Visit Fargo-Moorhead encouraging voters to approve proposed conference center

FARGO, N.D. (KVRR) – Visit Fargo-Moorhead has been working to encourage potential visitors to bring their events to the city, and after Election Day they may have a new attraction.

“If we had a larger space and could do more meetings, I don’t think it would take us more than three or four years to double the amount of visitor spending from the meeting industry we deal with.”

The first step for the proposed conference center is Fargo Ballot Measure 2, which would increase the current 3% tax on hotels and lodgings to 6% for the next 25 years in order to fund the construction of the conference center.

“If the 3% increase in the lodging tax passed, which would bring it to 6%, and if both of the quarter percent sales taxes proposed passed, then the total tax on a hotel room in Fargo would be 14% which is exactly the national average.”

Johnson says that currently, Fargo is fighting an uphill battle when it comes to landing major conferences and events, because of a lack of suitable spaces.

“We’ve missed out on a lot of larger business for the last, well forever probably, but I’ve been at this for 12 years and know that we miss out on a lot of events that could come here, or would come here, but there’s no space for them.”

The conference center would seek to remedy some of those issues, allowing for local businesses to benefit from the increase in visitors.

“They do all kinds of things that they have to spend money on. So we know this is money that goes into the economy. It’s not something that goes to some fund that gets stashed away, this is money spent in the community.”

Johnson says that he understands why voters are skeptical of new tax proposals, but he hopes they will see the long term benefits a conference center could have for the community.

“Governments, or quasi-governmental entities if you want to call us that here at Visit Fargo-Moorhead, propose these things because we believe it will help the community.”