Frequently Asked Questions

A: Visit Bend is made up of a dedicated group of Bend-based staff, volunteers, and board members who live, work, and raise their families in Bend. Go here to meet our team. Go here to meet the Board.

A: Like many towns in Oregon, Bend relies on tourist dollars to keep our city’s economy healthy. Oregon’s boundless beauty draws guests from around the globe, and with no statewide sales tax, lawmakers devised a system to ensure visitors can help support services like police and fire in the towns they visit. The result is a state law dedicating a significant portion of transient room tax revenue to fund those vital community services, while another portion gets funneled to destination marketing organizations (DMOs) across the state. Visit Bend is one of those DMOs tasked with ensuring a healthy flow of continued tourism revenue for our community and economy.

A: Anyone staying in a Bend hotel, vacation rental, or other short-term lodging pays a 10.4% tax to the City of Bend. There’s an additional 1.5% statewide transient room tax (TRT) that goes to Travel Oregon, which is the statewide tourism bureau.

Of the 10.4% hotel tax collected by the City of Bend, Visit Bend receives 31.2% that’s earmarked for marketing our destination to potential visitors. The City uses the remainder of the tax money (68.8%) for its General Fund as well as Public Safety, which includes police and fire. In fiscal year 2018/2019, the City retained $6,999,471 from TRT revenue.

A: Visit Bend has budgeted to receive $2.1 million from transient room tax revenue in fiscal year 2020/2021. An additional $150,000 comes from retail and advertising sales, bringing the organization’s total projected budget to $2.25 million. To see Visit Bend’s FY 20/21 Business Plan, go here.

Oregon’s state laws and Bend’s city code are strict about how Visit Bend can spend the money it receives from room tax collections. By law, the funds must go toward the promotion of tourism. The portion of room tax dollars that go into the City of Bend general fund are not restricted by this law.

A: In 2013, Visit Bend spearheaded an effort with Bend’s arts and culture community to lobby for a 1.4% increase in the tax visitors pay when staying in a Bend hotel room. Visit Bend used this money to create the Bend Cultural Tourism Fund (BCTF), which became one of the largest arts and culture granting organization in the Pacific Northwest. Each year, Visit Bend sets aside 7.5% of the TRT revenue the organization receives and deposits the money into the Bend Cultural Tourism Fund. Since the creation of the BCTF, Visit Bend has distributed more than $1 million to arts and culture organizations, particularly those aimed at attracting visitors during Bend’s slower times like fall and spring.