Cape Cod isn’t getting its fair share of state tourism dollars, the regional Chamber of Commerce says, but momentum may be building to revise the funding formula.
Paul Niedzwiecki, CEO of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, said the formula favors geographic equality over investing in regions that depend on tourism — even though those regions have the most potential to generate tax revenue from it.
“Increasingly, there's been a shift to really try, in the formula, to prioritize geography over performance,” he said. “But if everyone's completely equal or that's your goal, you're really working against your own best efforts, because you're not producing the revenue that otherwise you could produce.”
In addition, the state’s overall investment in tourism has declined relative to spending and inflation, he said. The state budget has risen 50 percent since 2018, but the Tourism Trust Fund receives a fixed $10 million annually from the occupancy tax.
“So it's hard for us to sit here and be a profit center for the state, and see money redistributed from a regional tourism council like us, that has 190 hotels, 10,000 rooms, … and give it to a regional tourism council that has one hotel,” he said.
Change could be on the way.
A spokesperson for the Healey administration’s Office of Travel and Tourism said the office has been working with regional tourism councils for several months to evaluate the funding formula and consider updating it for fiscal year 2027, which begins July 1.
In addition to hotels, motels, and cottages, the Cape is home to a large share of the state’s short-term rentals. Cape Cod alone, without Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, has 20,000 registered short-term rentals — about 42 percent of the state total, according to Niedzwiecki.
“We want to see a formula that doesn't penalize the most successful areas of the state,” he said. “And what the formula doesn't take into account right now is, if a region is dependent on tourism as an industry.”
With reconstruction of the Bourne and Sagamore bridges looming, Cape Cod could use marketing funds to get the word out that people can still get to the Cape, he said. And one of the Chamber’s biggest goals is to expand the Cape’s travel season, by marketing the region for things like fall weddings and a holiday destination in December.
