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By Jason Peck
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
Historically, the Rappahannock County government has given $5,000 to tourism - a small amount — then let the town of Washington and local businesses handle much of the efforts instead.
So it raised quite a few questions recently when the current county budget contained $41,000 in local funds for tourism - a 580 percent increase. When matching grants are added, Rappahannock government will spend a record $56,000 on tourism promotion.
“It wasn’t so much negative (comments > as it was questions, like, ‘Isn’t tourism supposed to be returning money to us? Why do we need to promote it?” County Administrator John McCarthy said of the response.
But McCarthy said the funds will make up for Rappahannock County’s historically low contributions to tourism. And if all goes well, it could put the county in the tourism business.
“It's a bit of a gainer for us, and it’s not something that’s going to reoccur unless we see some dividends,” McCarthy cautioned.
In a letter to the board of supervisors, McCarthy claimed that the county had started to “catch a fair amount of heat” over its low contributions to tourism, and noted that the county’s meals and lodging tax raised more than $140,000 annually.
72.5%