Today is the last day for the Washington Tourism Office.

Some states have cut their tourism marketing budgets in recent years, but Washington State is taking things a step further—it’s eliminating its tourism agency altogether, becoming the first state to do so.

Closure of the office is expected to save about $1.8 million annually. But with tourism spending reaching $15.2 billion in 2010, and $1 billion generated in state and local tax revenue—based on the preliminary 2010 Travel Impacts Report/Washington State Department of Commerce and Washington State Tourism—the tourism budget, which even in previous years when it had reached up to $7 million, seems like a drop in the bucket considering the favorable return.

Determining just how much of the revenues can be pegged to the work of the tourism bureau is difficult however, and states are in a money crunch looking for any opportunity to cut funding from one program to save another in the short run.

But that doesn’t mean there won’t be any future tourism marketing for Washington State. The possible closure of the tourism bureau had been on the radar for at least a year, and a private group of tourism industry stakeholders formed the Washington Tourism Alliance in March, with the goal of sustaining statewide destination marketing campaigns and communications.

In just two months, the 17 founding partners, 16 associate partners and more than 120 members have raised more than $300,000. Expect the new group to also affiliate with founding member Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau and its advertising campaign “Why Tourism Matters” to help promote the value of tourism to the state’s citizens and politicans.

Photo: Washington Tourism Alliance

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The town of Vancouver in Washington state has long been overshadowed by its more famous namesake in British Columbia, Canada. The recently concluded Olympics in Vancouver, BC brought this matter to a head, with Vancouver, Wa. getting many mistaken queries from visitors looking for the Olympic town. 

Vancouver, Washington, USA

As a result, Vancouver Wa. has finally decided to do something about it. But instead of giving up and changing their name, the Washington town is apparently hoping to steal it back.

They’re now pushing Vancouver as Vancouver USA, with a new slogan – ‘Visit Vancouver USA, Discover the Original.’ Their tourism bureau has also been renamed, and is now known as the Vancouver USA Regional Tourism Office.

The old Southwest Washington Convention and Visitors Bureau website now redirects to www.visitvancouverusa.com/.

Is all this this supposed to make some big difference? Maybe a few hapless tourists looking for the Canadian town will stop bothering Vancouver USA.

But as far as branding for tourism purposes is concerned, its not going to make it any easier. Vancouver BC will still hog all the search rankings for Vancouver and related queries.

Vancouver Wa. did at one time consider renaming itself to Fort Vancouver, which would have been far easier to brand than Vancouver USA. 

That said, Vancouver isn’t the first town to trip over search engine rankings, when it comes to similarly named towns and places.

The 1000 yr old French town of Eu in Normandy, France racked its brains trying to get some tourism traffic to its website, but always found itself blocked by the European Union. They’re now in the process of getting a new name with additional syllables in front of the Eu.

But in the case of Vancouver USA, there is no name change. With the Olympics over and done with, there was no pressing need to clear the confusion, and this rebranding sans name change doesn’t really look like its going to help Vancouver USA gain a separate identity and more visitors.

Photo by icantdothat

Delegations from 24 states (and counting) are all set to invade Washington DC for the U.S. Travel Association’s 4th Annual Travel Leadership Summit (Sept 16-17, 2009), to be held at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill.

Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill

The USTA is making the argument that there’s more reason than ever to attend the leadership summit this year, because the travel business is in a crisis and the industry has lost billions of dollars in cancellations.

The USTA has already spent $288,000 on lobbying Congress and other federal agencies in the second quarter (April-June) alone, but apparently that’s not been sufficient – as yet - to get federal assistance for the travel industry.

A show of strength and unity by the travel industry in Washington DC at this crucial juncture would be a big help in securing final passage of the Travel Promotion Act (TPA – S. 1023/H.R. 2935). The bill is expected to be taken up by the Senate on Sept 8 (background).

The Leadership Summit kicks off with an orientation for first-time delegates at 5 p.m. on Sept. 16. That same evening, State and regional delegations will be hosting receptions with their Congressional delegations to emphasize the economic and overall impact of travel and tourism in their locality and nationwide.

The formal program on Sept. 17 includes legislative briefings, tips on conducting successful Hill meetings and a chance to hear some of Washington DC’s top political minds. Among the speakers is NBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd, who will discuss the new Administration and Congress and his views as one of Washington’s leading observers on Sept. 17.

Here’s the schedule, hotel info and online registration links.

Photo courtesy Hyatt Hotels. Corp.