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County Legislature Restores Tourism Marketing Funding

By Joyce Kryszak

Buffalo, NY – The Erie County Legislature Thursday restored $450,000 to the Buffalo Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The money was cut from the CVB during last year's budget crisis. That followed a roughly 50 percent cut from the previous year's tourism budget. CVB President Richard Geiger said they are grateful for even the small restoration. But Geiger said the money does little but keep the lights on.

"There's huge consumer pent-up demand right now and we're not able to get the Buffalo message out there because we don't have the resources to do it," said Geiger. "We're also talking about a time when we are investing hundreds of millions of dollars into infrastructure, like the Martin House, like the Inner-Harbor. This is, again, the time when we need to be out promoting and selling and telling those stories to the rest of the Country to bring visitors here. And unfortunately, with the limited resources we have, we can't."

However, Geiger said he is encouraged by his discussions with new lawmakers that more restorations could be made. The $450,000 added Thursday will come from the County Contingency fund.