Starting this summer, the Greater Sitka Chamber of Commerce will no longer provide visitor services for the city.
Under its current contract, the city pays the Chamber just under $600,000 a year — $300,000 in base funding and $275,000 in supplemental funds — to oversee the city’s visitor services program, Visit Sitka. The contract expires on June 30, and the Chamber has announced it will not pursue a new contract.
In a press release last week, Board President Holly Meyer said the organization decided against bidding for a new contract due to “structural differences that were not aligned with the Chamber’s management of Visit Sitka.”
View the full announcement here
The decision to pull out comes after the Sitka Assembly re-evaluated its visitor services contract last year and decided to issue an updated “request for proposals” or RFP. Assembly members pushed for changes to the contract to reflect the city’s changing needs as the tourism sector grows. According to the Chamber’s announcement, the scope of work the city will require in the new contract includes, “deliverables that are outside [of] the Chamber’s core focus and mission.”
In the Chamber’s statement, Meyer writes that not pursuing a new contract with the city “allows the Chamber to focus on high-priority business initiatives: workforce development, workforce housing, and childcare.”
The original deadline to bid on the city’s RFP was January 30. In an email Municipal Administrator John Leach said that the RFP would be extended through the end of February.
