JOHN COFFELTEditor

Working to avoid a budget amendment within weeks of the start of the fiscal year, the Coffee County Budget and Finance Committee approved the allocation of $3,500 to the South Central Tennessee Tourism Association.

Speaking of behalf of SCTTA, Ryan French said the organization is funded through local government dues, private sector partners, state grants and destination marketing organizations tourism services.

“We are a 501(c)6, state-support, organization,” French said. “We work with the state department of Tourism Development. We’re not part of the department. We’re in between the state department and local government.”

French said the state endowment grant that the organization receives has a matching component generated through local funds.

“Coffee County hasn’t had a tourism effort on the county side in years, so there has been limited interaction between organizations,” French said. “We do service each county and the municipalities in each county regardless.”

County Mayor Dennis Hunt said SCTTA was late getting the request for fund to the county.

“This should have been brought to us during the budget approval process,” Hunt said. “This is a 501(C) and we would have categorized this as a charitable donation.”

Budget and Finance Chairman Lynn Sebourn voiced concern that a budgetary amendment at this time could open the door for additional requests.

French said in recent years SCTTA has asked counties to fund the organization using hotel/motel tax revenues which are required to be used for tourism.

He said that funding from that source would not place the SCTTA requests in competition with other nonprofits like the Coffee County Children’s Advocacy Center.

SCTTA’s activities range from grant writing to marketing to assistance in planning and promoting local partners.

According to data from the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development, direct visitor spending totaled $30.6 billion in 2023. Last year’s spending was up 6.2% from the year prior. An estimated 144 million people visited the state in 2023.

French said that tourism dollars impact Coffee County the most of all of the SCTTA’s 13 counties. While that data for 2023 is published yet, the 2022 numbers show an economic impact of $137 million.

The source of that impact was said to be largely transportation with Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival second.

John has been with the Manchester Times since May 2011. John has won Tennessee Press Association awards for Best News Photo and placed in numerous other categories. John is a 1994 graduate of Tullahoma High School, a graduate of Motlow State Community College and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Middle Tennessee State University. He lives in Tullahoma, enjoys painting, dancing and exploring the outdoors.