Spokane Valley TPA Commission Regular Meeting - April 16, 2026
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Spokane Valley TPA Commission Regular Meeting
The Spokane Valley Tourism Promotion Area Commission held a regular meeting on April 16, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. at Spokane Valley City Hall. The meeting included an administrative report, financial update, and two presentations: a Q1 update from Spokane Sports on the cross-country course and a marketing update from agency 116 & West. No public comments were received.
Public Comments & Testimony
- No members of the public signed up to comment via Zoom or provided in-person comments.
Administrative Report – Mike Basinger
- Mike Basinger, Community and Economic Development Director, reported that Leslie (former TPA staff lead) had retired. He noted that revenue collections for January and February 2026 are down compared to the prior year, despite a 1.1% increase in hotel occupancy. The average daily room rate dropped to approximately $88 per night, reducing total revenue even with more guests.
- The city’s periodic comprehensive plan update has delayed a council vote on the Opportunity Fund changes, but a first reading is scheduled for April 28 and a second for May 5. If approved, online applications for funding could begin in June.
- Basinger warned that the $3 per room night fee sunsets unless renewed by the state legislature during the long session; failure to renew could potentially cut TPA revenue in half (from $1.3 million to ~$650,000). He expressed confidence the fee would be reinstated but urged attention during budget planning.
Financial Report – Sarah Farr
- Sarah Farr, Accounting and Finance Program Manager, confirmed that early-year revenue is slightly down but stated it is too early to project annual totals. She noted that the TPA flat fee (not a percentage of room rate) should not be affected by lower ADR, suggesting occupancy or timing may account for the dip.
- Commissioner Grant raised a question about a discrepancy: TPA collections appeared down while occupancy was up slightly. Sarah and Mike agreed to investigate by comparing TPA collections with the separate lodging tax fund to identify timing issues.
Commission Business
Non-Action Item: Sports Recruitment and Marketing Update – Spokane Sports
- Ashley Blake, CEO of Spokane Sports, and Ruth Fitzgerald, Hotel Relations lead, presented a Q1 update. The TPA Commission allocated $700,000 for 2026: event delivery costs and positioning/growth efforts.
- Key statistics:
- Four major events confirmed for the new cross-country course in 2026, representing approximately 5,200 hotel room nights and 21,000 unique attendees.
- This far exceeds the Johnson Consulting feasibility study’s year-one benchmark of 900 attendees.
- All events were secured before the facility opened, leveraging existing relationships with rights holders (e.g., Nike events in September and November).
- Ruth reported that for middle school basketball (boys and girls) alone, Valley hotels generated 1,508 room nights and $327,000 in revenue at an average gross rate of $215.
- Commissioner Grant asked about the earlier mention of 12–16 events for 2026; Ashley explained that those events were contingent on the full $900,000 request and had to be cut when funding was reduced to $700,000.
- Discussion included the need for a field house (estimated ~$2.5 million), a cyclocross expansion, and a transportation plan for large events. Basinger added that the city is pursuing a Riverview Trail project (14-foot path) and working on naming rights validation.
- No action was taken; the item was informational.
Non-Action Item: Marketing Update – 116 & West
- Jessica McDonnell presented the Q1 marketing performance. The 2026 budget allocates $220,000 to hotel promotion paid media (March–December), $50,000 to course marketing, and $50,000 to the Discover the Valley tourism brand.
- Early results from campaigns launched in March/April: 15,800 impressions, 2,036 clicks, yielding a click-through rate of nearly 13% (double the prior year and 3% above benchmark). Cost per click remains below benchmark.
- Course marketing is in the activation phase: a strategy playbook completed, organic social media set up, paid media plan in development.
- The tourism brand paid social (TikTok, Instagram, Facebook) is approved and set to launch May 15.
- Commissioner Grant inquired about continued use of data tools (Placer AI, CoStar); Basinger confirmed the city will maintain access and noted a replacement for Leslie is being hired.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken. The meeting concluded with a motion to adjourn, seconded, and approved unanimously.
- The next steps include: monitoring TPA revenue trends, council adoption of Opportunity Fund changes (April 28/May 5), further transportation and course infrastructure planning, and continued marketing optimization.
Meeting Transcript
Okay, I think we have people here and on Zoom and 10 o'clock. So we can call the meeting to order. And I think we're starting with uh any public comments. No one signed up via Zoom. Okay. Next item, we have Mike here with an administrative report. Yeah, so uh good morning, Chair and Commissioners. Uh Mike Basinger, community and economic development director. As you know, um yesterday was Leslie's last day. So I am jumping in. She tried to get me up to speed before she left. Uh, we'll definitely miss Leslie. So, and I really appreciate all she's done. So I'm hopefully you guys felt the same way. She's been pretty instrumental in putting the TPA together, especially when it got broke. Uh establishing our own TPA here in the Valley. Leslie was tromping around to all the hotels and talking to people and trying to get people excited about the idea of putting one together. And she's been super passionate about it all along. So she's definitely going to be missed. Um, jumping right into the administrative report. We do have some tough news. Uh revenue collection is down a bit in January and February. Um, even though more people stayed in our hotels this February, we're up about 1.1%. We actually brought in less money than last year. Uh, you know, and this is because room rates dropped to an average of about $88 a night. Um, Spokane Hotels saw essentially the same thing. More people stayed in their rooms, but because they dropped their prices, you know, six percent, their total revenue still fell. So um, Sarah Farr will provide more details relating to TPA collections after my report. So um marketing and website, you'll find the latest Discover the Valley website stats in your packet. Jessica from 16 West is on the agenda later to give you a full marketing update. Um so she'll handle any specific questions you might have about those numbers. And then opportunity fund update. We're still uh waiting to get our opportunity fund changes in front of council. They've been buried in work lately. This is primarily due to the work that I haven't, you know, doing for our periodic update of our conference of plan, which essentially we have meetings for the various elements of the conference of plan. We broke it up into three meetings, but on those nights, that's the only topic they're hearing. And it was on purpose, just because it's complicated subject matter, and we wanted to make sure that we could uh get the input we needed to move this process forward, which is adoption in December of uh this year. So a lot of work. Not that everybody's that interested in the periodic update, but it is the city's vision. It does have components of tourism and economic development built into it. Uh so it is something that actually guides our council in terms of where their priorities might sit. So they adopt those policies and goals, and it actually is something we can reference back to and say, hey, remember through our periodic update, which is our 20-year plan, um, the city really sees a vision in supporting economic development and continuing those efforts. So that's been taking a lot of time. So but that being said, we do have an administrative report. Actually, I take that back. I was able to get them to do a first reading on April 28th. And then I believe the second reading is on May 5th. What I mean by that is normally we do three touches, but because um Leslie was in front of them talking about the opportunity fund, we're able to use that as an administrative report. So hopefully we'll reduce that down to two touches. I am pretty certain council's on board understands it.
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