Pike County Board Chairman Scott Syrcle hopes a letter will encourage businesses to comply voluntarily with the state's accommodations tax.
The Illinois Department of Revenue notified the county that several businesses might fall under the law requiring locations providing lodging on a temporary basis to pay the hotel/motel tax.
The state returns a portion of the tax collections to counties, based on a formula, to promote tourism efforts.
The Pike County Board on Tuesday approved a resolution again authorizing the Quincy Area Convention and Visitors Bureau to represent the county in its efforts to promote tourism. The resolution covers the 12-month period beginning July 1.
The Quincy Area Convention and Visitors Bureau represents Adams, Hancock and Pike counties, and Karen Griggs with the Pike County Chamber of Commerce serves on the bureau board. Funds come from an $80,628 state grant split between promotional efforts and administrative use.
Eight percent of the $72,565 for promotional use, or $5,800, can be used for Pike County. Those funds support, for example, printing Lincoln Talking Houses brochures, sponsorships for the Masters and 1911 Single Stack Classic shooting matches at PASA Park, and the Pike County Visitor Guide.
Pike County also is on the bureau's Web site, and monthly e-mail newsletters and other publications.
The QCVB must match the state grant funds and does so solely with Adams County hotel/motel tax dollars.
"Pike County has never matched these dollars for a greater return on investment," bureau Executive Director Holly Cain wrote in her Pike County report. "I strongly would urge the county to implement a county hotel/motel tax to provide additional marketing dollars for Pike County."
Plans to send out the letter, signed by Syrcle, in the next two weeks are a first step.
"We'll see what kind of response we get," Syrcle said.
The tax applies to all "hotels" that offer living quarters, sleeping or housekeeping accommodations to the public. The term includes inns, motels, tourist homes or courts, lodging houses, bed-and-breakfasts, rooming homes and apartment houses.
For more information call Stephanie Sorrells with the Pike County Economic Development Corp. at 285-1363 or the Illinois Department of Revenue at 524-4772.
