By VICKI URBANIK

The Chesterton/Duneland Chamber of Commerce this morning took a stand against merging the Porter County Convention, Recreation and Visitors Commission with the Lake County tourism bureau.

The chamber board unanimously passed a resolution that states that a merger of the PCCRVC with its counterpart in Lake County “would be detrimental to effective regional development of the visitor and tourism industry and would deny PCCRVC the opportunity to focus marketing and promotional efforts on the unique venues and attractions of Porter County.”

The PCCRVC expects that an effort will be made in the upcoming session of the Indiana General Assembly to merge the tourism bureaus in Northwest Indiana. There has also been talk about possibly instituting a new food and beverage tax to fund a new convention center in Lake County.

PCCRVC Executive Director Lorelei Wiemer said the Chesterton/Duneland chamber’s resolution is significant because it shows community support for maintaining PCCRVC as an individual entity. She said she is hopeful that other chambers in Porter County, as well as elected bodies, will pass similar resolutions.

Weimer enthusiastically expressed support for maintaining the individuality of PCCRVC and other tourism bureaus at the same time that they work together in the collaborative regional effort known as the Northern Indiana Tourism Development Commission. Weimer is currently president of the NITDC.

The NITDC consists of seven counties and, among its other projects, handles the tourism marketing along the Indiana Toll Road. The organization has been highly effective at marketing the northern Indiana region, taking on projects collaboratively that the individual tourism bureaus are unable to do their own, Weimer said.

NITDC is successful in part because the bureaus got together on their own, and weren’t forced into it, she said. Further, each bureau pays the same dues of about $40,000 a year and each one, no matter how small or large, gets an equal vote. The model is so successful, she said, that a Purdue University researcher is currently using it in a study of successful regionalism.

The organization also prompted state tourism officials to promote similar regional entities in other parts of Indiana. “The state really liked what we were doing,” she said. “If it wasn’t a good organization, we would have left a long time ago.”

The chamber’s resolution calls the PCCRVC the official agency for destination marketing and says that it is a “key economic driver of sustainable tourism growth within Porter County.”

The resolution goes on to say that the PCCRVC has successfully marketed the “unique venues and attractions of Porter County since its inception in 1984,” that it has actively and effectively participated in regional visitor marketing and promotion through the Northern Indiana Tourism Development Commission, and that it has developed a comprehensive strategic plan through the effective use of the Porter County’s innkeepers tax.

The PCCRVC is “encouraged to resist a merger with the Lake County Convention and Visitors bureau and to continue its effective marketing and promotion of the unique venues and attractions of Porter County while seeking partnering opportunities for collaborative efforts with other visitor bureaus to promote regional efforts at advancing the visitor and tourism industry,” the resolution says.

Last week, the PCCVRC Board passed its own resolution against a merger with the Lake County tourism bureau and expressing its support for the current Indiana law, which provides for local control of the innkeepers tax spending. The 5 percent innkeepers tax is paid by customers of hotels and motels.

Posted 11/29/2007