Travel and Tourism Board to weigh lodging-tax support for KHOL operations

The Jackson Hole Travel and Tourism Board is set to decide whether to use lodging tax dollars to partially cover KHOL’s operations budget, specifically its newsroom staffing that produces free daily news and cultural coverage for the community and visitors funding application.

As laid out in KHOL’s application, the request is framed as support for the station’s “operations budget for our KHOL newsroom,” with the argument that professional reporting capacity is needed to keep daily coverage on the airwaves year-round, not just for special events or a one-off campaign funding application. For lodging operators and other businesses that depend on a well-informed, functional visitor economy, the key question to watch Thursday is how the board draws the line between allowable tourism promotion and ongoing media operations, and what reporting expectations it would attach to any reimbursement-based funding.