Funded Through Hotel Tax Hike : O’Connor Wants Office of Protocol

In an effort to make San Diego a better host to visiting dignitaries, Mayor Maureen O’Connor is pushing for the creation of an office of protocol using funds tapped from a proposed increase in the city hotel room tax.

O’Connor plans to promote the office--to be headed by a prominent San Diegan on a volunteer basis--during budget talks scheduled in late spring, said Paul Downey, the mayor’s press secretary.

“San Diego is one of the few major cities in the U.S. that doesn’t have such an office,” Downey said Thursday. “We see it as a way to help promote the city, both with dignitaries and foreign business people.”

Currently, the mayor’s office coordinates visits by dignitaries and other VIPs on “an ad hoc basis,” Downey said. The hope, he said, is that a more organized effort to welcome important visitors would increase the city’s stature on the international front and help woo new businesses.

“It would impact the economic health of the city by properly treating foreign business people who are looking to bring some dollars to our economy,” Downey said, noting that many Pacific Rim countries are looking to San Diego as a potential trading partner.

Downey said plans tentatively call for the appointment of a noted San Diego resident to the post of chief of protocol on a voluntary basis. The protocol chief would be aided by a paid staff of “three to five, but probably fewer,” he said.

Among other duties, the protocol chief could help greet visiting foreign dignitaries as well as U.S. political leaders, make arrangements for meetings with a visitor’s counterparts and coordinate social events.

The proposal, however, has drawn mixed reviews from San Diego hotel operators. Their principal gripe is not with the creation of a protocol office, but rather with the mayor’s suggestion that hotel room taxes be hiked by up to 2% so the city can better roll out the red carpet.

O’Connor first suggested such a room tax increase during her State of the City address in January, noting at the time that the extra funds could go to better fund the arts community in San Diego as well as special arts events such as the Soviet arts festival she is pushing.

Ted Kissane, president of the San Diego County Hotel-Motel Assn., said his group feels any increase in the room tax, which currently stands at 7%, should go for activities that help directly attract tourism to San Diego.

“I feel we could probably handle a 2% increase,” Kissane said. “But where is that money going to be spent? Is it going to be spent on things promoting tourism, or is it going to be spent on items that have very little to do with bringing tourism to the city?”

Kissane said he would rather see any hikes in the room tax go toward promotional work by the Convention and Visitors Bureau or to help pay for any funding shortfalls in the new Convention Center, which is under construction.

Below Other Cities

A 1% increase in the tax would bring in about $3.7 million in additional revenue to the city. The city collected more than $23 million during the past fiscal year from hotel room taxes. San Diego’s 7% tax is lower than that in several U.S. cities, among them San Francisco and Houston at 11% and New York at 13.25% plus $2 per night.

Council members, meanwhile, have also taken a few swipes at O’Connor’s proposal. Councilman Ed Struiksma said he feels that a protocol chief is needed, but said the post should be funded through some means other than a room tax increase.

Struiksma said the local tourism industry could probably “withstand an increase,” but he would prefer to see the money go toward improvements at Balboa Park and Mission Bay.

Councilman Bruce Henderson also favors diverting any extra tax money toward the park and Mission Bay, but would like to see the rate increased even higher, to a level of about 11%, a spokesman for the councilman said.

Other Project Funding

Downey said the mayor also favors funding for projects in Balboa Park and at Mission Bay, but has floated the proposal for more support of the arts and the creation of an office of protocol “as new ideas” to add to the list.

Several cities in the United States have full-time protocol offices, among them New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, Downey said.

In Los Angeles, the office is funded out of the city’s general budget, working with the staffs of foreign governments as well as the State Department to coordinate trips by visiting dignitaries, said Fred MacFarlane, press secretary for Mayor Tom Bradley.

San Francisco’s protocol operation is funded by about 1,000 individual donors who pay $1,000 a year each to be members of a host committee, according to Nancy Pelosi, the city’s officer of protocol. In exchange, the donors are at the top of the list for invitations to the major civic events involving the dignitaries, she said.

Phoenix, meanwhile, formed a protocol office about six months ago, which it operates in tandem with a sister-city program, according to Bonnie Bartak, a press secretary in the mayor’s office.

Times staff writer Leslie Wolf contributed to this story.