Tourism Dollars Are Already Adding Up For Winona

WINONA, Miss. (WCBI) – It’s been a year, since the 2% tourism tax passed in Winona.

It went in to effect last December and has spruced up many things across town.

So far, the tourism tax has brought in a couple hundred-thousand dollars.

The money comes from tourists traveling into town and paying an extra 2% tax on prepared food.

The tourism tax is already adding up for the city.

“I think the citizens are for it and it’s really turned out good. We anticipate, when we have a full year of revenue, we’ll have over $200,000 dollars of additional moneys, so there’s a lot of things that we can do with it,” says Mayor Jerry Flowers.

One of those things, is to improve the city’s baseball complex.

Winona took it over 15 years ago, and the new tourism money will let them make upgrades.

“There’s a number of things we have already done at the park. We have done a lot of concrete work to make it look better, rather than to have dirt and gravel. We have purchased picnic tables, new garbage cans, decorative garbage cans.”

The tourism dollars have also brought in canopies and flower gardens to the ball park.

Mayor Flowers says it’s all to make the park look better, with hopes of attracting more tournaments to the area and becoming a mini Snowden Grove, which is a well-known baseball park in Southaven.

“People are going to come in and they are going to buy food. They are going to eat at the restaurants. They’re going to come downtown to Special Treasures. They’re going to come downtown to the Crow’s Nest, and to different places, and it really brings in a lot of revenue. They can tell you that. The Sonic, out at the interstate, he realized how much revenue that the tournaments brought in,” says Flowers.

Not every dollar is going towards the diamonds, some are making their way downtown.

“Also, very excited that the board of aldermen agreed to a plan to put down antique-ish signs, stop signs, streets signs, coming in downtown, and we will hopefully, expand that through the years to include all of Winona.”

Mayor Flowers believes people outside of Winona, traveling Highways 82 and 51, make up 65-70% of the revenue from the tourism tax.