Sedona council authorizes tourism contingency spending, including $50,000 for crisis response after pocket fire

The Sedona City Council on July 14 approved a tourism industry monitoring framework that gives staff and the city manager new, limited authority to draw from contingency funds to boost destination marketing when indicators show sustained declines or when a crisis threatens visitation or reputation.

Andrew Grossman, the city's tourism manager, outlined a three‑stage "traffic light" system: green (flat or rising performance), yellow (early signs of decline requiring deeper investigation) and red (a definitive, multi‑metric decline prompting staff to propose contingency spending). Grossman said the metrics include Smith Travel Research overnight demand for Sedona Plus, short‑term rental listing performance, booking pace, ADOT vehicle counts on key corridors, Visa Destination Insights spend in target markets and a city tourism business outlook survey.

"We're looking at a traffic light system," Grossman said, explaining proposed triggers such as a year‑over‑year hotel demand decline of 3% or more over a 4‑week period as one bellwether. He acknowledged lags and statistical limits in some datasets and said staff would triangulate multiple indicators and business input before recommending contingency spending.

Council deliberations focused on numeric triggers, data lags and safeguards. Several councilors urged clear documentation when staff curates a comparison year or adjusts benchmarks; one councilor recommended requiring a majority of the indicators before triggering contingency access, and another suggested reviewing outcomes and lessons after any deployment.

After the June 19 "pocket fire," staff proposed a second, expedited threshold for crisis response that would let the city manager authorize up to $50,000 more quickly for reputation management and targeted advertising (drawn from the same $150,000 pot). Grossman described early data showing cancellations, a drop in hotel demand (single‑week declines in mid‑July data), and ADOT vehicle‑count declines; business respondents reported material revenue drops. Local business speakers told council they had seen cancellations and falling revenues and urged faster action to correct misleading social media and news coverage.

Council then moved and approved a motion authorizing the monitoring framework and the city manager procurement authority to access up to $150,000 in the FY27 budget year for tourism contingency spending, and specifically authorized the city manager procurement authority to access up to $50,000 of that amount for crisis management situations. The motions provided staff discretion to select procurement mechanisms (not limited to one agency contract) and included a council request to report back on outcomes after any deployment.

Action and next steps: The city manager now has limited procurement authority (per council motion) to use up to $150,000 annually from contingency funds for destination marketing as triggered by the monitoring framework and up to $50,000 for expedited crisis response. Staff will return with implementation details, reporting metrics and recommendations for any contract amendments needed to execute the strategy.