The county is putting aside an effort to create a county tourism development authority.

In 2015, retired county commissioner Al Klemm, as facilitator of a county tourism committee, led an effort to create a countywide TDA. The committee floated the idea of creating a county hotel-occupancy tax to fund a county TDA — much like Washington has to fund the Washington TDA — but the idea was met with mostly negative feedback from local hotel and inn owners.

The 2015-16 county budget set aside $20,000 to help a county TDA get underway, but those efforts weren’t realized due to lack of interest, according to Martyn Johnson, head of Beaufort County Economic Development.

Until the May 9 regular meeting of the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners, the only money taken from the designated tourism funds was when organizers of Bath’s upcoming First Port Celebration in Bath request of $5,000 to help pay for the event’s fireworks display.

At the May 9 meeting, Johnson appealed to the Board to use the money to fund an online coordinated tourism effort, with the creation of ExploreIBX.com, a website that would launch visitors to individual towns’ websites and would have a countywide events calendar. Johnson also asked that the county match funds with the Belhaven Chamber of Commerce for a complete overhaul of the Chamber’s existing website.

The cost of the projects is a little less than $10,000; commissioners voted 6-1 to approve the expenditure.

Immediately after the vote, Aurora Mayor Clif Williams approached commissioners with his own request for $5,000 to help replace several palm trees at the town’s new boat ramp, in anticipation of the arrival of thousands of visitors for the Aurora Fossil Festival on May 27-29. A suggestion of $3,000 was made, but Commissioner Hood Richardson proposed the board clean out the remaining $4,510 left in tourism funding. Commissioners voted to clear out the rest of the funds.

When asked County Manager Brian Alligood said the 2016-17 Manager’s Recommended Budget presented at the same meeting did not have any money set aside for tourism.

“I think it’s a sad, sad economy when we’re not willing to spend $20,000 to market Beaufort County,” Commissioner Frankie Waters said. “The county needs something to stimulate it and when you look, that’s tourism.”

According to Johnson, Beaufort County ranks 48 of 100 North Carolina counties in travel impact. He said 440 county jobs are directly related to tourism, and tourism’s economic impact is worth more than $75 million.

Commissioner Ron Buzzeo agreed that efforts to increase tourism would benefit the county overall.

“I think it’s worthwhile and it’s something we need to do,” Buzzeo said. “We have to make the change to do something to more forward on our economic development.”