Lodging Tax Advisory Committee aims to promote sustainability, equity through grants
When Vancouver adopted its ambitious climate action plan in December 2022, officials promised that the city itself would lead the way toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2030 and making Vancouver more resilient to the impacts of climate change.
It's a stance members of the city's Lodging Tax Advisory Committee are taking seriously.
"Part of the action plan does touch on every one of our departments in the city," Vancouver City Councilor Sarah Fox said.
That includes the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee that Fox chairs. It helps disburse the city's overnight lodging taxes to groups and events that draw more tourists to Vancouver.
In 2025, the city awarded $1.74 million in lodging taxes to 21 organizations using a scoring matrix to evaluate each grant request.
This year, the committee may alter its scoring system to give extra points to grant applicants with stronger sustainability or equity and inclusion plans.
Visit Vancouver, the city's destination-marketing organization, received $1.3 million in lodging taxes for its 2026 marketing and sales programs. In return, the group markets Vancouver as a destination for events and conventions, bringing about 20,000 overnight visitors and an estimated $11.5 million in economic benefits to Vancouver each year.
This month, Visit Vancouver asked two visiting professionals from the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Professional Fellows Program to evaluate previous lodging tax grant applications and come up with a system that would encourage applicants to make sure their programs, events and festivals align with the city's climate and equity priorities.
"We believe the city itself has very clearly stated priorities for equity, inclusion, sustainability and resiliency," said Cliff Myers, Visit Vancouver's president and chief executive officer. "But we don't necessarily feel that this program is driving the applicants and the events themselves to align with those exact priorities."
The visiting fellows - Nicole Carmela Flores from the Philippines and Konticha Pattamavichitvong from Thailand - both work as sustainability managers for hotels and resorts in Southeast Asia.
During the committee's April 8 meeting, the visiting fellows suggested new scoring systems. For instance, on the equity and inclusion side, a grant application that includes underrepresented groups in its decision-making process and has a detailed plan to be accessible for all ages and abilities would get a much higher score than an application that just mentions diversity in its marketing materials. On the sustainability side, Flores suggested a five-point scoring matrix that would focus on greenhouse gas emissions, waste diversion, tree canopies and parks, and water quality.
Flores suggested that event marketing material include maps showing how to walk, bike or take public transit to attend.
That idea impressed Fox, who noted that transportation - especially the use of passenger vehicles powered by fossil fuels - is one of the greatest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Vancouver.
"Anything that we can do on that end would have an impact on the city's emissions," said Fox, who also works as a climate program manager for the state's commerce department.
Committee members seemed interested in the ideas presented by the visiting fellows, Fox said, and could vote to implement the new scoring system later this year.
"It's exciting," Fox said. "We should be leading by example and looking at any aspect of our operations that we can."
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