RESEARCH PAPERS ARE PRELIMINARY MATERIALS CIRCULATED TO STIMULATE DISCUSSION AND CRITICAL COMMENT. THE VIEWS EXPRESSED ARE THOSE OF THE INDIVIDUAL AUTHORS. WHILE RESEARCH PAPERS BENEFIT FROM ACTIVE UHERO DISCUSSION, THEY HAVE NOT UNDERGONE FORMAL ACADEMIC PEER REVIEW.
Tourism Improvement Districts (TIDs), modeled after the more well-known Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), are increasing rapidly in the U.S. With enabling legislation from state and local governments, TIDs allow hoteliers in a tourist destination to ban together to impose compulsory assessments on nearly all the hotels in the district in order to raise money to fund destination marketing. To date, research on TIDs have come almost exclusively from destination marketing organizations (DMOs), travel associations, TIDs, and consultants with vested interest in the formation and expansion of TIDs. This paper synthesizes information from available reports and attempts to provide a more balanced view of the role of TIDs in destination tourism marketing and promotion.
