Bed Tax

Visit Anchorage’s mission is driving economic and social value for Anchorage residents, businesses, and visitors through tourism. In short, Visit Anchorage works to bring all the benefits of travel to our community.

Visit Anchorage, is the destination marketing organization (DMO) charged with representing Anchorage and all the communities of the municipality, through the strategic development of the visitor and meetings industries.

Visitors, residents, travel agents, tour operators, media, and meeting planners contact a DMO to receive official destination information. As a reliable, authoritative travel resource, DMOs provide each of these audiences with information to help in their decision-making and trip planning.

Visit Anchorage is also a partner for local businesses, helping to educate and promote local businesses.

Our organization markets Anchorage. Through our programs, we are able to leverage our collective marketing power for the good of the city, residents, and local companies, allowing many to make inroads into markets they wouldn’t be able to access on their own.

The bed tax was created to market Anchorage as a destination. Proposed in 1975, the intention of the bed tax was to create a collective Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) to attract and serve visitors to Anchorage. In effect, the visitor industry chose to tax itself to fund marketing efforts instead of looking to municipal, state, or federal funds.

In 1979, the bed tax rose from 5% to 8%, enabling the industry to support not only marketing Anchorage, but allowing for a contribution to the MOA general fund.

Today, the 12% bed tax is split three ways:

• one-third goes to MOA’s general fund;
• one-third is utilized to service the bond debt and operations of the Anchorage Convention Centers;
• and one-third supports the marketing functions of Visit Anchorage.

Visit Anchorage’s marketing efforts are supplemented by member business contributions through annual dues, paid advertising opportunities, and marketing program fees. Visit Anchorage is a not-for-profit company, a 501(c)(6).

Bed tax collections in 2023 totaled almost $45 million, an all-time high. A third of collections go to future marketing and promotions efforts on behalf of Anchorage, so Visit Anchorage will have about $14 million to market the city. While that's a healthy amount, it not as large as some places. In comparison, places like Seattle, Denver, and Portland spend more than that to lure in travelers.

Bed taxes have long been a sustainable, stable way to fund community programs and projects and keep tourism marketing strong. When marketing efforts succeed, more people visit, and future bed taxes grow.

Even factoring in dips during the COVID-19 pandemic, annual bed tax collections have averaged more than $26 million annually since 2014.

Visit Anchorage works diligently to maximize the impact of its marketing dollars. That work takes many forms, from advertising campaigns to build awareness, to sales efforts to entice conventions to book Anchorage and tour operators to build and expand their product offerings here. The end goal is to put tourism's power to work for Anchorage throughout the year.

Read about the multitude of ways Visit Anchorage markets the city by department.

In a single year, Visit Anchorage:

• Books more than $100 million in future convention business
• Generates more than a million visitors to our web properties
• Assists hundreds of thousands of visitors at our Visitor Information Centers
• Meets with more than a million people through travel agent training and appearances at consumer travel shows

Visit Anchorage's work amplifies Anchorage's presence in the mind of domestic and international travelers. The community's investment in tourism marketing and promotions sees strong returns. Leisure travel is responsible for hundreds of millions in direct spending in the community every year.

Visit Anchorage is guided by a volunteer board of directors from the Anchorage visitor industry. These are business people who are committed to furthering Anchorage as a visitor and meeting destination; the organization’s success has a direct impact on their individual business or organization. Directors represent 10 membership categories and are elected by their peers – the member businesses of Visit Anchorage.

In addition to membership elected directors, the Municipality of Anchorage is also on the board, with designated seats for representatives from the Anchorage Assembly and the administration. Visit Anchorage provides monthly reports to the board, quarterly reports to the Municipality of Anchorage, and an annual Report to the Community that is open to the public.

Destination marketing is a very competitive business. Visit Anchorage’s efforts keep our city top-of-mind with the traveling public, infusing much-needed visitor dollars into our community. These dollars allow for year-round employment and generate revenue for local businesses. It also improves our quality of life in ways beyond the bottom line. For example, visitation might make it possible for restaurants and entertainment options to remain open throughout the year, and added flights serving visitors also give Alaskans more travel options Outside.

Also, studies show that travel marketing and promotion has a "halo" effect on other perceptions of a community. People exposed to travel ads and messages about a place are more likely to visit, but also to perceive that city as a good place to invest in a business, move to, attend college in, or retire. Travel has a part to play in wider community economic development issues, and it all starts with a visit.