John Creighton: Seattle Tourism is crucial to a Healthy Economy

Sep 30, 2012 by StanforthNadel229

There is no question that large businesses can add a major boost to an economy’s bottom line. Consider this: Based on the Seattle Times, in March of 2012, Amazon listed 1,900 job openings in Seattle. At a time when many firms were laying off workers, this large firm was adding to its payroll. It is no wonder that numerous lawmakers work tirelessly to court large companies in their quest to improve the fiscal outlook of their constituents. Port Commissioner John Creighton has another avenue that he believes lawmakers ought to follow. Briefly , he thinks tourism will be increasingly important to the region’s economy. Washington State just isn’t at all times associated with the tourist trade. ordinarily, locations similar to Completely new York, California or Sin City come to mind when talking about tourism. But the tourism market brought in over $16 billion in profits for Washington State in 2011 alone.

As Seattle Port Commissioner, John Creighton has a vested interest in tourism promotion, to be certain that people continue to fly in through Sea-Tac Airport to observe the sights that the Northwest has to offer and to hop on cruises to Alaska from one of the Port of Seattle’s 2 cruise terminals.

According to statistics published by the Seattle Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, more than 9 million visitors come to Seattle and King County each and every year, and they spend $5.9 billion throughout their visits. Furthermore, they contribute $463 million in state and local tax revenues. easily , this isn’t an quantity of money that any government can afford to overlook, especially when the global economy stays strained and tax revenues are at historical lows.

Boosting tourism means investing in advertising, of course, but John Creighton also believes that investing in infrastructure is essential . Holidaymakers require the capability to reach their spots, and the infrastructure requires to be sound enough to let for growth in the quantity of travelers. As portion of the Port’s 25-year vision for growth,, the Port Commission’s tourism-related goals consist of doubling international places out of Sea-Tac Airport and doubling the economic impact of the cruise industry for Washington State. Concentrating on the necessary initiatives and intelligent investments to make this happen is some thing John Creighton hopes to stress in his next term as Port Commissioner.

In December of 2006, John Creighton was asked to do much more. At that time, Governor Chris Gregoire asked him to participate as a board member of the Washington State Freight Mobility Strategic Investment Board. This organization, according to its site, is “. held accountable to create a comprehensive and coordinated state program to facilitate freight movement between and amongst local, national and international markets which improves trade possibilities.” It looks like a superb fit for Port Commissioner John Creighton, as such are the types of issues that he is essential to address as part of his port duties on a day-to-day basis.

FMSIB supplies advice to the Washington State Legislature about which projects are most effective to fund, and has the authority to allocate transportation dollars that the State Legislature has entrusted with the board on projects across the state that help freight mobility. FMSIB needs that the projects it helps incorporate a significant percentage of local dollars as part of their capital package. Many tasks that FMSIB helps fund consist of port and private industry funding participation as well. For every single dollar FMSIB spends on a transportation project, five dollars of local or private money is included. In this manner, the board is able to leverage state transportation spending, and it can have a tremendous effect on both jobs and revenue in the State of Washington. It is a responsibility John Creighton takes quite seriously. He remains to sit on the FMSIB board to this day, and plans to run for another term as Seattle Port Commissioner in 2013.

Escajeda Suel has been writing content articles on Seattle Times since 2003.