9 that's another 150th anniversary, Lincoln's Address
10 at the cemetery coming up on November 19th.
11 We have culture; we have arts. We have
12 some of the finest amusement parks in the nation.
13 We have great regions. Mike was talking about
14 claiming the Poconos. We have the Poconos. We
15 have Amish country; Pennsylvania wilds. We've got
16 the Laurel Highlands. We've got all kinds of
17 places to highlight in Pennsylvania.
18 We have 120 state parks. We have great
19 hunting; we have great fishing. We have indoor
20 recreation; there's 11 casinos. And the nice part
21 about Pennsylvania, you can have tax-free shopping
22 on clothing and shoes. Think about it. For all
23 you shoppers here, you can appreciate that.
24 The state is within a one-day's drive of
25 60 million visitors in an eastern market, but we do
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1 have some challenges, and that's what I want to
2 bring your attention to here this morning. We're
3 not taking advantage of everything that we have to
4 offer here in the Commonwealth.
5 We used to be number 4 of the most
6 visited states in the nation; number 4. We've
7 slipped to number 7. As recently as five years
8 ago, the State Tourism Office had $32 million in
9 which to market Pennsylvania. And what we have now
10 is 3 million. You look at the line item in the
11 budget, we market $3 million, and most of that goes
12 to maintain and upgrade websites.
13 If you don't market your
14 product, you're gonna lose your consumer interest.
15 It's as simple as that. And if you look at the
16 people that are advertising, they're drawing
17 visitors; they're drawing people to them.
18 Do you know what our current logo is in
19 Pennsylvania? Anyone here know what our current
20 logo is? We've had four over the last 30 years.
21 Every time a new administration comes in, they want
22 to brand something new to Pennsylvania, and that's
23 what we're looking at in the Tourism Committee.
24 We're trying to get away from administrations
25 coming in doing their own thing. We're trying to
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1 turn it over to the tourism experts; allow them to
2 market Pennsylvania. Turn it over to them, and
3 people that are generating the income, let them
4 market the Commonwealth. That's what we're trying
5 to do. You'll hear something about private-public
6 partnership.
7 Our current logo actually is the State
8 of Independence, for all of you that are just dying
9 to know that theme here today. Have you seen it
10 marketed lately, the State of Independence? You
11 almost have to leave the state and come back in to
12 see it. It's on our billboards as you enter
13 Pennsylvania.
14 Other states are marketing. Michigan,
15 $33 million spent, resulting in $1.1 billion in new
16 visitor spending. Ohio's doubled their spending to
17 10 million. Connecticut dropped their tourism
18 budget a couple of years ago. They went to one
19 dollar in their budget. Now they've come back and
20 they've ended up putting $27 million into their
21 tourism budget over the next two years. They saw
22 one dollar didn't work. They lost a lot of
23 visitors.
24 New York is spending $60 million to
25 market New York. They've had the same theme over
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1 that 30-year period, I Love New York. New Jersey,
2 25 million; you know it down east, Stronger Than
3 the Storm. You've seen the billboards.
4 Pennsylvania is spending 3 million.
5 Basically, we have a website. We have a
6 tourism office that really doesn't really exist
7 anymore. We have one director. Diane McGraw was
8 just recently hired by the Administration. She's
9 doing a wonderful job in her role. She knows
10 tourism; she knows what to do. It's just very
11 difficult when there's only one person trying to
12 market our great Commonwealth. We have a research
13 and we have a film location person as well working
14 at DCED.
15 So what can we do? And this is a
16 challenge that I put before the House
17 Appropriations Committee this morning. What can we
18 do? Well, you're gonna hear in a little bit from
19 Norris Flowers who is the Adams County Regional
20 Tourism Director. We have about 50 local visitors
21 bureaus in Pennsylvania and they each promote their
22 region.
23 And I always liken this, whenever I tell
24 people this, and members of the committee have
25 heard this before, it's like a mall. Pennsylvania
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1 is like the mall, and we have some keymark stores
2 that bring people into PA. It's like Macy's, and
3 it's like some of your larger department stores
4 that they'll bring people in. And you have your
5 Sear's and your Penny's, your Macy's and your other
6 stores that are your key stores that bring people
7 in.
8 But in the mall there's all these little
9 shops; all these little stores; all these little
10 regions and all these little things that each and
11 every one of you have in your district. You all
12 have tourism activities in your district; whether
13 it's in Erie County and it's the wineries up there,
14 and everything that you can market up there; to the
15 southeast, to the history we have, the heritage,
16 and all the good things we have to offer.
17 The main thing is, they take care of
18 the people once you get them to that region. But,
19 we still need to get 'em to the mall. And so,
20 we've got to advertise the mall before we can
21 actually get them around to the rest of the stores.
22 So that's what I liken it to. We don't advertise,
23 we're not gonna get them into the regions, to the
24 other places. You may come to Hershey Park. You
25 may come to Gettysburg. You may go to Erie; you
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1 may go to Philadelphia, Pittsburgh. But if you
2 don't advertise the whole Commonwealth, we have so
3 many other places out there that we can offer
4 tourists the chance to visit so many places in PA.
5 So, the priority right now is for the
6 local tourism districts to take care of the people
7 that come into their regions, and it's to promote
8 Pennsylvania. We hear a lot about the room taxes;
9 bed taxes. That just goes back to the regions and
10 allows them to advertise what they're doing in
11 their region.
12 So, we introduced in the Tourism
13 Committee, and I work very closely with
14 Representative Chairman Thaddeus Kirkland. We work
15 hand in hand on tourism issues, and we introduced
16 House Bills 1215 and 1216. Those bills will be
17 coming before the House probably next week whenever
18 we return.
19 House Bill 1215 creates an independent
20 tourism commission as a public-private partnership
21 of the private sector tourism in public
22 stakeholders. An independent tourism commission
23 would give the industry stakeholders valuable,
24 knowledgeable voice and the policy that we're
25 enacting as we move forward, and also the strategy
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1 that affects them and ensures the continuity of
2 message. And that's the key. It's keeping the
3 same message out there.
4 Hershey Park, when you think of Hershey,
5 what do you think of? You think of the sweetest
6 place on earth. They've had the same marketing
7 theme for 30 plus years. So, you've got to keep a
8 consistent message. You can't go through different
9 administrations and have different messages every
10 eight years or four years or however often
11 governors serve. You have to maintain a message.
12 We just propose to put that back to the tourism
13 industry and allow them to develop that theme and
14 promote Pennsylvania; plain and simple.
15 According to a DCED poll of tourism
16 industry stakeholders, roughly almost 70 percent of
17 the respondents that deal with tourism support this
18 concept. And they're supportive of moving forward
19 with some sort of public/private tourism marketing
20 partnership. Pennsylvania business leader said the
21 competition from other states is their primary
22 concern followed by a perception that the state was
23 not leading the way. This commission could provide
24 that leadership.
25 Also a modest dedicated stream of
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1 funding is needed for tourism, and it's also very
2 important, we can use a portion of the state sale
3 taxes. There's bills out there to do that. One
4 bill, particularly, would take one percent of the
5 sales tax that goes to hotels and motels, that go
6 to the state and would take one percent of that of
7 the six percent that they currently send it to
8 Harrisburg and would divide that out into
9 $20 million that would be for use for advertising
10 Pennsylvania. The other $13 million would be used
11 to help the arts, cultures, history and also
12 museums. That's another bill out there that we've
13 been kicking around.
14 House Bill 1216 would develop a tourism
15 tax credit. So, the businesses would pay into this
16 tourism and take the tourism tax credit. They
17 could pay into a promotional fund to help promote
18 Pennsylvania and get a tax credit on the side.
19 There's a bill -- One of the bills we're gonna
20 consider does that as well.
21 In addition to my commission legislation
22 that Representative Kirkland and I -- Chairman
23 Kirkland and I are working on, DCED is looking into
24 to developing a public-private partnership also-- I
25 want to share that with you--through the Team PA
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1 Foundation. Our committee is still closely
2 monitoring the progress of that. But whatever we
3 do, we have to focus on some kind of a solution
4 that brings all the stakeholders together as we
5 move forward, and we need to use the expertise
6 that's already out there.
7 These are professionals that are
8 marketing businesses in their area. We need to use
9 their expertise as we can move Pennsylvania
10 forward. We all benefit from that; in new job
11 creation, new tax revenue and new visitors to the
12 Commonwealth. Instead of going this way (indicated
13 a downward motion), we could be going back up
14 again.
15 So, it's pretty simple. More visitors
16 means more spending. In Pennsylvania, it's a
17 pretty simple message. I'm just here this morning
18 to support tourism and all aspects of it. Thank
19 the committee for looking into it today and
20 listening to the panel here today because they're
21 well-versed in tourism activities.
22 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you,
24 Chairman Stern.
25 I would now invite to our panel Norris
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1 Flowers, President of the Gettysburg Convention and
2 Visitors Bureau; Rob Fulton, the President of the
3 Pennsylvania Association of Travel and Tourism; and
4 Jane Sheffield, President of HeritagePennsylvania.
5 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
6 MR. FLOWERS: Good morning, Mr.
7 Chairman, committee members: Welcome to
8 Gettysburg. I want to thank Representative Moul
9 for inviting you to Gettysburg and Adams County,
10 and I know he's a very host and we think we've
11 trained him well, and he's a huge supporter of
12 tourism. We're very appreciative of that.
13 My name is Norris Flowers. I'm the
14 President of the Gettysburg Commission Visitors
15 Bureau, which is the official tourism promotional
16 agency for Adams County. I thank you for being
17 here, not only at the site of America's most
18 visited Civil War Battlefield, but at the heart of
19 Pennsylvania's fruit belt, the antiques capitol of
20 central Pennsylvania, home to an array of outdoor
21 recreation, and cultural and heritage events known
22 throughout the country.
23 Adams County, Pennsylvania, although
24 very rural, is one of Pennsylvania's most visited
25 destinations. The name Gettysburg is known around
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1 the world, both for the epic battle in 1863, as
2 well as President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. We
3 draw visitors from all 50 states and numerous
4 foreign countries.
5 Annually, more than 3 million visitors
6 visit Adams County, and I'm pleased to report that
7 this year we'll top over 4 million visitors; with
8 visitors spending more than $605 million and
9 generating more than $110 million in tax revenue to
10 local, state and federal governments.
11 Additionally, tourism supports
12 approximately 7,2 00 jobs in Adams County and
13 contributes $245 million in wages to those
14 employees. Just 10 weeks ago, Gettysburg marked
15 the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg,
16 with a 10-day commemoration which resulted in
17 approximately $100 million to the local economy.
18 The 10-day event drew over 235,000 people to the
19 county.
20 During my 40-year career in the travel
21 industry, I was honored to be among several
22 Missouri tourism leaders that were instrumental in
23 creating a dedicated funding source that would grow
24 the tourism marketing budget while decreasing the
25 amount from the general funds. We realize a need
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1 to sustain our industry without the use of the
2 state's General Fund, all while maintaining our
3 presence as a top U.S. destination. Today, the
4 Missouri model has become an example for other
5 states.
6 I applaud the state of Pennsylvania for
7 considering alternative models to the existing
8 tourism office and for exploring ways to get
9 Pennsylvania back as the major competitor in the
10 U.S. travel industry. Investing in the state's
11 second largest industry should be a top priority.
12 Tourism is different than other
13 industries, in that, it imposes taxes on itself to
14 sustain its future. These local taxes enable the
15 tourism industry and its partners to reinvest this
16 money back into marketing to generate further
17 revenues for businesses, employees and governments.
18 In Adams County, this investment in
19 tourism is vital to the economy, as well as to the
20 livelihood of our residents and those who depend on
21 tourism both directly and indirectly.
22 The Gettysburg Convention Visitors
23 Bureau and the remaining 48 tourism promotion
24 agencies across Pennsylvania rely on the state's
25 leadership and leverage in the travel market in
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1 order to, not only attract people to our
2 destination within our state's borders, but to
3 financially sustain our communities and its
4 citizens. Investing in tourism is an economic
5 engine which creates jobs, generates tax revenues
6 and leads to positive return on investment.
7 For the state of Pennsylvania to remain
8 competitive in the travel market, we have to
9 address the funding source for the state's second
10 largest industry.
11 I have attached to my remarks, just for
12 your information, some basic recap numbers from our
13 10-day 150th commemoration of the Battle of
14 Gettysburg, and this is primarily from the media
15 standpoint. The first number you'll see is true;
16 over 8.2 billion visitors to the websites that
17 covered the 150th anniversary of the Battle of
18 Gettysburg. The circulation of the 15,279 articles
19 that were written about Gettysburg went out to 394
20 million people.
21 The other number that I think is very
22 important, not only to the Convention Visitors
23 Bureau and to our local tourism industry, but to
24 you as leaders in the state and the Appropriations
25 Committee; for the dollars that the Gettysburg
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1 Convention Visitors Bureau spent on marketing -
2 just on the media component; just the media
3 component of those 10 days resulted in a return of
4 an investment of $267.80 for every dollar we spent
5 for media.
6 Thank you for the opportunity to come
7 and address you this morning. I'll be happy to
8 answer questions later.
9 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you,
10 Mr. Flowers. Whoever would like to go next. Mr.
11 Fulton?
12 MR. FULTON: Thank you. Good morning,
13 Mr. Chairman, Chairman Adolph and Chairman Markosek
14 and members of the House Appropriations Committee:
15 It's a pleasure to be with you this morning.
16 The Pennsylvania Association of Travel
17 and Tourism, otherwise know as PATT, P-A-T-T, is a
18 statewide nonprofit bipartisan association
19 representing the travel and tourism industry in
20 Pennsylvania. We were founded in July of 2012, and
21 our mission is to unify and lead Pennsylvania's
22 travel and tourism industry, presenting one voice
23 within our industry.
24 Our objectives are to serve as an
25 umbrella organization; lead the development and
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1 implementation of public policy; function as a
2 primary advocate for emerging issues and assume
3 responsibility for educating the public, public
4 officials and the industry of the economic,
5 cultural and social impact of Pennsylvania's travel
6 and tourism industry.
7 I thought Chairman Stern did an
8 excellent job summarizing how the state of -- of
9 our industry in Pennsylvania. I'm just gonna
10 highlight a few things, but I applaud him for his
11 leadership and for what he said this morning. So
12 I'm gonna read you the testimony I provided to you,
13 but certainly happy to answer any specific
14 questions later.
15 I did want to share a few other
16 statistics that the Chairman didn't mention. One
17 out of every 16 workers in Pennsylvania supported
18 by travel and tourism industry, I think that's
19 important. On average, spending from 400 travelers
20 supports one Pennsylvania job, which I think is
21 significant.
22 I also wanted to highlight two studies
23 that I brought with me today that you have as part
24 of your information that I think demonstrates the
25 importance of travel and tourism and its impact in
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1 Pennsylvania. The first is a report that
2 highlights Pennsylvania's impact. It's the colored
3 one, brochure here that you have at your place,
4 that was put together by the Department of
5 Community and Economic Development. I want to just
6 highlight a few of the impacts.
7 Marketing will always be one of the most
8 important things that we do. I think Chairman
9 Stern highlighted that very well. But we are in
10 economic driving, you heard that in Norris's
11 comments as well as the Chairman's comments.
12 So, economic benefits. When people
13 travel, they spend money. Their spending directly
14 translates into sales for Pennsylvania businesses,
15 jobs for Pennsylvania residents and tax revenue for
16 the state.
17 Second point is, of course, jobs. One
18 of the key economic benefits provided by the travel
19 and tourism industry is our industry's ability to
20 create jobs, especially during periods when most
21 other sectors of the economy are struggling. The
22 underlying reason for the industry's strength is
23 that, even in difficult economic times, people
24 still want to travel. We've seen that not only in
25 Pennsylvania, but on a national level as we've come
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1 back from this recession. Traveling and tourism
2 has consistently been one of the leading job
3 creators, not only in the nation, but within
4 Pennsylvania.
5 The third point is the key export
6 industry, travel and tourism. The 3.9 billion
7 spent by travelers from international markets makes
8 travel and tourism the state's fifth leading export
9 industry.
10 And, of course, the opportunities. With
11 our strong base of tourism assets and strategic
12 location, Pennsylvania is well-positioned to
13 capitalize on the projected growth in international
14 travel, as well as from the expected growth in
15 domestic travel which I think is significant.
16 When we think about our industry, we
17 think about the ways we impact the economy.
18 Through direct impact, those dollars that are spent
19 directly within the tourism sector, such as an
20 admission to an amusement park, a museum or other
21 attraction, on the type of spending that Norris
22 referred for the Civil War with 150th; indirect
23 impact, which are dollars spent by the sector with
24 other businesses that carry out critical
25 operations, such as cleaning companies, bedding
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1 companies and other ancillary businesses that
2 service our industry. And an induced impact which
3 are the dollars spent by employees of our industry,
4 certainly within the local economy because they
5 have those jobs and are able to do that.
6 The second study that I have for you, if
7 you have an opportunity to read, is a study done by
8 the U.S. Travel Association and Longwoods
9 International, which is a research firm. It's
10 called The Power of Destination Marketing. I
11 certainly encourage you, when you have an
12 opportunity, to look through that.
13 This study, in particular, highlights
14 the Pure Michigan. I don't know how many of you
15 have seen in your own district have seen the Pure
16 Michigan app. They have been very committed to the
17 dollars in that particular effort that they've been
18 promoting, and also the Philadelphia With Love
19 campaigns.
20 The following two case studies within
21 this study that I presented to you, Michigan and
22 Philadelphia, provide dramatic and convincing
23 evidence that destination marketing represents an
24 investment; not a cost to taxpayers. It does not
25 compete with entitlement programs, but rather helps
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1 to pay for them; that it puts cash into public
2 coffers, creates jobs and enhances the lifestyle of
3 both tourists and residents.
4 Marketing, as Chairman Stern had pointed
5 out, and Pennsylvania has historically been led by
6 the Pennsylvania Tourism Office, as you know,
7 located within the Department of Community and
8 Economic Development. Chairman Stern alluded to
9 the concept of a public/private partnership. And
10 again, we thank him and Chairman Kirkland and the
11 House Tourism Committee for their leadership. We
12 have been looking on this for a couple of years in
13 terms of trying to look at a different model for
14 how Pennsylvania's market is promoted. So, we
15 appreciate that.
16 The Chairman referred to House Bill 1215
17 which creates the Pennsylvania Tourism Commission,
18 which is a concept that we have supported and,
19 again, work with the Chairman and the committee in
20 putting together.
21 One of the challenges has been that the
22 Governor, the Administration, has not been willing
23 to support the creation of a commission model. So,
24 we've have been meeting with -- And the Chairman
25 also referred to this. We've been meeting with the
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1 Administration, with DCED, and the Chairman
2 indicated Team PA Foundation to look at creating
3 the same concept as what is within House Bill 1215
4 only, not having -- doing it through the commission
5 model. So, the Chairman alluded to that.
6 The collaborative effort, again, as I
7 said, includes the Department of Community and
8 Economic Development, the Governor's Office, DCNR
9 which is the Department of Conservation Natural
10 Resources, our association and Team PA Foundation
11 to put together what we're calling Pennsylvania
12 Towards a Partnership, which will work towards
13 consistent branding, promotion and marketing of
14 Pennsylvania as a premier tourism destination.
15 I'm not going to go over it again. It's
16 in my testimony. I won't read through all the
17 specifics, but you'll see some of the things that
18 we're specifically working on. But again, the
19 concept is, as the Chairman said, is to get the
20 private sector engaged and partnered with the state
21 in terms of how we're marketing and promoting it.
22 We look forward continuing to do that, whether it's
23 the through partnership, through Team PA or some
24 other model. But, we're heading down the same
25 path. We're looking to create what has been put
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1 together within House Bill 1215.
2 The Chairman mentioned, again, why does
3 this make things better and why are we looking at a
4 public/private model like this. Greater alignment
5 across the tourism industry we think will help
6 better; we believe will help better position us to
7 capitalize on increased economic opportunities
8 related to tourism in Pennsylvania. The
9 Commonwealth's tourism brand and marketing
10 initiatives will be insulated from political
11 change, and thus, provide for more continuity.
12 The public/private partnership will have
13 ability to act outside the state procurement
14 system, thus, providing access to private-sector
15 economies; again, using that expertise and the
16 things that the private sector brings to the table.
17 And, of course, responsibilities placed on the
18 industry to support its efforts and be a partner at
19 the table.
20 Norris mentioned funding and the
21 Chairman mentioned funding as well. We have some
22 short-term solutions in this public/private
23 partnership that would be housed and incubated into
24 Team PA Foundation. Team PA has put some seed
25 money into the pot to allow us to get that
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1 organization up and running; hire a project
2 director to manage the day-to-day operations.
3 But, ultimately, Pennsylvania needs a
4 sustainable, significant revenue stream to promote
5 our efforts. The Chairman mentioned we've fallen
6 from the fourth in the state to seven. We continue
7 to worry that may continue to slip. The Chairman
8 mentioned several different funding models, House
9 Bill 1216, tourism tax credit as a potential. He
10 mentioned House Bill 1635, which uses the one
11 percent of the six percent state sales tax as a
12 model.
13 I'm glad Norris brought up the Missouri
14 model, because that's also one that we're very
15 interested in. That basically uses the growth and
16 sales tax from those industries specific to travel
17 and tourism, which is about 17 different
18 industries. We think that's a very sustainable
19 model as well. We'll be working with, again, House
20 Tourism Committee and other stakeholders to see
21 that come to fruition.
22 I want to thank you for including us
23 today and to listening to our thoughts on this very
24 important issue. We do hope that you will leave
25 today with the confidence that our industry is
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1 ready to rise to the challenge of working in a more
2 collaborative way and working to set some specific
3 timelines and objectives to work with you to create
4 a healthy and vibrant travel and tourism industry.
5 While marketing and promotion, as I said
6 earlier, will always be a key element to what
7 Travel and Tourism does. It is our hope that you
8 will begin to see our industry as an economic
9 development partner, a job creator which we are,
10 and a partner helping to fund key initiatives in
11 this state.
12 I thank you again for your time. I'll
13 be happy to answer any questions afterwards.
14 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you,
15 Mr. Fulton. Our next panelist is Jane Sheffield.
16 Jane.
17 MS. SHEFFIELD: Thank you, Chairman
18 Markosek and Chairman Adolph, especially big thanks
19 to this committee and to the Chair for your support
20 in this year's budget. HeritagePA is deeply
21 grateful, and we will make you proud. Thank you
22 very much for that.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Nice to hear
24 some thank-yous every once in a while.
25 MS. SHEFFIELD: Good morning. I am here
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1 on behalf of HeritagePA to highlight heritage area
2 statewide, the history of the program and where it
3 is today, and how Pennsylvania heritage area relate
4 to and enhance tourism as local engines for tourism
5 and economic development.
6 HeritagePA is a state-wide nonprofit
7 association of Pennsylvania's 12 state and
8 nationally-designated heritage areas and corridors.
9 These areas are the result of strategic planning
10 grounded in public participation and have developed
11 tremendous tourism product for over two decades.
12 All 12 Pennsylvania heritage areas,
13 which you can see on this map back here if you put
14 your glasses on, this map, you may want to take a
15 look at it later, shows all the heritage corridors
16 and the number of your constituents that receive
17 services through these corridors. This will also
18 be included in a packet that we have available for
19 you.
20 But all the 12 heritage areas share
21 fundamental philosophies and goals, including two
22 strategically plan for and invest in the
23 Commonwealth's tourism industry; to conserve
24 historic and cultural sources; to conserve and
25 enhance the development of natural and recreational
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1 resources; to develop educational and interpretive
2 sources; to help stimulate heritage tourism and
3 economic development; to establish partnerships to
4 help steward the advancement of Pennsylvania
5 communities, and to leverage significant dollars
6 for heritage tourism development.
7 Through HeritagePA, we
8 continue to advance our work and partnership with
9 our elected officials, state agencies, tourism
10 professionals, and grassroots organizations to
11 protect and enhance our unique product; the natural
12 beauty and cultural identity that increasingly draw
13 visitors and investment and frame our daily
14 experience. Heritage is a fast-growing
15 and hugely important segment of the tourism
16 industry. A 2002 study showed that nearly 93
17 Americans included at least one cultural arts,
18 heritage or historic activity or event while
19 traveling. An area's heritage resources reflect
20 the distinctiveness of the people and events
21 important to the lifestyle and history of a
22 community. Heritage sources help to keep tourism
23 development authentic and connect visitors to the
24 life of a community. Because of this, it's
25 important to protect and manage these resources.
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1 Surveys were conducted onsite at several
2 heritage area attractions in 2008. Direct economic
3 impacts included over $255 million in direct sales;
4 supporting over 4,000 jobs, generating more than
5 $95 million in salary and, on average, every
6 $58,500 spent by visitors supported one job in the
7 heritage area, and the total value added of all
8 visitors spending, or the personal income plus rent
9 and profits and indirect business taxes was over
10 145 million.
11 The total direct, indirect and induced
12 effects of visitor spending in the participating
13 heritage areas was over $400 million in sales.
14 These sales supported over 6,000 jobs. The total
15 payroll from these jobs was over 150 million.
16 A recent study by the Rails-to-Trails
17 Conservancy concluded that the Delaware and Lehigh
18 Trail injected over $16 million into the local
19 economies annually. The 2012 study performed by
20 the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy Northwest (sic)
21 Regional Office in Camp Hill, P.A., used a
22 combination of automatic counters and trail survey
23 forms to study visitation, usage and economic
24 activity along portions of the 165-mile Delaware
25 and Leigh Trail.
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1 The study concluded that, an analysis of
2 data gathered from infrared counters located along
3 the D&L Trail and completed user surveys indicate
4 an estimated 282,796 annual user visits to the
5 trail, resulting in a total economic impact in 2012
6 over $19 million. Of this, over 16 million is
7 estimated to have been directly injected into the
8 local economy.
9 A February 18, 2013 case study analysis
10 of six national heritage area sites in the
11 northeast region of the U.S. includes Rivers of
12 Steel and the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage
13 Corridor. The study assessed their economic impact
14 by measuring employment and revenue generation and
15 economic impacts through a protocol comprised of
16 interviews, focus groups, economic impact analysis
17 and secondary data analysis using IMPLAN economic
18 impact software. The combined annual economic
19 benefits of the Rivers of Steel National Heritage
20 Area exceeded 69 million annually, supporting 901
21 jobs, generating over 6 million in tax revenue.
22 The combined annual economic benefits of the
23 Delaware and Lehigh Heritage Corridor exceeded
24 238 million annually, supporting 3,322 jobs, and
25 generating over 22 million in tax revenue.
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1 The Center For Rural Pennsylvania has
2 supported further statewide analysis and is
3 reviewing two responses to a recent request for
4 proposal to examine the current economic impact of
5 Pennsylvania's heritage areas. This study will
6 provide new information in the coming year
7 regarding the impact of heritage areas across the
8 Commonwealth.
9 Pennsylvania is the leading state in
10 this country's heritage development movement. In
11 fact, Maryland and Utah have modeled their own
12 programs after the Pennsylvania's Heritage Areas
13 program. In 2000, delegates from Utah's Governor's
14 office visited Pennsylvania to learn more about the
15 heritage areas system.
16 Utah is just beginning to realize the
17 potential of heritage tourism and the opportunities
18 it can provide to the rural areas of our state said
19 West Curtis, director of the Governor's Rural
20 Partnership, state of Utah. Rather than develop
21 the potential from scratch, we decided to look to
22 the state that seems to be doing these things
23 better than anyone else--Pennsylvania. Through our
24 investigations and research on who is doing what
25 and how it's being done, we have concluded that the
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1 Pennsylvania approach seems to make the most sense.
2 Each heritage area has its own story to
3 tell. The Allegheny Ridge supports economic and
4 recreational development in communities along the
5 320-mile Main Line Canal Greenway, while operating
6 Altoona Heritage Discovery Center. The Altoona
7 Center is the best practice in historic
8 rehabilitation and small business development,
9 generating over 740,000 annually for small
10 businesses.
11 In addition, the project attracted Penn
12 State Altoona and the development of the adjacent
13 Devorris downtown center. Downtown Altoona has
14 been designated as a campus of Penn State Altoona,
15 and additional buildings have been developed
16 including the Sheetz Entrepreneurial Center.
17 Donna Holdorf of the National Road
18 Corridor has extensive knowledge of the National
19 Scenic Highway Program. She was able to attract $4
20 million from the national program to close the
21 funding gap for a new visitors center at Ohiopyle.
22 Olga Herbert, who's speaking later,
23 harnesses the energy of Gettysburg by attracting
24 visitors to move westward along the historic
25 Lincoln Highway, creating additional overnights and
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1 investment in Pennsylvania communities while
2 helping visitors understand the rich history of the
3 corridor.
4 Route 6 stretches across the northern
5 tier of Pennsylvania and unites destination
6 marketing organization across the corridor.
7 HeritagePA acknowledges the good work of its
8 friends and partners in the CVB/TPA/DMO community.
9 They have done, and continue to do, an excellent
10 job promoting and marketing Pennsylvania. We also
11 applaud the work and vision of PATT of moving that
12 effort forward with a strategic plan that have
13 strong roots and private sector partnerships.
14 Pennsylvania's heritage areas were built on that
15 premise.
16 Heritage areas are the organizations
17 that develop, build, revitalize and restore
18 Pennsylvania's heritage tourism infrastructure. It
19 is that work which helps small businesses survive
20 and thrive. It is that work which gives the DCED's
21 Tourism Office and the DMO community a visitor-
22 ready product to market. Their marketing drives
23 new money to Pennsylvania.
24 Visitors do not see and are not
25 interested in political boundaries. They come here
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1 to learn about history and heritage; to enjoy our
2 wealth of cultural venues; to immerse themselves in
3 our rich natural and recreational resources. Even
4 if the venue is the next community or county, the
5 impact is felt regionally.
6 Heritage areas are economic generators.
7 They are also image makers. Both contribute to the
8 health of the Commonwealth and benefit your
9 constituents.
10 I'm here today on behalf of my
11 colleagues pledging that HeritagePA stands ready to
12 continue working with DCNR to develop a strategic
13 plan for our program; in proposing legislation that
14 will continue our ability to leverage funding to
15 grow Pennsylvania's economy; sustaining and
16 strengthening the economic impact of tourism on
17 communities throughout the Commonwealth, and
18 continuing efforts to conserve and improve the
19 strong cultural, historic and recreational assets
20 that make Pennsylvania a must-see destination.
21 Thank you for your time.
22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you,
23 Jane. We're now gonna ask the individual members
24 some questions, if you don't mind spending some
25 time with us. And then, after those questions, we
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1 will take a 5-minute break and then we'll go into
2 our second group of panelists.
3 First question will be asked by
4 Representative Gordon Denlinger.
5 REPRESENTATIVE DENLINGER: Thank you,
6 Mr. Chairman. And thanks to each of you for your
7 testimony. We appreciate it very much. I'll
8 direct my question, I guess, to Mr. Flowers,
9 Norris, good to see you again.
10 I'm wondering, you've been through an
11 amazing year; probably one for the books, so to
12 speak, although I know there's more to come yet
13 with the Gettysburg Address coming up. What
14 take-aways have you had through this experience?
15 You're a veteran of this industry, but
16 I'm sure looking back on the amazing things that
17 have happened here in Gettysburg over the months,
18 that connecting with people you probably sharpened
19 some points of knowledge along the way. You
20 mentioned the multiplier $267-to-one, I appreciate
21 that, statistic. But I'm wondering what points of
22 data collection have you had through this process
23 to know how people got to be here and how they
24 learned about all the events, activities, and what
25 have you learned through the experience?
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1 MR. FLOWERS: Thank you, Representative.
2 We and the TPAs, and I can speak for my
3 other colleagues across the state, all believe in
4 return on investment. That's the key thing. It's
5 a basic rule in business one on one. So, we did
6 nothing without research before we ever started.
7 And we learned very quickly, and we knew that
8 Gettysburg is known worldwide. We have a very
9 large percentage of repeat customers.
10 But, the key to this was the
11 partnerships that we were able to establish going
12 into this event. And one of the things on my list
13 here, if you look at the economic impact, not only
14 did Adams County win by this, but for sure, the six
15 surrounding counties we know had economic impact
16 because we help put people in those hotel
17 properties and the B&Bs, and we actually control
18 that. And if you look at the increase in their
19 lodging, it will sustain that. So, we learned that
20 partnerships going in were very important.
21 The other thing we knew was, our
22 visitors' expectations were very high. I mean,
23 this was a bucket list. I'll just share a quick
24 story with the committee. Over a year ago I
25 received a call from a family in Ohio. The lady
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1 was asking questions to our staff about hotels and
2 so on. And when she got off the phone she said, my
3 husband has been looking forward to coming to
4 Gettysburg for the last 18 years; so, huge
5 expectations.
6 So, the planning and everything and
7 everybody working together, the expectations were
8 very high. I'm very proud of the community, the
9 region. We all worked very well together. But, we
10 also learned a lessen. We can't sit back and gloat
11 on our past victories. We are already working on
12 our future and undergoing right now a whole
13 rebranding, repositioning campaign for Gettysburg
14 in Adams County.
15 As we roll out of this year, we have to
16 move forward. I said a long time ago that this was
17 our Olympic moment. But unlike the Olympics, when
18 it's over you can't shut the lights out and go
19 home. We have to use this moving forward. That's
20 the position we are as a state in Pennsylvania in
21 tourism. We need to be moving forward. We're
22 moving back. We're moving backwards in the tourism
23 industry in revenues. We're losing dollars every
24 day to the other states and other destinations that
25 are competitors. We need to be moving with a solid
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1 plan; funding is supported; the industry will
2 support it. We just need leadership and some money
3 to help that program. Thank you.
4 REPRESENTATIVE DENLINGER: Appreciate
5 that. And if I can, one other quick question.
6 From a marketing standpoint, we live in an amazing
7 time right now. Using this device, Smartphone,
8 folks in the corporate America, we get into the
9 civil liberties, concerns about government and its
10 access to this data, but corporate side is wide
11 open.
12 So, using this device, I walk into a
13 mall and suddenly the electronic advertising starts
14 flipping to products that I've purchased on Amazon
15 within the last year, year and a half; that they
16 might be similar in nature, and they think they
17 might wanna sell me that product as well. So, it's
18 an amazing new day of targeted marketing.
19 Within your realm, and I'll ask Rob and
20 Jane to comment on this, are we drilling down to
21 that degree to target people?
22 MR. FULTON: I think Norris speaks well
23 for the other CBBs that are convention business
24 bureaus. We all use the term destination market
25 organizations driving people to a destination, but
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1 they do an excellent job. I think what's lacking
2 is that we haven't had the resources and the
3 ability and the leadership to do it at the state
4 level, so we're missing those opportunities because
5 we haven't had the dollars to do that.
6 But, from a local and regional
7 perspective -- I know Jane can speak. But we see
8 these different associations than our industry
9 doing a great job with that. It is a (voice trail
10 off)--
11 MS. SHEFFIELD: I agree. It is hard
12 because, just as you develop your QR code or
13 whatever you develop to help sync with travelers,
14 technology changes. I wished I had a crystal ball
15 to look into the future so I could invest in that
16 project.
17 The way that we had been handling that
18 in our own organization with limited resources is,
19 we are using a 400-level marketing class at Penn
20 State Altoona, and their class project is
21 connecting communities through social media in the
22 Juniata Valley. And so, they're going to be
23 developing mechanisms, using Smartphones to better
24 connect communities and promote the kind of
25 products that we have there for tourism and
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1 heritage.
2 In addition, we have another student
3 developing a mobile app for the Juniata River Water
4 Trail, so that, folks like yourself, when you're in
5 your kayak, suddenly it will alert you to a
6 historic feature along the Juniata or may be aware
7 there's an important birding area, et cetera. So
8 what we've to do is rely upon the younger culture
9 to help us out with that. But that's certainly a
10 wonderful point.
11 REPRESENTATIVE DENLINGER: Very good.
12 Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
13 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you,
14 Representative. Chairman Markosek.
15 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: Thank you,
16 Chairman Adolph. I can't tell you how excited I am
17 to be back in Gettysburg. Last time I was here I
18 took a tour on a horse, and I don't know if they
19 still do that or not, but I recall the guide
20 talking about Pickett's Charge on the third day.
21 And I looked on the map and this site is directly
22 east of the so-called Copse of Trees and the angle,
23 the center point of that charge.
24 I also recall that the Confederates had
25 a long cannon aid prior to that. The guy was very
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1 adamant about saying how most of those shells
2 overflew their target over on Cemetery Ridge and
3 landed behind the lines, which would be pretty much
4 right where we're sitting here today. So, it's
5 kind of exciting to think that this very site was
6 part and parcel of the famous Pickett's Charge in
7 the third day at Gettysburg.
8 But I'm very excited about tourism in
9 Pennsylvania, and I think Chairman Stern did a very
10 eloquent job of pointing out how important it is to
11 the Commonwealth. But I also was looking at what
12 you, Mr. Fulton I believe, handed us, the page with
13 the graphs on it. Far be it for me to say that we
14 shouldn't be spending more on tourism. But yet, I
15 look at the graphs, travelers spending, we're at an
16 all-time high. Hotel rooms sold, all-time high;
17 hotel rooms revenue, all-time high; leisure and
18 hospitality jobs, all-time high.
19 I guess my question, and I'm not
20 editorializing, but because this will be seen by
21 other Pennsylvanians, and maybe a little bit of a
22 devil's advocate question to all of you. If all of
23 these things -- And I think it's a credit to you
24 that we have these all-time highs in these various
25 tourism categories. But why should the taxpayers
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1 of Pennsylvania be asked to spend more on tourism
2 promotion when we're at the all-time high on a lot
3 of these various categories?
4 MR. FULTON: That's an excellent
5 question. There's a leg in marketing, I think, as
6 we look at the process. The challenge with what we
7 face for many years with our industries, we're
8 usually always 18 months to two years behind on the
9 numbers. I'm glad you asked that because it does
10 paint a somewhat of a -- it sends a double message
11 there, you know, funding has dropped; yet, we're at
12 that level.
13 Our fear, Norris pointed out or Chairman
14 Stern had said, we do know we dropped from 4 to 7,
15 so we do know we're starting to see that slippage.
16 I would venture to guess, as we update this in the
17 next 18 months or so, that we'll begin to see those
18 numbers. It's a credit to all the great work that
19 was done before.
20 It was not that many years ago that we
21 had significant funding, as the Chairman pointed
22 out. So, you've seen all that great work, the
23 momentum's built, and we've kind of reached that
24 apex; and, of course, our fear is that now that it
25 begins to drop off because we can't continue that
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1 marketing.
2 The Chairman used the example of the
3 mall, and that's a great one. We always think
4 about the big companies, Pepsi and Coke, and the
5 list goes on; that even when they're at the top of
6 their game, they continue to invest and make sure
7 that they maintain that market share. And that's
8 what we're looking and be able to do is, at least
9 be able to maintain and continue to grow and not to
10 that slip again.
11 There are examples around the country,
12 Colorado and others and the Chairman had mentioned
13 Connecticut that begin to cut their product. So,
14 we believe again that -- it's the great work that's
15 been done, but we begin to see those numbers begin
16 to slip because we're not reinvesting to keep that
17 share.
18 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: Question
19 for Mr. Flowers and maybe a little more in a micro
20 since you're from Gettysburg. We've had this big
21 year and continuing to have a big year with
22 November 19th on the horizon with Gettysburg
23 Address commemoration, and I would expect -
24 Hopefully, we all would expect that we would have
25 greater tourism for that as well.
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1 But looking beyond this year, next year
2 is the 151st anniversary; not quite the 150th for
3 whatever -- What are you doing in planning to keep
4 the tourism as high as you can beyond this? I
5 mean, we have had this great wonderful year much
6 because of the 150th and the efforts that you've
7 all -- extra efforts that you've all put in, and I
8 understand that.
9 I guess my question is, what is your
10 team doing to say -- how should we plan to
11 ensure -- or to do the best that we can that we
12 have those kinds of numbers in the future as well?
13 MR. FLOWERS: As far back as four, five
14 years ago, I told the local tourism industry in
15 Adams County that our success during the
16 sesquicentennial of the American Civil War would
17 not 2013. It would be 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015.
18 We sell out all our hotel rooms pretty much every
19 year anyway. It's the shoulder seasons or the
20 years that we had to take advantage of.
21 So, part of the answer to your question,
22 we have two more years of the sesquicentennial of
23 the American Civil War that we have to take full
24 advantage of. Quite honestly, we're in discussions
25 with the state of Virginia because, as the next two
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1 years move forward, the major events move south, so
2 we're gonna be doing some cooperative programs with
3 them. Quite honestly, people from other states
4 coming to Virginia, we want to capture them and
5 bring them to Gettysburg, and we're working on
6 that.
7 And then I want to go back to the
8 repositioning program. We knew going into the
9 sesquicentennial, based on the research that we had
10 done and the study, and that's a key component for
11 the state tourism office is to do research of the
12 entire state so that we can use to make good
13 business decisions.
14 We knew that we had an aging visitor to
15 Adams County. Quite honestly, I saw a void behind
16 that. So we're in the process, as I mentioned
17 early, going through this whole repositioning
18 program that we will roll out come January of 2014.
19 I'm not sure what it's gonna look like. We've
20 hired professionals to put that together. I'm very
21 pleased with what I'm seeing so far.
22 But you're gonna basically see a new
23 Gettysburg because, Adams County is more than just
24 the battlefields, and we have to draw a much
25 younger crowd, and we have product. And we have to
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1 help develop that product, promote that product,
2 give visitors here to stay longer and spend more
3 money.
4 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: After our
5 tour yesterday, we became very aware that Adams
6 County is way more than Gettysburg, and it was a
7 very impressive tour.
8 Just one other question, when you
9 mentioned some of the other states. A few years
10 ago, I was involved with a program called Civil War
11 Trails, which was prevalent in many of the southern
12 states below the Mason Dixon Line, indicating
13 tourist stops along the way following the Union and
14 Confederate armies as they marched north and
15 finally ended up in Gettysburg for the battle.
16 But, at that time, the Civil War Trails
17 Program stopped at the Mason Dixon line. I was
18 involved at that time with the former First Lady,
19 Judge Rendell, Mrs. Rendell, in working with the
20 Department of Tourism and DCED. We were able to
21 have that program here in Pennsylvania that
22 continued that and latched on to what the other
23 states are doing.
24 Can you give me an update on that Civil
25 War Trails Program, and how that's working and how
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1 it's worked over the last decade or so?
2 MR. FLOWERS: Yeah, and there's two
3 different programs that we're talking about here.
4 There's a program that's been in existence for a
5 number of years, that now I think is six states.
6 They included Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland and
7 Carolinas, and it did stop at the border. This was
8 prior to my arrival in Gettysburg.
9 But the state at the time made the
10 decision -- I know they attempted to tie in to the
11 other program. And I think personalities, quite
12 honestly, got in the way, but the state then
13 developed the Civil War Trails Program. It's still
14 there. Nothing has really been done with it from
15 the state level for over a year. It's still there;
16 it exists. You see the signs today throughout the
17 state.
18 I will say this, for Adams County,
19 Pennsylvania, we reached out three years ago to the
20 other Civil War Trails Program. We have those
21 signs, those markers in Adams County. The very
22 first one in the state of Pennsylvania was put on
23 the Battlefield of Gettysburg at the national park
24 just down the road. We now have, I believe, four
25 of those markers. There's two more that are gonna
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1 come up because, that's a huge program that other
2 states have, that six-state program, but we feel
3 like it ties into the rest of the Pennsylvania
4 program.
5 So, honestly, we're gonna continue to
6 support both of them. But the Pennsylvania
7 program, quite honestly, has lacked for promotion
8 for the last few years.
9 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: Thank you,
10 Mr. Chairman.
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you.
12 Representative Grove.
13 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Thank you, Mr.
14 Chairman, and thank you for the 150th as York
15 County was a beneficiary of hotel stays overnight.
16 It was a great venture just in the general region
17 here. So, I appreciate that. My hats off to Dan;
18 thank you as well.
19 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: You're welcome.
20 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: There were two
21 issues brought up looking at dedicated funding for
22 tourism in the future. Obviously, with dedicated
23 funding, it's dedicated; you know, it's going to be
24 there. Good side is great economy, revenue
25 increase. Down side, and I don't know, I haven't
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1 seen any data to see how insulated it is in a down
2 economy and whether revenues actually came in,
3 particularly we're gonna have in 2008, 2009 and
4 2010 fiscal years.
5 But, House Bill 1635, the Missouri
6 model, is there any data to see how that worked in
7 a down economy, see revenues coming in and out?
8 MR. FULTON: Great question. Norris is,
9 really, our resident expert on the Missouri model,
10 but -- so correct me if I'm wrong. I think some
11 lessons learned. Norris has been part of a task
12 force that we've had for a year or so to look at
13 some of these models. So he's been helpful in
14 terms of lessons learned from the Missouri model.
15 I do believe that they set a minimum
16 funding level, so when the economy was down, they
17 were guaranteed, at least, I think it was
18 $3 million; somewhere in that neighborhood. So,
19 there's some assurances that there's gonna be some
20 funding.
21 A lot of the conversations around that
22 model are to plan for the rainy day. So, as the
23 economy's doing good -- The reason that the
24 industry likes that, the Missouri model, you're
25 rewarding yourself for your success. We believe
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1 that marketing works. We know that it works. So,
2 to demonstrate that, as you grow the revenues, then
3 you're rewarded for that and the state benefits as
4 well.
5 So that, in my opinion, is one that's
6 kind of risen to the top. We certainly still have
7 some conversations in terms of what would we do
8 differently than Missouri; how would we protect
9 those dollars. In a down economy, how do you still
10 assure you have some funding. I think, again,
11 maybe putting some of those dollars away in good
12 times to make sure you can help afford.
13 But the key thing here is getting the
14 private sector engaged, too. We do recognize that
15 we have a role in helping to fund this as well, and
16 I think we're prepared to try to do that.
17 The House Bill 1635 that Chairman Stern
18 has introduced, there's not necessarily any
19 protections in that from a down economy. You're
20 getting dollars from that one percent from the
21 state's six percent that those dollars are down
22 that day, that may be down as well. Those are the
23 two that would be recap on. There's potential.
24 There still certainly needs to be some (voice
25 trails off) --
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1 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: I haven't looked
2 at specific hotel tax numbers to see how that
3 worked. Obviously, 2008 and 2009 were down years
4 in collections.
5 MR. FULTON: I think it was 200 million
6 last year for the state six percent. $200 million
7 was generated by that state percent. That's
8 another reason it didn't grow. Sometimes we get
9 caught up in a conversation about funding, what's
10 happening at the county and regional level, which
11 is very important. But this also benefits the
12 state.
13 As more visitors come, more heads in
14 beds, that six percent goes back to the state.
15 It's a way to win. That's really why we received
16 in public -- more a public/private partnership
17 because we both have a stake in the game, you
18 know.
19 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: One other
20 question. Obviously, Gettysburg also has some
21 outlet stores which are great location being on the
22 border of Maryland, and we don't have a sales tax
23 on clothing which Chairman Stern highlighted as a
24 great benefit. Obviously, Adams County is a border
25 county; York's a border county.
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1 Do you see any detrimental impact of
2 doing an expansion of sales tax base into clothing?
3 Do you think that will have a negative impact on
4 Adams County, and the state in general?
5 MR. FLOWERS: I think, first of all, we
6 understand that shopping is one of the top things
7 that visitors do regardless where they go shopping.
8 Will it be have a negative impact? I think more so
9 on the regional visitors from Maryland, adjoining
10 states that come in happen to shop. Overall, at
11 the end of the day, probably not as much.
12 MR. FULTON: That's certainly some
13 concern I think of Erie, too. John Oliver is
14 always talking about the significant part of
15 visitors come to Erie and it's for shopping. So,
16 we certainly want to be careful that we're not
17 deterring people from coming and spending their
18 dollars.
19 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Thank you, Mr.
20 Chairman.
21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you.
22 Representative Oberlander.
23 REPRESENTATIVE OBERLANDER: Thank you,
24 Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your testimony. I
25 certainly agree with you that Pennsylvania is a
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1 very diverse and beautiful state with much to
2 offer.
3 My question is really to you, Mr.
4 Fulton, when you talk about the private/public
5 partnerships. It seems to me that the state has
6 that private/public partnership in place now and
7 had really started funding our local tourism
8 promotion agencies through the bed tax some 10
9 years ago. Mainly, I believe, because we want to
10 make sure that we're getting our fair share, and we
11 believe we know our areas best, and the state's
12 role is then to promote the state.
13 MR. FULTON: Correct.
14 REPRESENTATIVE OBERLANDER: Can you give
15 me a better idea of what you expect might be the
16 significant funding amount that you had mentioned,
17 and what role would those local organizations play
18 in that thought process?
19 MR. FULTON: Sure. That's a great
20 question. We haven't really talked today -- We are
21 also working and advocating to protect and, you
22 know, continue those dollars that come in from the
23 local share of that room tax. Those are critical
24 dollars for the local CBB and for the stakeholder.
25 We want to try to create at the state
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1 level a type of partnership that exists at the
2 county. I think Gettysburg is a great example of
3 what went on in the Civil War in 150th in terms of
4 bringing the stakeholders together in determining
5 the brand and new approach and how the dollars are
6 gonna be spent.
7 We haven't seen that at the state level
8 for quite some years. We've felt -- And this goes
9 back to over a number of administrations. We felt
10 that, as the dollars -- So, for example, in 2000,
11 $44 million was available to the state to market
12 and promote the state. Some went into a grant
13 program, for regional and local initiatives, grant
14 program for the CBBs, and then the rest went to the
15 state tourism office to promote things like the
16 Civil War Trails and the other things that they
17 were doing.
18 As those dollars started to go away,
19 that partnership seemed to begin to erode too. As
20 Norris mentioned, sometimes it's personalities;
21 something it's just not agreeing on what -- you
22 know. So, we don't feel there's been a true
23 public/private partnership at the state level the
24 way that we would like to see it, so we like to
25 replicate what happens at the local level. So,
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1 this public/private partnership would do that.
2 Your question about how this benefits at
3 the local and regional level, it gets them more
4 engaged in what's happening at the state level. We
5 all agree, for the most part within our industry,
6 that -- go back to the example of the mall, we have
7 to get them to the mall. What Norris and his peers
8 are doing; what Jane is doing in HeritagePA,
9 they're doing a great job, but they have limited
10 resources and they're really specific to certain
11 parts of the state. So we need somebody -- an
12 organization at the state level that has private
13 sector at the table.
14 This whole public/private partnership is
15 heavy on the private sector helping to facilitate
16 their own success. So, the Janes of the world and
17 the Norrises and others have a seat at that table
18 to help determine the brand, create more
19 consistency in what's happening at the state level.
20 And that trickles down, and there's more linkage
21 between local events; whether it's wine trails or
22 Civil War trails or whatever. That connection has
23 really been missing. And money is certainly an
24 important part of that, but it's also about the
25 partnerships as well.
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1 The dollar figure, as I said, we're at a
2 high of 44 million. You look around at the
3 surrounding states, New York is at 60; New Jersey
4 at 35. So, in our mind, 15, $20 million, 25
5 million, in a perfect world it's more than that. I
6 would think that that -- that gets Pennsylvania
7 back being more competitive and helps to prevent
8 what we feel is a downturn to Chairman Markosek's
9 point, and that is, we have been at a high, but
10 we're starting to slip.
11 REPRESENTATIVE OBERLANDER: Thank you.
12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH:
13 Representative Sonney.
14 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Thank you, Mr.
15 Chairman.
16 I think your only dedicated funding
17 source is the hotel tax, correct, which is mostly
18 local?
19 MS. SHEFFIELD: Yes.
20 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Actually, it's
21 all local.
22 I was on the Tourism Committee several
23 years ago, and the bottom dropped out on the
24 tourism funding several years ago. And I know that
25 all of the organizations have been working
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1 diligently from that time to try and come up with a
2 way to infuse more money into tourism promotion.
3 It seems to me three or four years ago you were
4 looking at a different model. I can't remember if
5 it was Florida or California, but it was where the
6 industry itself, I believe, was taxed or agreed to
7 contribute in some way in one of those states that
8 brought those promotional dollars in from the
9 actual industry.
10 I was a little bit surprised when I
11 heard this morning that we're looking back at the
12 state funding, or at least adding to the funding
13 for the statewide tourism promotion. I was just
14 curious if you know why we changed? What happened?
15 Is the industry not willing, or we just haven't
16 found the right model and the right partnership to
17 get them engaged and willing to support some other
18 revenue stream?
19 MR. FULTON: No. I think it's all of
20 those things. When we started this conversation
21 two or three years ago, we looked at all the
22 states. We really wanted to be diligent and not
23 bury our head in the sand in terms of what other
24 states are doing for their success. But most
25 states are still getting all public dollars.
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1 And again, we recognize from the
2 industry that we need to be a partner and helping
3 to fund our own efforts. We realize that the days
4 of complete public funding are gone.
5 We're open to other things. I think
6 some of the things came off the table. As an
7 example, one of the states, North Dakota or South
8 Dakota has a one percent tourism tax. The industry
9 all got together and said, look, we're willing to
10 have all of us share in a little pain in the spirit
11 of marketing and improving the state and driving
12 visitors.
13 Some things came off the table just
14 because things that we thought the Administration
15 wouldn't support; not that those couldn't go back
16 on the table. The idea with the Missouri model is
17 the only dollars that are grown, so we're not
18 taking anything from current revenues that the
19 state is realizing, but we're committed to help
20 growing the revenues, and then we share in those
21 revenues with the state.
22 I think the one percent of the state,
23 six percent, I've gotten a lot of push-back on
24 that; again, because those are current revenue, and
25 in these difficult times, there's a hesitancy to
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1 give up those dollars.
2 So, we've mentioned those three, but
3 we're certainly still open. It's just, I think
4 we've shifted based on the political climate and
5 what we think -- where we think the support will
6 be. There's generally been support for the
7 Missouri-type of model, again, because we're not
8 asking for current revenue. We're committing to
9 help grow and then get rewarded for that.
10 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Do you find that
11 when you talked to the businesses about them
12 supporting it, that they really want -- If they're
13 going to support it, they want their money to be
14 local, and you spend local, you know, through your
15 local convention centers where they feel they're
16 gonna get more bang for their buck? In other
17 words, do you get push-back because, if you're
18 contributing to a statewide campaign, your
19 particular restaurant or your particular store will
20 never be mentioned.
21 MR. FULTON: I think Norris can add -- I
22 think that's still the priority, certainly. At the
23 end of the day, the local counties and regions
24 that's a priority. But, there is a recognition and
25 acknowledgment that, again, going back to the mall
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1 example, these counties will still be successful,
2 but it may limit their success if there's not a
3 broader effort to try -- especially international
4 visitors who spend more traditionally, and
5 surprisingly, they do travel throughout the state.
6 I think Philadelphia, Pittsburgh to some extent,
7 and Gettysburg and others. But, you know, try to
8 help protect and support what's happening with the
9 local room tax and those dollars staying locally,
10 but trying to find some money to broaden a bigger
11 picture.
12 It was mentioned earlier, Pennsylvania,
13 we're doing no advertising around this country.
14 We're doing no advertising internationally to draw.
15 And we haven't even talked about meetings and
16 conventions. A lot of time we tend to talk about
17 leisure travel, but meetings and conventions are a
18 huge part of it.
19 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: Very quickly for
20 Mr. Flowers. Representative Moul and I both worked
21 diligently to increase our local bed tax. Can you
22 tell me what kind of impact that's had down here?
23 MR. FLOWERS: Yes, and then thank you
24 very much for your support for that and
25 Representative Moul.
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1 First of all, it was in response to us
2 losing state funding. For Gettysburg and Adams
3 County, a very small CBB in revenue compared to
4 others. It will net us about $600,000 additional
5 monies. However, four years ago, we were receiving
6 about $350,000 from the state, so we've lost that.
7 So, in new money we've seen about a quarter of a
8 million dollars, but it's going straight -- it's
9 going all straight to marketing. It's to increase
10 our market share.
11 To answer questions earlier about, well,
12 things look good; what's gonna happen? It's about
13 losing market share. You can keep looking at
14 revenues increasing, but when people start coming,
15 it suddenly drops to zero. So, we're spending that
16 money a hundred percent on our marketing dollars.
17 Just one other point to finish up with
18 what Rob said. Both of these issues, I think, are
19 attached at the hip. Your question about the money
20 and would we support it locally and so on? Part of
21 the problem we have locally, and I know my other
22 colleagues agree with me, is the leadership on the
23 state level making those decisions where the state
24 money's being spent. I'm sorry. This has not been
25 professional tourism people. We support having
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1 professionals that know the industry, know how to
2 spend the money and get the return on investment.
3 We will support that. I don't think we've seen
4 that the last eight years that I've been here.
5 REPRESENTATIVE SONNEY: I agree. Thank
6 you, Mr. Chairman.
7 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH:
8 Representative Petri.
9 REPRESENTATIVE PETRI: Thank you. I'm
10 gonna ask a somewhat confusing question just
11 because I'm trying to keep a time schedule.
12 Let me first say, Mr. Flowers, my wife,
13 son and I did a tour; actually chose the Seg tours;
14 there were hundreds, literally; 10 that we could
15 have chosen. She picked the Seg tour, and I think
16 it was a world-class experience.
17 MR. FLOWERS: Thank you.
18 REPRESENTATIVE PETRI: I mean, across
19 the board; not just because of the method which
20 appealed to our family, but I think you were able
21 to control the message. The message every visitor
22 gets is essentially the same and it's done in a
23 high professional level. And when we go back home,
24 you know, we have volunteers, and the like, that
25 may not be quite as effective, but I think the fact
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1 that you had a world-class experience will ensure
2 you get repeat customers.
3 My questions are really gonna be
4 directed to Jane, if she can help me, because I was
5 intrigued about the map. I know about the heritage
6 areas. But, can you tell me, locally, how -- and
7 I'll give you a whole thread of questions and you
8 go with it wherever you want.
9 How do the heritage areas -- I mean, who
10 really controls the particular area? What state
11 agencies help or don't help with respect to
12 messaging and marketing? I know you mentioned DCED
13 and you mentioned DCNR. I didn't hear you mention
14 THMC, so I didn't know if meant they were involved,
15 not involved; helpful, not helpful. But, who's in
16 charge and how do they coordinate?
17 And I'll share with you my common
18 experience. When I go into Philadelphia on
19 business, I'll invariably try to work through the
20 National Visitor Center. And when you look around
21 at the literature, initially, you might think,
22 well, it's a national park so they're only
23 promoting national parks.
24 But then you see other local, prominent
25 museums and the like that are promoted. And then
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1 you start looking and you don't see any literature
2 for Longwood Gardens, my good friend to my right.
3 You don't see anything for Washington Crossing Park
4 in my district; and my district you don't see
5 anything for Valley Forge even.
6 So, one of the problems that I think we
7 have from a regional point of view, and maybe you
8 have the solutions already, how are we coordinating
9 the message? The visitor doesn't care if it's a
10 national park, a state park. They want to go out
11 and have a good experience, and they want us to
12 promote those interrelated experiences. What are
13 your thoughts, generally?
14 MS. SHEFFIELD: Well, as far as the
15 control is concerned, the heritage areas were all
16 birthed out of a process involving local business
17 leadership, municipal leadership, the general
18 public. So, they were created based upon an image
19 and a heritage-related theme that resonated with
20 the communities. And along with that, projects
21 were identified and prioritized and symboled into a
22 management action plan, which we continue to
23 implement and then update going through the same
24 process.
25 The control, from the inception, which
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1 was 1989, was through DCNR. At that time, there
2 was a very strong interagency task force that met
3 and reviewed these draft management action plans
4 from different regions; and not only gave their
5 input, but bought into that process. So by doing
6 that, there have been, even though DCNR it's sort
7 of the -- Of course, then, it wasn't DCNR. It was
8 DCNA at that point. And then when DCNA split, DCNR
9 became the home for heritage areas.
10 But, because of that process, we were
11 very fortunate, in that, we could get support from
12 every involved agency: You know, PHMC, the
13 Department of Education, obviously PennDOT, DCED,
14 DCNR, so there was a great synergy because those
15 agencies were consulted; they gave input. So, it
16 was part of the magic of the program, because it
17 was very dependent upon partnerships between state
18 agencies, as well as private and local monies and
19 monies from the federal government. So that's how
20 these regions were established.
21 Now, of course, these management action
22 plans, after being blessed by this interagency task
23 force, each one had to go before the Governor at
24 that time, and the Governor was the final approver;
25 and then the heritage areas became designated
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1 heritage areas in Pennsylvania; growing from one in
2 '89, '90 to 12 by the early 2000's. So, that's how
3 they were formed.
4 Our main source of state money currently
5 in terms of a yearly basis is through the line item
6 under DCNR, but that doesn't represent in many
7 cases the majority of resources that come to the
8 table, especially when you're dealing with
9 construction projects that can involve PennDOT
10 monies or DCED monies. So there's really a variety
11 of ways in which money flows to the heritage areas,
12 goes out to partners and projects are created.
13 The opportunity working with the
14 Pennsylvania Association of Travel and Tourism is
15 that, we have a representative at that table. I
16 think there are a lot of issues in terms of
17 marketing. Certainly, marketing the heritage
18 areas, I don't think we've done a very good job of
19 it.
20 We've been very humble from the
21 beginning, in that, our goal was to enable
22 communities to do projects that were important to
23 them. And when it came time to celebrate it, they
24 were celebrating their success. That was a big
25 plus, and I think it really benefited the
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1 communities. But then at the end of the day or the
2 decade and you look back, and people say to you,
3 what have you done lately, and you really haven't
4 taken -- we have not taken advantage of our
5 successes and not from the past.
6 We hope that through the creation of
7 PATT, we can look at better coordinating with the
8 overall tourism messaging and better integrate
9 what heritage areas offer across the state.
10 Because, as I said, the testimony, there aren't
11 really any county or district lines. It's a themed
12 experience.
13 And the way that you get folks to travel
14 through that-- I know you'll be receiving a package
15 about the Main Line Canal Greenway--is that you
16 create opportunities that are related. Whether
17 it's an artisan trail taking you through state
18 parks, marketplaces to buy art, places to eat,
19 places to stay, a road, or if it's a recreational
20 resource that's connected like the Main Line Canal,
21 or the Delaware and Lehigh or the Schuylkill River
22 Trail, you brand that experience, and that takes
23 the person from place to place, so they stay longer
24 and they spend more money.
25 REPRESENTATIVE PETRI: Thank you for the
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1 education.
2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you.
3 Representative Gary Day.
4 REPRESENTATIVE DAY: Thank you, Mr.
5 Chairman. I have two questions. The first one's
6 designed to be very short and just to gather some
7 information.
8 Economic impact can be measured in
9 dollars generated against dollars spent. And this
10 committee, we look at Pennsylvania dollars and
11 decide or recommend to the full House how it should
12 be spent. So, we would be financially immature if
13 we didn't look at a 7-to-1 investment and put it
14 into that.
15 The problem is, I'm a former CBB member
16 in Lehigh Valley, so I understand and appreciate
17 everything all three of you talked about. But the
18 problem becomes the variables used to calculate
19 that; every professional and every region to
20 calculate and defend 150-to-1 return, right? We
21 can do that. Usually, I always found that when I
22 did it my way, a 4-to-1 or a 7-to-1 was one that I
23 wanted to try to fund that. So, my short -- That
24 just sets up a very short question.
25 I'm interested -- I was involved years
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1 ago. Is there now a widely-accepted group or
2 organization or method which calculates the
3 economic impact or multiplier? I was just curious,
4 if you know, is there a group out there that does
5 that or a particular method?
6 MR. FULTON: There are groups. We use
7 the numbers you saw. In this chart we use -- the
8 state uses --Who's the state's firm now?
9 MR. FLOWERS: Well, they haven't done it
10 in two years.
11 MR. FULTON: We rely on the state's
12 research firm. Their name slipped my mind right
13 now. Like I said, usually they're 18 months, two
14 years behind. There are companies -
15 To answer your question, there are
16 companies out there that do it, and we agree with
17 your multiplier. We felt very confident. At least
18 we see different numbers.
19 MR. FLOWERS: I think that's a great
20 question. Off the top of my head, there's like
21 three major firms. I know MMG, Longwoods. And I
22 think the state used Longwoods a couple years ago.
23 But I think it goes back, in my opinion, and
24 there's probably more, but I'll comment. There's
25 three major things that the State Tourism Office
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1 should be responsible for and take absolute lead
2 on. One is carrying the brand; creating the brand,
3 selling the brand, owner of the brand, and working
4 with us in partnership to promote that outside.
5 The other thing is international
6 marketing. Even though it's probably statewide
7 about 5 percent of our market share, it's millions
8 of dollars. Even in Adams County, it's only about
9 two percent of our market, but still that's two or
10 $3 million that our local businesses are receiving.
11 The third thing is research. The state
12 has to do the research and use the best they can
13 find so that we can use that and the state to make
14 good business decisions on.
15 REPRESENTATIVE DAY: I appreciate those
16 answers. Just to make a comment. $2 67 return is a
17 great marketing number for this committee or a
18 financial committee that looks at -- What I'm
19 trying to do is say, you have a cheerleader in me,
20 but you also have a financial person. When I turn
21 back to this committee, I need to be able to say
22 that my variables and my calculation are apples to
23 apples across the different things that we measure
24 in the state. I'm just giving you kind of a key
25 toward funding through this group.
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1 I have another question that I wanted to
2 ask. Rather than increase a tax or divert existing
3 dollars -- And forgive me, Rob, I know you know
4 this issue well. But if this isn't an issue that
5 everyone is prepared to talk about -
6 Could you explain how many dollars are
7 slipping through a current loophole now in the form
8 of Internet intermediaries; that they're not paying
9 a tax to the Commonwealth; that, if they did, it
10 wouldn't require a tax increase; it wouldn't
11 require diversion of existing dollars; how much
12 that is and what we could do about that?
13 MR. FULTON: The online travel company
14 issue is the one that you're referring that to, and
15 that's, the online travel companies aren't paying
16 the difference what they sell; you know, what they
17 get the room for through the hotel versus what they
18 sell to the consumer. That difference is not being
19 taxed as we believe it should. We think it's about
20 10 to $15 million. We think there's estimates
21 higher than that. We have not been able to get any
22 hard numbers yet out of the Department of Revenue.
23 This is an issue we've been talking with
24 Chairman Stern about as well because the bills are
25 in his committee. That's definitely something that
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1 we're interested in. Other states have done that;
2 they've closed out the loopholes and now provided.
3 It's significant revenue back. As you said, it's
4 revenue that's out; that's not being collected.
5 That is a way also to fund. We've talked about
6 using -- close out that loophole and using that
7 fund for tourism; to promote tourism.
8 REPRESENTATIVE DAY: Thank you for your
9 answers. Mr. Chairman, I would be remiss to not to
10 say that, at the end of this month we'll be having
11 a hearing to close that loophole.
12 Thank you.
13 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you,
14 Representative. Representative Milne.
15 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: Thank you, Mr.
16 Chairman.
17 I wanted to just raise a couple
18 questions in relation to employment metrics
19 Chairman Stern of the Tourism Committee cited a
20 very impressive figure; that we're moving towards
21 about a half a million in Pennsylvania in some way,
22 shape or form to take advantage of employment
23 opportunities through tourism. I guess two
24 questions that I'm curious to put forth for your
25 thoughts.
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1 One is, does that macro figure mask any
2 challenges we might want to be aware of as a
3 committee or a legislative body? Are there areas
4 of skill sets or regions of the state or some
5 other clarity gaps that would actually help us to
6 be even that much better prepared as a state and
7 take advantage of whatever funding sources do
8 emerge from all of these discussions, in terms of
9 workforce development kind of question.
10 MR. FULTON: Yes. That's another issue.
11 There's the state department, high-priority
12 occupation, HPO, it's something I didn't mention
13 today. It's a significant issue on our radar.
14 That's one way to answer your question, and that
15 is, the industry does not recognize -
16 Travel and tourism industry in
17 Pennsylvania is not recognized as a high-priority
18 occupation. Because that is the case, it prevents
19 some benefits, whether it's low-interest loans;
20 different things that businesses could take -
21 retraining their employees, those type of things.
22 We're actually working with DCED to try
23 to correct that. They've been very helpful; and
24 also, again, a conversation we've had with Chairman
25 Stern of the Tourism Committee. That's one way to
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1 go to try to close some of the loopholes because
2 there's areas of the state, probably more than
3 others, that are impacted by that.
4 This whole idea of workforce development
5 issues and training and all those things, I think
6 our industry misses out on a lot of those
7 opportunities because we don't have that
8 classification.
9 The other thing, from an education
10 perspective, which again, we have not done a very
11 good job, this industry is not typical -- The
12 low-paying wages or the hourly employees that
13 sometimes we are seeing, certainly those in high
14 school and the students, certainly they're working
15 during the summers and earning an hourly rate.
16 But, some of the numbers in this study will show
17 you that the wages are high; they are family-
18 sustaining jobs. We need to do a better job of
19 educating the public.
20 And to some extent, I think also the
21 General Assembly and Governor's Office to show
22 that, again, as you invest in travel and tourism,
23 and as more visitors come, jobs are created and
24 those are family-sustaining jobs. So those are the
25 kind of things we're gonna be working on.
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1 Marketing is important, but economic development
2 and workforce development issues around our
3 industry are significant.
4 And also, just not seeing the industry,
5 so you see a hotel, so there might be 20, 25, 50
6 employees at that property. But it's all the other
7 ancillary jobs that are out there that service that
8 property; that if property was gone or they weren't
9 able to open, it would impact those other jobs,
10 too.
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you.
12 Representative Mustio.
13 REPRESENTATIVE MUSTIO: Thank you,
14 Chairman, and thank you for your testimony. I'd
15 like to ask a couple follow-up questions or make
16 some comments. Then if you could maybe make
17 clarifications on the statement I'm making.
18 Representative Grove had talked about
19 marketing funding initially, and Chairman Markosek
20 had talked about whether you need additional
21 funding with the levels that are identified in the
22 graphs here.
23 Would it be a fair statement to make
24 that, in a down economy it's almost more critical
25 to have proper marketing dollars because you might
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1 need to change your message because people are
2 maybe not coming from out of state but are
3 traveling more locally?
4 MR. FULTON: Yes. Yes, that's a fair
5 statement. Yes, absolutely.
6 REPRESENTATIVE MUSTIO: Seems to me like
7 Gettysburg may be insulated. But, what do you
8 think about Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and the
9 Little League World Series Museum, for example?
10 Hotel room occupancy rates might be through the
11 roof, but as I travel through that area, I see a
12 lot of Marcellus Shale hotel occupancy where
13 they're buying up entire hotels. Are those hotel
14 rooms sold included in these statewide numbers?
15 MR. FULTON: Yes.
16 REPRESENTATIVE MUSTIO: So that might be
17 skewing the -- Would it be fair to say that might
18 be skewing the numbers and say, it looks like hotel
19 rates are -- room occupancy rates are up, but it's
20 not necessarily because of tourism?
21 MR. FULTON: Correct.
22 REPRESENTATIVE MUSTIO: Then I think one
23 final comment. Is it correct in saying that if a
24 Marcellus Shale company comes in and rents out the
25 entire hotel for more than 30 days, they do not pay
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1 tax on those room rates?
2 MR. FULTON: Correct.
3 REPRESENTATIVE MUSTIO: And is most of
4 that tax then go locally, or is a share of that
5 doesn't come to fund state programs?
6 MR. FULTON: During those 30 days?
7 Yeah. They -- If it's a long-term stay, that -
8 there's a local share to that tax it stays locally
9 and then the state's 6 percent goes. After that 30
10 days they're not paying tax.
11 REPRESENTATIVE MUSTIO: Neither state
12 nor local?
13 MR. FULTON: No. And that is another
14 issue which we are looking into not deviating. But
15 the 30-day rule is something that we're looking at.
16 REPRESENTATIVE MUSTIO: It's almost like
17 an apartment building as opposed to a motel/hotel?
18 MR. FULTON: Correct.
19 REPRESENTATIVE MUSTIO: Thank you.
20 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you.
21 Representative Dan Moul, our host legislator, would
22 like to have the mic for a few moments.
23 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: And I promise,
24 guys, I will make this short. I've got a
25 reputation down here of being a little long-winded,
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1 but it's a problem.
2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: It's growing.
3 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: Thank you. I
4 really appreciate everything that you've shared
5 with us. I think, basically, rather than a
6 question, just a statement, and the importance of
7 what Chairman Stern said about getting the state
8 involved at the state level with the people that
9 are in the industry.
10 Twenty-five years in the building
11 industry, I never tried to plaster any of my own
12 houses. I would do a lousy job of it. That's why
13 I hire professional plasters. I hire professional
14 plumbers. I hire pros to let pros do what pros do
15 best.
16 But, with tourism at the state level,
17 you never know who you're going to get, and we
18 expect professional people. We have professional
19 people in the industry trying to work with,
20 sometimes, people that aren't related to the
21 industry. I'm trying to be very nice with my words
22 here.
23 But, the importance of a statewide
24 promotion, it's really great when people from
25 Philly come to Gettysburg and spend money; and when
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1 people from Gettysburg go to Philly and other
2 parts. That shuffling money inside the state is
3 great.
4 But, the real big score, the big win is
5 when you bring people in from outside the state.
6 They come here; they let their money here and they
7 go home. That's the huge score in tourism. In
8 every aspect of the game, that's the huge score.
9 TPAs, in general -- We're probably more
10 fortunate than most in Pennsylvania here in
11 Gettysburg. But, TPAs, in general, don't have the
12 funding or the wherewithal to buy TV time, and the
13 nationwide or the international publications to do
14 their advertising in. That's where the state would
15 come in; to advertise the whole state.
16 And that's why it's so important, I
17 feel, from someone on the tourism side of this, for
18 the state to be involved; to get back involved in
19 some way, shape or form and utilize the
20 professionals that are in the game to make
21 Pennsylvania a destination from all over the world.
22 And we can't do it little bites at a time. The
23 state has got to get involved like some of these
24 other states that we heard of.
25 Any businessman, and I know we have a
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1 lot of 'em sitting at this table; any business
2 person, I'm sorry, would be foolish to turn down an
3 offer of investing a few dollars to get more
4 dollars back, and that's what we're doing. And
5 it's proven, whether Representative Day says it;
6 whether it's 250 to 1 or whether it's 4 to 1. Any
7 day of the week, if somebody offered to take 10
8 bucks of mine and give me 40 back later on, I'm
9 giving them 10 bucks, guaranteed. Why don't we do
10 that? Just a little food for thought. Thank you.
11 I promised I would be short.
12 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
13 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: And thank
14 you, Representative.
15 Most of our line items we never -- we
16 see four dollars back for every dollar we get. We
17 have a -- which leads me to my next question
18 regarding the film tax credit.
19 I'd like to ask Mr. Fulton on his
20 opinion on the film tax credit business, which is
21 about $60 million currently in our current budget
22 and how that affects tourism in Pennsylvania.
23 MR. FULTON: Yeah, that's a great
24 question. It does. The films that are filmed in
25 this state, it's a growing market. I know -- In
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1 fact, you mentioned Berks County. Berks County has
2 their own CBB created their own film office there.
3 It's certainly an important part of the industry.
4 Our argument has just always been that,
5 tourism overall, what we're talking about from a
6 state perspective is a much bigger piece of the
7 pie. Film is an important part of that.
8 So, we would like to see funding levels
9 at the same level in terms of -- One of Chairman
10 Stern's ideas has been a tourism tax credit similar
11 to a film tax credit where organizations can buy
12 those tax credits and then support that industry.
13 So, we certainly wanted to see the film
14 tax continue, tax credit, and the film office
15 continue to be supported. We do believe it's an
16 important part. But, we're just wanting to see
17 overall funding for the broader industry; you know,
18 elevated as well because that's $37 billion. I
19 don't know if the film industry brings in the
20 state. I forget the number; maybe 100,
21 $200 million, but we still have a 37-billion-dollar
22 pie to try to succeed. So, I'd like to have more
23 collaboration for that.
24 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Just for the
25 record, the members of this committee supported an
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1 increase in the heritage and other parks at
2 $2.250 million last year. That was a hundred
3 percent increase over the year before and the year
4 before; of roughly a 2-million-dollar increase over
5 the year before that, and a 2.250 increase over the
6 year before that. So, we certainly -- This
7 committee fought hard to keep that funding on the
8 table and get part of your final budget. I was
9 that glad Jane was here to explain to the committee
10 how that money is being used.
11 As far as the tourism, in general,
12 Chairman Stern mentioned a 3-million-dollar figure.
13 Last year marketing to attract tourists in the
14 General Fund was 7.35. I'd like to ask Rob, can
15 you explain to this committee the difference
16 between the $3 million that Chairman Stern was
17 talking about as compared to the $7.4 million that
18 we appropriated?
19 MR. FULTON: Yeah. So, the 7.4 was what
20 was appropriated in the line item. Some of those
21 dollars, I think about 4.4, are going to support
22 other projects. They're not going to the State
23 Tourism Office for the purpose of promoting the
24 state. The tourism, as a matter of fact, I think
25 is getting about that 3-million-dollar figure. 4.4
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1 is going to support other initiatives.
2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Other
3 initiatives, other tourism areas; I mean, it's not
4 leaving the tourism industry. So, it may be going
5 to Gettysburg; it may go to Philadelphia; it may be
6 going to Pittsburgh. But, this tourism industry is
7 so diverse, very similar to our state. There's so
8 many -- It's like a corporate structure, okay, and
9 various funding sources.
10 We met the Pennsylvania director last
11 night, and she came up with another phase. I don't
12 know if this is gonna be another new term for
13 Pennsylvania, but Pennsylvania Has It All. I don't
14 know if that's starting to generate a buzz
15 throughout the Commonwealth. But we're very
16 fortunate here. We do have the Liberty Bell in
17 Philadelphia. We do have the Battlefield of
18 Gettysburg. That's not going to move. So, we just
19 have to attract folks here.
20 I was always under the impression that
21 when we appropriated $7.4 million that we were
22 sending it to experts; at least that's who came to
23 my office and lobbied me for that money. These
24 were people that were close to the Battle of
25 Gettysburg, and people that were close to the
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1 Liberty Bell and the Independence Mall, the
2 National Convention Center, and then you have all
3 that federal funding as well.
4 I mean, this is a very complicated and
5 diverse industry. Would you agree with that, Mr.
6 Fulton?
7 MR. FULTON: Absolutely.
8 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Okay. We
9 could try to put all these diverse actions
10 together, but I don't know if that would be good
11 for this state.
12 MR. FULTON: Yeah, I think you're making
13 an excellent point. Our goal, as I said, the
14 creation of this association is try to bring the
15 industry together. It is extremely diverse and at
16 times extremely fragmented.
17 So, on these bigger-picture issues
18 towards funding and the brand and marketing, the
19 state would like to work with the HeritagePAs and
20 the wine association. There's 24 tourism
21 associations in the state. And we hope that
22 through this Pennsylvania tourism partnership, this
23 public-private partnership, that they become the
24 entity that can make those decisions and represent
25 that diversity. That way, there you have an
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1 organization that's responsible in working with the
2 partners. That's what we're working on.
3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Because, the
4 film tax credit, which I have always supported -- I
5 didn't support uncapping it, because the truth of
6 the matter is, nationally, a film tax credit gets
7 you about 20 percent on your dollar. That's
8 national figures. It's not the type of figures
9 that Representative Moul would like to receive
10 back. That's what we are -
11 We're actually, really, helping that
12 film industry as an incentive to come to
13 Pennsylvania to help the hotels and the local
14 restaurants as these actors and this film
15 production company comes to Pennsylvania and then
16 they leave. It's a short burst of revenue for the
17 Commonwealth. But the state is really the economic
18 engine that is creating that in order to come here.
19 I know folks from Lancaster have talked
20 about the tremendous films that have come to
21 Lancaster County over the last years. I know that
22 film industry feel that way. We're trying to make
23 it more secure from year to year because they spend
24 that money so fast; that film industry has films
25 that go through the 60-million-dollar tax credit
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1 like that. So we have to keep a close eye -
2 There's a lot of industries that have been
3 established here in Pennsylvania of post-production
4 companies that have tremendous paying jobs
5 throughout; in Pittsburgh and the Philadelphia area
6 as well.
7 I just want to thank all three of you
8 for your testimony here today and for your input
9 and your professionalism that you brought to the
10 hearing today.
11 We're gonna take a 5-minute break, and
12 we're gonna hear from more people. Thank you so
13 much.
14 (At 10:55 a.m., short recess occurred;
15 reconvened at 11 a.m.).
16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you.
17 I'd like to continue our hearing on promoting the
18 tourism funding here in Pennsylvania to grow
19 Pennsylvania's economy. I'm happy to announce that
20 we have two professionals with us today, Olga
21 Herbert, Executive Director, Lincoln Highway
22 Heritage Corridor, welcome.
23 MS. HERBERT: Thank you.
24 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: And also Rich
25 Farr, the Executive Director of Rabbittransit
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1 Authority. How about ladies before gentlemen.
2 MS. HERBERT: How many of you are
3 juggling two different pair of glasses? I can't
4 bring myself to the bifocals, so I'm gonna keep
5 flipping back and forth. Ask one thing twice, I
6 also want to join Jane in thanking Chairman Adolph
7 and the committee and the legislature for
8 reestablishing a line item for heritage areas.
9 While we've talked a lot already about
10 tourism and promotion and marketing, heritage areas
11 really create the infrastructure, so we are almost
12 like the developers for those emerging visitor-
13 ready sites. Sometimes, everyone thinks that they
14 have a little historic house that's visitor ready,
15 and we know that they need -- sometimes they need a
16 little more. We help them with that. Sometimes
17 there needs to be a new creation of a tourist
18 destination, and we can help with that. So, I
19 always think we help the tourism promotion
20 directors; help make their job easier and help make
21 the destinations easier to market for themselves.
22 I work along the Lincoln Highway
23 Heritage Corridor, and Gettysburg is certainly the
24 anchor community along this 200-mile corridor. You
25 don't have my testimony. I see you all looking for
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1 it. You'll get it. I have it in a folder for you
2 after.
3 The Lincoln Highway, and just -- How
4 many travel on the Lincoln Highway today to get
5 here? (Raise of hands). How many of you know the
6 history of the Lincoln Highway? That's not unusual
7 because, when I took this position almost 18 years
8 ago, most of the communities that were on the
9 Lincoln Highway did not know they were on the
10 Lincoln Highway. So it's pretty difficult to try
11 to promote and celebrate and preserve a heritage
12 that even the residents aren't familiar with.
13 While we're all about Gettysburg and 150th today,
14 I'm all about the Lincoln Highway.
15 2013 is also the 100th anniversary of
16 the Lincoln Highway. And, what's the big deal
17 about this? Well, the Lincoln Highway was the
18 first road across America. It started in New York
19 City at Times Square, came down through New Jersey,
20 all the way across Pennsylvania connecting our two
21 major cities here in the state, and all the way to
22 San Francisco. You can still drive it today.
23 There's always a lot of buzz about
24 Route 66. But guess what? The Lincoln Highway, we
25 never had the TV show or the little catchy tune, so
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1 that's why you all need to help me come up with
2 some little tune that we can sing and get the word
3 out about the Lincoln Highway.
4 While the Lincoln Highway began sort of
5 about roadside enterprise, highway enterprise; if
6 you were a real entrepreneur and now, all of a
7 sudden, all these cars are traveling by your
8 business, how do I get them to pull into my place?
9 We like to think that the Lincoln
10 Highway really launched the industry of tourism and
11 the industries of the gas, food and lodging.
12 Because really, up until then, people were mainly
13 traveling with stage coach and trains, and the town
14 hubs were around those two areas. And now, with
15 the independence of cars, better roads like the
16 Lincoln Highway, that first cross-road across the
17 United States, now there's more independence. The
18 little Burma Shave signs became popular. They were
19 sort of the predecessor to today's large ugly
20 billboards, but they were just sort of cute and
21 letting people know what's up ahead.
22 The Lincoln Highway is fairly rural. We
23 are between the York County line and Representative
24 Mustio's area, the Allegheny County line, so it's
25 200 miles in the middle. The interesting part
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1 about this rural area, these little folks in here,
2 with the exception of Gettysburg, we don't have a
3 Liberty Bell. We don't have public water. We
4 don't have the large attractions. It doesn't mean
5 that these little communities don't have fabulous
6 stories to tell that are really compelling and
7 interesting to the tourists, as well as to their
8 own community. These are the stories that we're
9 trying to flush out.
10 There's not even a lot of interest in
11 some of the roadside architecture. One of the buzz
12 words now is, or the little phrase is, what's the
13 next big thing? Hey, we're all over that. The
14 Lincoln Highway was all about oversized, corky,
15 large buildings. So, when the film industry is
16 looking for a two-and-a-half-story-high coffee pot,
17 I have that in Bedford. If you're looking for a
18 shoe house that's also about two-stories high, he's
19 your man. It's in Hallam right outside of York.
20 But, this was sort of a popular thing along the
21 highway.
22 So, how do you get a buzz going about a
23 road and about a six-county area that a lot of
24 people don't know about? First thing we did was,
25 we installed road signs. So, if you did come from
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1 the east or west, you would see some of our
2 200-mile -- 200 road signs along the corridor.
3 The next thing we did, Heritage Areas
4 spent a good bit of time on planning. We're not
5 interested in funding something quickly that
6 somebody thought of on a kitchen table the night
7 before, so we really put the priority on proper
8 planning. Our heritage area we did an interpretive
9 plan. And is it because I only have a half person
10 helping me? That's our staff; one and a half
11 person in this 200-mile corridor.
12 It was an wonderful opportunity to
13 connect with the community and all of the residents
14 along this 200-mile corridor. They helped to
15 develop it. Once they realized what story they
16 have, they thought, gee, this is gold. I want some
17 of that Lincoln Highway stuff along my corridor.
18 The outcome of this two-year planning
19 process was the creation of 12 Lincoln Highway
20 themed murals; 65 interpretive exhibits, and again,
21 these were all developed by the residents of the
22 communities. An interpretative exhibit is, really,
23 you would have seen them all over Gettysburg the
24 last day or so; sort of two feet, three feet wide
25 on pedestals where a compelling story was told with
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1 some interesting photographs. We also had 20 gas
2 pumps that were reproduction gas pumps painted by
3 professional artists. And then we put the word
4 out.
5 And again, our budget is very slim, so
6 we have about a 500-dollar marketing budget. But,
7 sometimes luck plays a role in all that. There was
8 a reporter from the Washington Post who came up for
9 a vacation on the Lincoln Highway in Pennsylvania.
10 Next thing we know, we had a full page in the
11 Washington Post. Then it was the Toronto Star.
12 The Associated Press picked it up.
13 You can imagine my surprise when I had a
14 phone call from London, and I said, London; London
15 over there? They sent a photographer and a
16 reporter from London, England, over for three days
17 to spend along the Lincoln Highway in Pennsylvania
18 because they thought our 200-Mile-Roadside Museum
19 was such a unique thing. Now, all the communities
20 along our corridor, they were into it now. It's
21 like, what could we do next?
22 That's when, really, the grants -- the
23 grant applications increased. I think for the
24 first time in a long time they were thinking of,
25 now I have a dream. Now we want something. What
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1 could we do? What does our site need? I think we
2 need an ADA bathroom, or our driveway's not quite
3 right to handle the buses that come in.
4 All of the Heritage Area grants require
5 a cash match. So, sometimes it's a problem. The
6 good news is, we have 20,000 for you. The bad news
7 is, where you are finding the other 20,000. As
8 Jane talked earlier about some of our partners,
9 even they had more funding. So, it wasn't unusual
10 that you could recommend that they would go to the
11 Department of Community and Economic Development or
12 Pennsylvania Historic Museum Commission and match
13 these grants.
14 We have gone from -- Some of the -- Now
15 I'm going back unscripted. I wanted to talk a
16 little bit about some of the projects that we have
17 funded. And again, picture in your mind or look at
18 the map, we are out of the dipping area of the
19 private foundations of Philadelphia, the large
20 foundations there, and the large foundations in
21 Pittsburgh.
22 One reason that we can identify so well
23 with the non-profits that we help every day is
24 because we're a nonprofit. We have to write
25 grants. We have to do strategic planning. We're
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1 working with boards of directors, and we're trying
2 to help advise them and provide technical
3 assistance so that when they have a knock-them-out
4 of-the-park fundraiser, hang on to that 4,000 and
5 try to leverage it so that you can now have a match
6 to one of our grants. Sometimes there's such, oh,
7 what a great time; now let's spend it. It's like
8 no.
9 So, we do a lot of hand holding. Again,
10 it's a very rural area, so these are small groups.
11 Some of them have a volunteer director. They don't
12 even have a paid-staff person. So, we're the main
13 game in town in our area. I would imagine some of
14 the areas that you represent, Heritage Area source
15 may be the only source of funding to enhance an
16 existing attraction or to help create a new one.
17 Again, we want to hang our hat on the
18 Gettysburgs and hope that it is -- I always think
19 of my corridor as a necklace with all of these
20 pearls; you know, different attractions along the
21 way and try to encourage cross-marketing, because
22 we need to move the visitor from one attraction to
23 another.
24 Near us, just west of us maybe 25 miles
25 is -- This is an attraction, it's called the Totem
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1 Pole Playhouse. So some of you may know Jean
2 Stapleton. I think she just passed away. She and
3 her husband started Totem Pole Playhouse. And that
4 is a professional theater that straddles the
5 Franklin and Adams County border. Mainly, their
6 productions were in the evening. Then they caught
7 on, we should start having bus tours. We're
8 hearing bus tours, they're the thing.
9 Well, they started up okay and then they
10 started dropping off. And they did a few focus
11 groups and checked back with some of the tour
12 directors. Why aren't you rebooking with us?
13 Well, there's no air conditioning in the Totem Pole
14 Playhouse. You know, we've been on the bus now
15 that is a constant 72 degrees. I'm not sure in the
16 summer in the afternoon you want to hit that heat
17 and humidity, and so, that was a project that we
18 could fund. We had funded $45,000 to them and,
19 again, they had to match that. So, if we had not
20 helped them, I'm not sure who else -- what are the
21 other resource in the area to do that.
22 Another one, a little further west, in
23 Latrobe is the Saint Vincent Gristmill. That
24 particular year I had two wonderful interns from
25 the college there, Saint Vincent College, helping
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1 me. And they said, well, have you been to the
2 gristmill? You know, we haven't. It's fabulous.
3 So when I went over there, they had been grinding
4 wheat for 150 years; sort of a very primitive
5 method, but they were only opened on Tuesday and
6 Thursday afternoons, and that's if the volunteers
7 came.
8 So again, sometimes the old saying,
9 money follows money. We're often the first ones to
10 the table. We know all the players. It's not like
11 an application is going in for other state money to
12 Harrisburg competing with thousands and thousands
13 of other applications.
14 In all of your areas, there's a heritage
15 area. And more times than not, the heritage
16 manager will know everyone in that district, and
17 they will know if they have the capacity to
18 complete the project, and they will help them to
19 shape the application so that it is successful. We
20 want to give the money away. We want to help
21 increase economic development through tourism.
22 So anyhow, the Saint Vincent Gristmill,
23 they needed an ADA bathroom. They needed a new
24 roof, and they needed some driveway improvements.
25 Over the course of a few years, we had given them a
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1 total of $87,500. This was about eight years ago.
2 They're now open every day, seven days a week, all
3 year long. Again, it's a great magnet for buses.
4 The monks, there aren't that many of
5 them anymore, so they partnered with a local
6 bakery, who bakes the bread and then returns it to
7 the gristmill to sell it to the public.
8 A little bit -- Coming back now to
9 Franklin County, the Chambersburg Heritage Center,
10 this is an example of a new creation. Again, when
11 we're all working together, they started thinking
12 about, you know, we have important stories to tell,
13 too, here in Franklin County. We're gonna create a
14 heritage center. They were smart enough to realize
15 that we don't want any of these centers to be the
16 end-all of a visitor's experience. So, the purpose
17 was to draw them in, and then to send them back out
18 to the authentic sites around the county to
19 experience it firsthand. We had funded $125,000
20 towards the creation of that heritage center.
21 These numbers are pretty big. This
22 isn't recent. This is over the course of my 17
23 years as a heritage area director. The last year
24 or two, we've had a total of $50,000 to re-grant.
25 Over six counties, that doesn't go very far; so,
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1 that's an issue. There's still dreams; we've
2 created the buzz now about this.
3 The Lincoln Highway, because it's the
4 100th anniversary, we've had a lot of automobile
5 clubs -- Automobile is the way everyone's getting
6 around. That's how everyone got to Gettysburg;
7 probably not flying in. So, they're driving. Just
8 like I was wowed by the telephone call from London.
9 It was the same thing in November when I received a
10 call from Norway. It's like, Norway? We're
11 shipping over 100 vehicles to New York City, and
12 these are cars that are '50's, '60's and '70's.
13 They love our American cars, that classic car
14 period. And we'll be driving from New York City
15 down through Pennsylvania all the way to San
16 Francisco.
17 So when we talked about -
18 Representative Moul was talking about getting some
19 new people outside the state of Pennsylvania. We
20 did one better. We even have them from another
21 country. They're coming over from Norway.
22 Unfortunately, they came -- I said, when are you
23 coming through our corridor? They came through
24 July 2nd and 3rd when you had already so much going
25 on in Gettysburg. But, anyhow. And there were a
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1 number of different groups that came on cross
2 country trips from San Francisco coming east.
3 Because we work across county lines, it
4 took a while for some of the smaller groups to sort
5 of attract an audience, attract visitors and sort
6 of keep them to themselves; you know, not wanting
7 to send them out different ways. We talked about,
8 when you go to the shore, where are you going? Do
9 you know what county you're staying in when you go
10 to the beach? Probably not. It's the same thing
11 when you're a visitor.
12 Yes, all of the big attractions, that's
13 the first thing you go to see. I'm just thinking
14 of myself this past summer. My husband and I, yes,
15 we did go to Niagara Falls. You get up that way
16 you're going to go to Niagara Falls. But we also
17 went to the really small print shop, and it was
18 that personal tour that we had. It's a print shop
19 that probably has an operating budget of a hundred
20 thousand.
21 So it's not always the wow, the big
22 attractions that bring tourists. It's the quality,
23 and part of the Heritage Areas are to try to
24 increase the quality experience so that a visitor
25 is having a wonderful -- we're either meeting or
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1 exceeding their expectations, and that's what we're
2 doing. And then we turn it over to Norris and he
3 markets the heck of it.
4 Again, I thank you. I know I was
5 rambling a little bit. But after hearing the other
6 four visitors, I felt like I'd be repeating some of
7 those things. So, it brings it down to the real
8 level of where all of you are serving your
9 constituents. Thank you very much.
10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you,
11 Olga. Next testifier is Rich Farr. Rich is the
12 Executive Director of Rabbittransit.
13 MR. FARR: Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
14 I appreciate being here; committee members. I
15 always have to call out my own state rep here, Seth
16 Grove, down the street.
17 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: He's my HOA
18 president.
19 MR. FARR: I watch him closely.
20 After hearing the testimony before me,
21 maybe you're scratching your head and saying, why
22 is this transit guy here on tourism? I think it's
23 important that, we have to look at how people get
24 around and what they do when they arrive to a town.
25 It's great that you market these great programs,
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1 but if people can't get to them because
2 infrastructure is not in place, that's a problem.
3 So, I'm gonna talk a little about our little case
4 study that we've done here in Gettysburg for the
5 150th.
6 I am Richard Farr, Executive Director of
7 the York Adams Transportation Authority. We do
8 business as Rabbittransit. We provide service to
9 York, Adams and Northumberland County; about 7,000
10 trips a day, take being people to medical
11 appointments, work, those kind of things;
12 traditional transit services.
13 In the great Gettysburg area,
14 Rabbittransit operates a service titled Freedom
15 Transit. Freedom Transit is a three-route system.
16 If you look at the system map, and there is one in
17 your black binders, the routes basically form a T
18 where they connect at our newly-created transit hub
19 so people can transfer from one route to the other.
20 In addition to that local service, we
21 offer a commuter service that connects Gettysburg
22 to Harrisburg Monday through Friday; really, again,
23 designed for the commuter in mind.
24 We began our planning efforts for our
25 Freedom Transit service in 2006. In 2007,
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1 Rabbittransit received notification from the
2 Federal Transit Administration that we were awarded
3 Transit in the Parks Program funding. Transit in
4 the Parks is a US DOT and Department of Interior
5 program established to address the challenges of
6 increased vehicle congestion in and around our
7 national parks and other federal lands.
8 America's national parks were created to
9 protect unique environmental and cultural
10 resources, but traffic, pollution and crowding is
11 diminishing the visitor experience and threatens
12 the environment. To address these concerns, the
13 program provides funding for alternative
14 transportation like shuttle buses or bicycles.
15 On July 1st of 2009, we launched the
16 Freedom Transit service. The service was designed
17 to provide connection between the newly-constructed
18 visitor center and to all the major hotels and all
19 the major important locations throughout the
20 Gettysburg area, including our very beautiful and
21 charming downtown. So, if you haven't had a chance
22 to do that, the tour hasn't taken you there, you
23 need to go downtown.
24 In July of 2011, we launched the
25 RabbitEXPRESS service, designed, again, for
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1 commuters to Gettysburg, to Harrisburg. Since the
2 introduction of that service, what we've discovered
3 is that tourists are beginning to use it. We
4 connect with Amtrac. We connect with Capitol Area
5 Transit which connects to the Harrisburg Airport,
6 and we are finding visitors making their way to
7 Gettysburg using transit.
8 Interestingly enough, as we got closer
9 to the 150th, we started receiving calls. And for
10 the first time ever, we used our translating
11 service where you call in, because there were
12 people calling from Europe speaking German, and we
13 couldn't understand that they were saying, so we
14 had to translating services to explain to them how
15 they could get here. So, very interesting.
16 Ridership has grown in leaps and bonds
17 since our inception. The first year we provided a
18 mere 26,000 trips. Last year, excluding the 10-day
19 anniversary period, we provided over 119,000 trips.
20 So, we continues to grow. It's a very new service.
21 We have about four or five buses that run, so it's
22 a small system but a lot of trips; 358 percent
23 increase in ridership over that period of time, and
24 we think that's pretty impressive.
25 In June of 2012, anticipating
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1 large number of vehicles, we instituted what we
2 call the Advance Parking Management System which
3 was deployed in cooperation with PennDOT, the
4 Gettysburg Foundation, the National Military Park
5 and Freedom Transit. The system was designed,
6 really, to alert highway motorists using electronic
7 message boards to redirect them to parking lots for
8 Freedom Transit service where they would board a
9 shuttle bus and come into town.
10 Gettysburg College and the Gettysburg
11 Foundation were critical partners in making
12 transportation a success story here in Gettysburg.
13 In 2011, the college became a sponsor contributing
14 free rides for the college student, which primarily
15 used one line, the Gray Line, connecting the
16 college to all the fun establishments and retail
17 opportunities.
18 In 2011, the Gettysburg Foundation also
19 began a partnership where all people boarding
20 Freedom Transit was free, so they helped to
21 subsidize the cost of the boarding, which was
22 great.
23 Rabbittransit safely and successfully
24 transported more than 67,000 riders during that
25 historic 10-day period, June 28th to July 7th.
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1 Just a little side note. In transit,
2 we work closely with each other, which you know. I
3 was having dinner with Joe Casey, and he was
4 saying, we transported 30,000 people to the U.S.
5 Open. I was, you have a train. I had 10 buses
6 operating; I did 67,000, so top that. So if you
7 see Joe, please poke at him as well. I had a good
8 time with that.
9 Situated along the Gettysburg National
10 Park and the Visitor Center, the transit authority,
11 Lincoln Line, the Gold Line, carried the largest
12 number of passengers as they travel to reach
13 once-in-a-lifetime destinations, as well as the
14 flagship events, which Norris referred already, the
15 Pickett's Charge widely successful. I couldn't
16 imagine that event occurring in this area without
17 having the ability for transit use to get people to
18 and from this location.
19 Freedom Transit encouraged visitors to
20 adopt a park-once practice, leaving their vehicles
21 at their hotel or satellite parking to further
22 limit the number of cars in the Gettysburg Borough.
23 Visitors navigated the transit system after major
24 events by using -- we tweeted in Facebook and had
25 QR codes. So, during the entire event, we were
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1 sending out tweet messages explaining how they
2 could connect with the bus, where they could go
3 next, and it was very successful. We also put the
4 QR codes on all the bus stops so people with their
5 Smartphones could just zap it. They could actually
6 see the map and the bus moving in real time so they
7 knew exactly where the bus was and when it was
8 gonna be there next.
9 Public transportation is mostly seen as
10 a means for individuals getting to work, medical
11 appointments, other life-sustaining activities.
12 Here in Adams County, transit not only provides
13 those traditional connections, but connections that
14 make our historic center vibrant and economically
15 successful.
16 According to a recent American Public
17 Transportation Association survey, 57 percent, or
18 62 million people nationwide will use public
19 transportation on part of their travel for a
20 vacation; mostly looking for hassle-free travel,
21 avoid parking issues, so it can play a very
22 important role. Transit is a natural partner in
23 the world of tourism and should be a topic at the
24 table when the Commonwealth discusses tourism and
25 transportation funding.
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1 Public transportation played a critical
2 role, as I mentioned, in the 150th Commemoration.
3 It was the spirit of cooperation that helped this
4 community shine upon an international stage. The
5 same collaboration will continue into the future,
6 working closely with the Gettysburg Convention and
7 Visitor Bureau and the tourism industry of Adams
8 County.
9 Not only can we connect travelers to our
10 Visitor Center, the David Wills House, the Lincoln
11 Train Station, just to name a few, but we can help
12 them to navigate our community to experience all of
13 Adams County; from the apple orchards, to the
14 antiques, to the art festivals, to the wineries.
15 Revealing a winning combination of history, arts
16 and agriculture, that makes our community very
17 unique. Thank you.
18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you,
19 Rich. Thank you, Olga. We do have some members
20 that have some questions. I'd just like to ask
21 Rich a real quick question, if I can, regarding -
22 If I'm a resident of Gettysburg or if
23 I'm a resident of York, and I work in Harrisburg on
24 a daily basis, could you tell me a little bit about
25 your fares?
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1 MR. FARR: Sure.
2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you.
3 MR. FARR: The fare that connects
4 both -- We try to keep it uniform. We have three
5 express services that Rabbittransit offers; one
6 from York to Harrisburg, one from Gettysburg to
7 Harrisburg, and then from York to northern Maryland
8 where we connect to the Light Rail to Baltimore.
9 The fares for the two services heading to
10 Harrisburg are $3.50 one way, so it's seven dollars
11 round trip. We do offer monthly passes.
12 The reason for the continuity of the
13 fares is that, for locals who need to travel from
14 York to Gettysburg, or Gettysburg to Harrisburg,
15 they are also utilizing that service. So they will
16 go from Gettysburg to Harrisburg and come back down
17 to York. So their passes and transfers are free.
18 So once you connect, if you're coming all the way,
19 you can do that as well. So that's how that
20 service works.
21 In your packets you'll see our hop-and-
22 go guide, and I do have a little tab that directs
23 you specifically to the 15 North schedule so you
24 can look at those routes.
25 And something else that we just started
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1 doing. We've had a handful; I wouldn't say large
2 numbers, but we connect to Capitol Area Transit
3 where those folks can then transfer to finish their
4 trip. Primarily, it's state workers are those who
5 are utilizing these services. We are seeing -- We
6 connect to Lebanon Transit, and we're seeing those
7 individuals travel all the way to Lebanon through
8 those connections.
9 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: What's the
10 daily ridership of those commuters?
11 MR. FARR: That's a great question. I
12 should know the answer to that. Right now the
13 Gettysburg service is about 65 percent capacity.
14 It's a growing service; it's our newest. The York
15 service is, like, 99 percent capacity. There are
16 times -- And I say that because, some buses may
17 have three empty seats and the next bus has 12
18 standing on it.
19 The Harrisburg-York service is our first
20 launch and mature service and it's full. We really
21 could use additional vehicles operating on that.
22 The next newest was the Baltimore, and it's growing
23 double digits; 20, 30 percent every year, year
24 after year; and probably next year, full.
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you.
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1 I'm sure I'll mention that to Joe Casey the next
2 time. There's a few of us in this room that
3 actually went to school with Joe Casey; went to
4 high school -- local high school. Representative
5 Grove.
6 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: Thank you, Mr.
7 Chairman. I appreciate seeing Rich again. He's,
8 obviously, my neighbor and he keeps the
9 neighborhood quite in line. I appreciate it. I do
10 applaud Rich. He's also on the curve of technology
11 and utilizing it for best practices within
12 Rabbittransit from his apps he came out with a
13 little while ago. I applaud you on your ability to
14 use best practices, and being an ever-aggressive
15 watchdog of your -- little strengths in the
16 transit.
17 Obviously, when we talk about mass
18 transit funding, in York County we've seen huge
19 growth, to the point where it's getting hard for
20 Rich to provide the services. He sent out a notice
21 about some bans that actually will probably pull
22 out of line -
23 MR. FARR: Have been.
24 REPRESENTATIVE GROVE: -- which is going
25 to affect service throughout York County. So, I
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1 just wanted to applaud Rich for his due diligence
2 and doing a great job with limited resources he
3 has.
4 Again, kind of driving for Olga of how
5 important it is. You may not think of York County
6 or Gettysburg as a mass transit rich area. But the
7 data doesn't lie on how it's being utilized through
8 operations. So, thank you, Rich. Thank you, Mr.
9 Chairman.
10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you.
11 Chairman Markosek.
12 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: Thank you,
13 Chairman Adolph. Quick question for Miss Herbert.
14 The Summit Hotel, is that the one that
15 burned down?
16 MS. HERBERT: No, no. I had dinner
17 there Sunday night. (Laughter). Representative
18 Kula, don't slump in your chair. Summit Hotel is
19 on the national road, yes.
20 REPRESENTATIVE KULA: Yeah.
21 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: Okay. So
22 I'm confused.
23 MS. HERBERT: Route 40.
24 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: There was a
25 restaurant or a hotel was shaped like a ship.
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1 MS. HERBERT: Yes.
2 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: What am I
3 thinking of?
4 MS. HERBERT: The Ship Hotel. That
5 burned down 2001.
6 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: All right.
7 I got Representative Kula all excited here.
8 REPRESENTATIVE KULA: I thought I missed
9 the news about it.
10 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: Okay. The
11 Ship Hotel was along Route 30.
12 MS. HERBERT: Yes.
13 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: And that's
14 burned down. Okay, now that we've got that out of
15 the way.
16 Rich, a question I have for you relative
17 to mass transit. As you know, we've had some
18 transportation bills in front of us in the
19 legislature, particularly Senate Bill 1. I know in
20 talking with some of other the other transit
21 agencies, the bigger ones, they are in dire need of
22 legislation like that passing.
23 The Port Authority, for example, in
24 Allegheny County, we were meeting about a month
25 ago, where they had indicated they would have to
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1 cut their service about half and lay off about 600
2 employees. They had no additional transportation
3 funding bill passed.
4 What is the situation with Rabbittransit
5 relative to -- Assuming nothing is done, here in
6 the next year and a half, through the remainder of
7 this legislative session, what type of cutback,
8 layoffs, et cetera, would you face?
9 MR. FARR: There are a lot of issues
10 facing us. I'll start with things that are very
11 specific to Gettysburg. I mentioned the Transit in
12 the Parks Program, we have a grant of nearly a
13 million dollars to convert our vehicles here to
14 compress natural gas or alternative fuels for the,
15 again, conserve the national park. We have no
16 local match for that, so these funds will sit
17 there. And, in one year, I'll return them back to
18 the Federal Transit Administration because I cannot
19 put them into a grant that I have no state match
20 for that. That's a problem.
21 We have facility monies. Seth mentioned
22 we had a lot of growth in York County. Our
23 facility parks 65 buses; we have 87. They're
24 parked everywhere on the lawn. We can't maintain
25 them. We have a property that we purchased with
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1 the stimulus funds. We have a grant from the
2 Federal Transit Administration of 650,000 -- or
3 $6.5 million to renovate it; no state match. I'm
4 gonna have to return those funds.
5 Our rolling stock, we are allowed to
6 have a 20 percent spare ratio by the Federal
7 Transit Administration. I have a point 2; two
8 spare buses right now, that's it, in the entire
9 fleet. Again, we have federal funds to buy
10 vehicles; no state match. And the federal funds
11 aren't like they were either, so that's a problem,
12 too, as we move forward.
13 We are in the our last year of reserves.
14 I went into this fiscal year with probably two and
15 a half million of reserves, much smaller than the
16 larger ones across the state. I'll have about
17 400,000 at the end of this fiscal year in June.
18 We'll be doing probably a 25 percent service cut.
19 We're working through those numbers now in York.
20 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: How would
21 that translate to jobs?
22 MR. FARR: Probably about -- Again, I
23 have 160 employees. It will be 20, 30 jobs;
24 skilled jobs. Mechanics that we searched long and
25 hard to find, and then we're gonna have to let them
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1 go; probably never get them back again. It's a
2 challenge. CDL drivers, they leave, they're gonna
3 go trucking or some other industry. It's a
4 problem.
5 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: You
6 mentioned your rolling stock. You've been kind
7 enough to supply some transportation for us here in
8 this particular trip and had a very nice -- it
9 appears to be a relatively new vehicle. What is
10 the overall age, I guess, or shape, condition of
11 your rolling stock? How much of it is ready -- Is
12 there a percentage that's ready to go off-line and
13 needs to be replaced?
14 MR. FARR: 54 percent right now, it's at
15 least three years past its estimated useful life.
16 I'll go to 64 percent next year; 12-year vehicles,
17 900,000 miles on them. So, credit to our
18 preventative maintenance program, but I just
19 calculated that, and our cost to maintain those
20 vehicles from last year to this year has grown by
21 $600,000 of operating funds which we don't have.
22 So, maintaining old vehicles is a problem.
23 And we're in this perfect storm where we
24 want to take advantage of the natural gas industry,
25 but our vehicles and facilities -- It's gonna start
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1 falling apart where we're not going to be able to
2 meet those kind of objectives that our organization
3 likes to do. We like to be innovative and move the
4 industry forward, and we're struggling doing that.
5 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: I think
6 it's interesting to note when we're talking about
7 transit; when we're looking at, say, SEPTA in
8 Philadelphia. They have a lot of infrastructure in
9 capital needs; whereas, a system such as yours does
10 have infrastructure, but it's more in -
11 represented by rolling stock; by buses, primarily.
12 MR. FARR: Right.
13 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: And when
14 that starts to go, you essentially have no system.
15 So I think it's -
16 MR. FARR: Yeah. The vehicle that you
17 referenced that you've been riding on, the story
18 behind that, that was -- There are two sister
19 vehicles that are now in Washington County because
20 they're doing a pilot program and have no vehicles,
21 and we outgrew them. That was the first vehicles
22 we put on the express service to Harrisburg, and
23 within four months -
24 Again, we did a study that said we'd
25 have X number of passengers. We bought rolling
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1 stock to meet that need. And by the end of the
2 second month, we've outgrew them and had to go buy
3 used vehicles. So that vehicle, it's been around
4 now for almost eight years. We take very good care
5 of them because we know they have to last forever,
6 but that's the cost to do that.
7 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: I think it
8 really opens some eyes -- I hope it opens up some
9 eyes the fact that we're here in a very rural
10 county, as we particularly saw yesterday with the
11 farming and the farm belt and the fruit, et cetera.
12 I know Representative Grove has mentioned York as
13 well. People don't think of that as a transit rich
14 kind of county.
15 But, all 67 counties do have some form
16 of transit; whether it be a transit system such as
17 yours or shared-ride type of transit.
18 MR. FARR: Right. Those beautiful
19 orchards that you toured, who picks the apples from
20 those trees? And those individuals need
21 transportation to work. If it wasn't for some of
22 our shared-ride programs getting certain
23 individuals there, they wouldn't be employed, nor
24 would you have those apples on the market.
25 It's very important that -- It's not
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1 your traditional city bus I think you're saying.
2 The transportation needs are diverse and growing.
3 MINORITY CHAIRMAN MARKOSEK: Well put.
4 I thank you for that. I thank both of you for your
5 testimony.
6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you,
7 Chairman. Representative Oberlander.
8 REPRESENTATIVE OBERLANDER: Thank you,
9 Chairman. Thank for your testimony first and
10 foremost.
11 Ms. Herbert, I have a question for you
12 regarding the six counties that your heritage
13 corridor goes through. Do they collect the hotel
14 motel tax?
15 MS. HERBERT: I know Laurel Highlands
16 does. That would be Westmoreland and Somerset
17 County. Bedford also has a hotel tax. Fulton
18 County I'm not sure of. Franklin County does, and
19 I'm not sure about Adams County.
20 REPRESENTATIVE OBERLANDER: You do?
21 Okay.
22 Is your organization able to get any of
23 those funds for the purposes that you provide to
24 them?
25 MS. HERBERT: We have been very
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1 fortunate. Every year we have submitted a grant
2 for different things and we've always gotten it.
3 REPRESENTATIVE OBERLANDER: Great.
4 MS. HERBERT: It's not only good for us,
5 but it's good for our other partners along the
6 corridor; so that, when we are providing the grant,
7 they can use that as a match.
8 REPRESENTATIVE OBERLANDER: That's
9 wonderful. My second question is for you, Mr.
10 Farr. I just want to make sure that I'm
11 understanding what's going on with your
12 organization. You are York and Adams County.
13 MR. FARR: Transit Authority; official
14 municipality authority for York and Adams County,
15 yes.
16 REPRESENTATIVE OBERLANDER: Do those
17 counties provide any matching dollars for -
18 MR. FARR: They do.
19 REPRESENTATIVE OBERLANDER: -- your
20 organization?
21 MR. FARR: Yes, they do.
22 REPRESENTATIVE OBERLANDER: When was the
23 last time you had a fare increase.
24 MR. FARR: We're currently in two of a
25 three-year fare increase. We keep our passenger
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1 fares at the rate of inflation. So, about every
2 other -- We go in three-year spurts, and then we
3 usually have two years off and then do three, so
4 that's the cycle that we have followed for years.
5 We recognize that many of our very
6 low-income constituents can absorb a slow gradual
7 increase. There are systems who go periods of time
8 and then have a large one. They actually collect
9 less revenue because it's detrimental to -- You
10 have to be careful. There's a diminishing return
11 if you go too high too quickly. But our fares have
12 actually exceeded the rate of inflation over the
13 last 10 years.
14 REPRESENTATIVE OBERLANDER: Sounds
15 reasonable. My last question for you is, you had
16 just mentioned the shared-ride program and getting
17 workers to pick the apples. I just want to make
18 sure that I understand. Are you talking about the
19 migrant workers?
20 MR. FARR: There are some that qualify
21 for assistant programs that we can provide
22 transportation. There's a large need for low-
23 income, abled-body transportation in rural areas,
24 which we don't have the resources to meet those.
25 We do have what we call the persons with disability
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1 program. Someone would have epilepsy, for
2 instance, and could not drive, they would qualify
3 for that program. Those are the individuals that
4 we do have several dozen that we take to work in
5 the field like that.
6 REPRESENTATIVE OBERLANDER: Thank you.
7 I think I opened a can of worms, so I'm gonna let
8 that one for someone else. Thank you.
9 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: There's a lot
10 of cans of worms. I'd like to acknowledge the
11 presence of Representative Santarsiero who has
12 joined us from Bucks County.
13 REPRESENTATIVE SANTARSIERO: Thank you,
14 Mr. Chairman.
15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: The next
16 question is going to be by Representative Milne.
17 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: Thank you, Mr.
18 Chairman.
19 Miss Herbert, I am someone who is not
20 familiar with your organization or your corridor
21 work today. I heard some very general awareness
22 that I heard the name somewhere down the path of
23 life. I really was quite impressed with all the
24 stops along the way, including, apparently, a ship
25 that's a restaurant as well.
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1 One thing I was trying to sort of
2 struggle a little bit, as I was hearing the detail
3 you provided which was excellent. I really got a
4 lot out of it, was just, for someone's who's not
5 familiar with this idea of this corridor and what
6 it's trying to achieve, is there some sort of
7 10-second elevator-pitch explanation of what it is
8 and why someone should go do it?
9 MS. HERBERT: Usually we talk about the
10 authenticity of the sites along the corridor. We
11 also talk about the kind of kitschy things that we
12 have along our corridor that's different than what
13 might be along Route 6 or any other transportation
14 corridor like the National Road.
15 So, some of the attractions that were
16 almost somewhat of an embarrassment to even local
17 residents, once they realized other people like
18 this stuff, they're okay with it.
19 We can't recreate the coffee pot. We
20 have restored it. But what we did do is, we
21 thought, well, why can't we create other coffee
22 pots, sort of, along our corridor. A project with
23 high school Vo-Tech students, the program is now
24 called Career and Technology. But, five different
25 school districts created their own roadside giants.
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1 So, all of these things together create a nice tour
2 package for someone traveling the Lincoln Highway.
3 It's almost like a scavenger hunt.
4 There's a brochure in your folders that you have; a
5 driving guide that talks about all the important
6 stops. But the brochure in the inside, the insert,
7 it's almost like, okay, we did that one. People
8 actually do this. They go out for a Sunday drive,
9 and they'll go along and they stop at every one.
10 So it's -
11 We're fortunate with the Lincoln Highway
12 thing because there's people that still remember.
13 When I first started 17 years ago, we interviewed
14 65 individuals that had Lincoln Highway memories.
15 All of those folks are gone now. But it's almost
16 when America was a teenager. It's just a sort of a
17 fun -- Other than Fred Duesenberg that died cutting
18 a corner short in Somerset County, we have no other
19 deaths.
20 I mean, it's not like it was a terrible
21 story. It's a wonderful story. It's just sort of
22 a fun time. It's almost when America's love affair
23 with cars started. It's all about that nostalgia
24 and reminiscing. That's what I would talk about.
25 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: Do you have any
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1 studies about how long a given individual or a
2 group stays in the corridor? How much people are
3 sort of dipping in and out of there, skipping
4 around to go to something else and dipping back
5 into the corridor? Anything like that?
6 MS. HERBERT: I'm not naive enough to
7 know that they start at one end and go all the way
8 to the end, so they're hopping on and off at
9 different places.
10 We did do, just like all of the heritage
11 areas in Pennsylvania in 2008, we completed an
12 economic impact study. Each of us had to have at
13 least 500 people interviewed, and we tried to
14 gather some of those statistics, and the results of
15 that are in your folder. I don't have it off the
16 top of my head.
17 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: Sure.
18 MS. HERBERT: And because it is five
19 years old, as Jane said, we are embarking on a new
20 study that will be completed next year.
21 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: Appreciate that.
22 MS. HERBERT: It's always hard to gather
23 those facts because, even when we have all this
24 fabulous press, and I know how many calls I fielded
25 from the press and on the visits -- personal visits
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1 that all these folks came. When you go out and
2 talk to someone along the corridor, they say, well,
3 did you have a really good summer? You had a lot
4 of people this year. Yeah, it's because the
5 weather was good. You know -- I mean, it's hard to
6 always harness exactly why a business owner thinks
7 they did well, or it could be the weather. They
8 said, I took one ad out in the Somerset Visitor
9 Bureau. So it's always hard to tell.
10 When we get the hard numbers from doing
11 these economic impact studies, that's what -
12 that's what tells the story.
13 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: This sounds
14 unique, and I know what I'm doing next summer.
15 MS. HERBERT: All right.
16 REPRESENTATIVE MILNE: Thank you, Mr.
17 Chairman.
18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you,
19 Representative. Representative Michelle Brownlee.
20 REPRESENTATIVE BROWNLEE: Thank you, Mr.
21 Chairman. Good morning, again. My question is
22 directed Miss Herbert.
23 MS. HERBERT: Okay.
24 REPRESENTATIVE BROWNLEE: As a follow-up
25 to Representative Milne, he asked about some of the
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1 attractions. So, along the corridor, we've heard
2 about the Summit Hotel and the Ship Hotel and those
3 type of things. Can you tell us some of the other
4 things that are along that corridor that is of
5 interest?
6 MS. HERBERT: Sometimes a disaster is
7 what brings attention to our corridor. In the
8 sense of Flight 93 is the other national park in
9 addition to Gettysburg that is right on the Lincoln
10 Highway on Route 30; and that has, especially just
11 a couple weeks ago, brought a tremendous number of
12 people to our corridor.
13 We also have five state parks. So
14 recreation and trails, camping, those are all
15 important tourism features, too, along our
16 corridor.
17 Because Pennsylvania is so old, it's
18 almost like I'm competing with all the forts and
19 cannons in Pennsylvania. We have a lot of forts
20 along our corridor; whether it's Fort Loudon, Fort
21 Ligonier, Fort Bedford, and there's a lot of
22 interest in that period of history; so people,
23 again, they'll do all of that.
24 But the real heritage tourist, which we
25 are all trying to capture, those are the ones that,
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1 probably a lot like most of us in this room, have a
2 little more disposable income and like a variety of
3 things. So they may take a trail ride during the
4 day or visit a fort, but in the evening they want
5 to go see a live play with professional actors.
6 And so, they want a nice well-rounded experience.
7 While it might be fun to have a hot dog
8 at the neighborhood home mom-and-pop's place, they
9 also might want to go a high-end restaurant at
10 night before they go home. So I like that new
11 slogan that somebody came up with.
12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Pennsylvania
13 Has It All.
14 MS. HERBERT: Lincoln Highway has it -
15 really has -- (laughter).
16 REPRESENTATIVE BROWNLEE: I would say
17 that the Schuylkill River Heritage has it all,
18 because one of those locations happens to be in my
19 district. I know every year they do the kayaking
20 down the Schuylkill and wind up in my district
21 behind the art museum. I was just wondering,
22 trying to figure out the differences was.
23 The earlier panel we talked about a few
24 pieces of legislation. House Bill 1215, which
25 would create a tourism commission; House Bill 1216,
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1 which would give a tax credit to businesses; and
2 also House Bill 1635, which is a dedicated one
3 percent of the sales tax.
4 How do you see these legislations
5 playing into what you do and possibly giving you
6 that other half of the person to help you reach
7 out?
8 MS. HERBERT: I could use that. I just
9 learned about the bills today, so I don't even have
10 an opinion. I would need more information. Maybe
11 Norris has more information to answer that question
12 or Jane.
13 MS. SHEFFIELD: Well, I don't know -
14 Initially, we had -
15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Jane?
16 MS. SHEFFIELD: Yes.
17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: I'm sorry. I
18 have to ask you to use a mic; not that we can't
19 hear you, but the folks that will be hearing this
20 later on.
21 MS. SHEFFIELD: Excuse me. Initially,
22 we had looked at joining, somehow being a part of
23 that legislative effort, and we did talk to Rob
24 Fulton and looked at some strategies for doing
25 that. But, it didn't seem to be appropriate in
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1 terms of getting what we needed into that
2 particular piece. So we didn't want to in any way
3 confuse our leaders or water down something that
4 was very important for Pennsylvania.
5 I mentioned briefly at the end of my
6 remarks that we are looking currently at
7 establishing legislation to legislate the Heritage
8 Areas. So we have chosen to do that separately in
9 order to strengthen the true core of what PATT is
10 trying to achieve through their efforts.
11 REPRESENTATIVE BROWNLEE: Thank you.
12 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
13 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you,
14 Representative. Representative Tom Killion.
15 REPRESENTATIVE KILLION: Thank you, Mr.
16 Chairman. I'll be fairly brief. I just want to
17 follow up on Chairman Markosek's comments for Rich.
18 First of all, congratulations to your
19 organization in working on mass transit here in a
20 rural area. I just kind of want to follow up.
21 I sat on a SEPTA board for a number of
22 years. Joe Casey, a good friend, often in
23 Harrisburg; when we talk about mass transit, it's
24 always about Port of Allegheny or SEPTA. It's an
25 eye opener to hear the impact that mass transit has
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1 here in our rural areas.
2 So, I don't really have a question.
3 Just that, I think it's so important that we all,
4 as legislators, realize there's probably -- I think
5 it's 70, 71 transit systems all providing service
6 and connect with tourism. It's no different in
7 Philadelphia. Most people think SEPTA moving
8 people to and from work, 5 million trips a day
9 during the week. But in the evenings and the
10 weekends, they're all coming here for sporting
11 events, shows, restaurants, as well as to work.
12 Especially the lower-wage workers, that's how they
13 get to those places.
14 I would love to have you come up and
15 speak to a caucus and get SEPTA and Port of
16 Allegheny for a while. A lot of people realize
17 that mass transit is important, it's important
18 throughout the Commonwealth and in rural areas as
19 well. You mentioned with the folks that are
20 picking apples and helping the economy here, they
21 couldn't get to work without your system. That
22 state subsidy is extremely important to you, as
23 well as in the southeast.
24 I just wanted to make that comment.
25 Thank you.
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1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Thank you.
2 I'm sure they're gonna get that message,
3 Representative. Representative Dan Moul.
4 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: Thank you, Mr.
5 Chairman. I just wanted to finish up by saying
6 thank you for allowing these people to come here.
7 And, Tommy, just think how much more money SEPTA
8 would have to spend on their fleet if they switched
9 over to that natural gas like we want to do here.
10 Thank you.
11 REPRESENTATIVE KILLION: Actually, they
12 are. We're working on it.
13 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: Okay. That's news
14 to me. I'm glad to hear that. I just wanted to
15 say thank you, once again, for doing this.
16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Any other
17 questions by any members of the Appropriations
18 Committee?
19 (No audible response).
20 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN ADOLPH: Seeing none
21 and hearing none, I want to thank both Olga and
22 Rich for your testimony today. I found it to be
23 very informative. The last couple days that we've
24 been here, and we're gonna be here for one more
25 day, we're looking forward to some additional
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1 information. We're trying to get the agricultural
2 community and the tourism community, and obviously
3 now, mass transit all working together to make
4 Pennsylvania a better place to work and live.
5 Thank you so much for your information.
6 Thank you.
7 (At 12 o'clock p.m., the hearing
8 concluded).
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1
2 C E R T I F I C A T E
3
4 I, Karen J. Meister, Reporter, Notary
5 Public, qualified in and for the County of York,
6 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, hereby certify that
7 the foregoing is a true and accurate transcript, to
8 the best of my ability, of a public hearing.
9 I further certify that I am not a
10 relative or employee of counsel or the parties
11 hereto. This certification does not apply to any
12 reproduction of the same by any means unless under
13 my direct control and/or supervision.
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17 Karen J. Meister, Reporter Notary Public 18
19 My commission expires 10/30/15 20
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