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    Home » Letter to The Editor: City is Being Sold Out to Tourism
    Letter to The Editor

    Letter to The Editor: City is Being Sold Out to Tourism

    April 17, 2016No Comments
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    logo_lettereditorBy Linda J Sentivanac
    Sedona Resident
    (April 17, 2016) 

    Three of the four front page stories in Friday’s edition of the RRN tie in together with a familiar theme.: The city is being sold out to tourism. Soldier Pass trail, along with dozens of others, are being overrun with hikers, bikers, and off-road vehicles,  tearing up the land and blocking roads with parked cars.  The pedestrian and vehicular traffic in Uptown is unworkable. Flow of traffic up 179 and all throughout Sedona has become a frustration for tourists and locals alike.

    I am pleased to see the council support limitation of jeep tours on Soldier Pass. And going forward with better pedestrian access into Uptown (along with metered parking on the street) is a benefit. However, our throwing more money ($249k) at yet another traffic study, is ludicrous and maddening.

    It is clear to me and other locals I’ve spoken with that the problem is quite simple: we have too much traffic because we paid for it. Every year, the Chamber has been given an exorbitant “destination marketing” budget  (with huge annual raises) to bring in more and more tourists. We are at a point of diminishing return, as the quality of the “Sedona experience” is decreasing.

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    Sedona needs to decide in favor of its residents, not just its businesses.  At this point, we should eliminate most of the budget given to the Chamber for this marketing. Sedona is already well-known throughout the world. Do we really need  to push for more recognition ? And there is little point in spending any marketing money on in-state advertising, as it typically gains us only “day trippers’ who spend little. 

     Time to get real about how to correct our issues. We can’t keep inviting more guests when there is “no room in the inn.”

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    Sedona chamber of Commerce
    Chamber Effort to Target
    Affluent Tourists Derailed

    By Tommy Acosta
    If you make less than $150,000 and thought of visiting Sedona you are not the target of a recently proposed marketing effort by the Sedona Chamber of Commerce, focused on luring visitors that that are affluent. A request by the chamber for the city to release $225,000 from its marketing contingency plan to be used for destination marketing targeting people with money, was torpedoed at the Sedona City Council meeting of January 24. The chamber had hoped to use the contingency funds to bring tourists to Sedona that are well heeled and willing to spend scads of money rather than focusing marketing efforts on “day trippers” who come to the city to hike or spend little more than a day here exploring, off-roading, browsing the UpTown shops and spending little cash while clogging up the roads and making it difficult for locals to get around town. Read more→
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