Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – Springfield is a tourist town, but the people who want it to also be a thriving convention town disagree on the proposal for a three percent tax on hotel and motel rooms to fund an expansion of the BOS Center.

“When someone is just coming to see the Lincoln museum, they’re not taking a look at what’s the tax rate of Springfield,” said Keenan Irish, the Illinois Hotel and Lodging Association‘s vice president of government relations and member engagement. “But when you have event planners bringing meetings or tournaments or conferences, that is absolutely a cost that they take a look at. And in the day and age of the affordability crisis we have right now, event planners are looking at those numbers a lot more closely.”

The additional three percent would bring room taxes in Sangamon County to a total of seventeen percent, which would be second in Illinois to only Chicago.

Peoria is frequently mentioned as a competitor; in fact, the Illinois FFA convention is moving there from Springfield. But, says Irish, “even if we do increase the size of the BOS Center, it’s still going to be considerably smaller than the Peoria Civic Center. Peoria is also going to have this incentive fund, so they’re going to be able to go to these events and conferences that we’ve either lost or might lose, and they’re going to be able to double down and say, not only do we have more space for you, we also have these incentives, and here in Springfield, we’re going to have a three percent tax that’s just going to bond payments” as opposed to actual tourism promotion.

Irish said other cities use a “tourism improvement district” to put hotel and motel tax revenue into a “lockbox.”

The Sangamon County Board could vote on the three percentage-point increase Tuesday.