It's Monday June 8, 2026
News & Comment About The Issues Facing Oriental.
The Oriental Tourism Board met Wednesday night, November 19, for its monthly meeting and went over its $15,000 budget for the current fiscal year. Second only to the Town Board, the Tourism Board has the biggest budget of all the town’s boards.
The Tourism Board receives approximately $11,000 a year from the accommodations tax that the town levies on hotel rooms. (The town’s general fund gets the other 50% share.) The Tourism Board had funds left over from previous years.
In the fiscal year ending next June, the Tourism Board said it would spend $4,000 on advertising. $2,800 would be paid for developing the Tourism Board’s new website, (which was unveiled at the meeting.) An additional $400 was set aside for hosting fees. Spirit of Christmas was allocated $500. Costs for a Governor’s Tourism Conference were pegged at $500. Brochures for the town were allocated $3,000. $1600 was set aside to pay for hotel rooms of visiting camera crews for publications and TV stations that do stories based in Oriental.
The Tourism Board also voted to provide $1000 to Oriental’s History Museum though some strings were attached before the vote was taken. History Museum volunteers had been seeking $2,000 because they said, the museum was functioning as a visitors center, fielding tourists’ questions about where to find restaurants and other attractions.
(At a meeting late this summer, Museum volunteer Bill Breitling also had told the Tourism Board that on a recent road trip he found most small town museums received some operating funds from their towns. Oriental’s museum relies almost entirely on contributions from private donors. A few months ago, the Town Board provided $40 to print the historic walking tour guide the Museum’s all-volunteer staff developed. )
Wednesday night, Tourism Board Chair Katy Pugh suggested giving the museum $1000.
Tourism Board Member Cathy McIlhenny said that she gave information to visitors at the Oriental Marina and Inn which she runs, and asked if she could get $1000, too. She also asked if the History Museum could be open more days in order to provide visitor information. Katy Pugh described the funding as “a pittance.” Other Tourism Board members present, Judy Wayland and Rich Wertin, said they were glad the museum was providing the service on its current Friday, Saturday, Sunday schedule.
Town staffer Lori Wagoner suggested that the $1000 be dedicated to only visitor-related spending. There was some discussion about racks at the museum to hold brochures to other attractions in town. In the end, Katy Pugh said the Tourism Board would provide the History Museum with up to $1,000 a year so long as it was visitor focussed. “If it’s not something reasonable,” she summarized, “we don’t give them the money.”
The Tourism Board also voted to subsidize television commercials that two dozen businesses in town were buying on WNCT-TV . $600 in Tourism Board money will be spent on commercials to air December 8-13 on Channel 9 in the lead-up to the Spirit of Christmas celebration here.
Cathy McIlhenny, who made arrangements with the TV station, says 24 merchants in town are sharing in 6 different 30 second commercials, each of which will air 32 times. Each thirty-second spot costs $900 to run and the Tourism Board is providing $100 to offset the cost of each. The TV station, McIlhenny says, will feature the Spirit of Christmas in its newscasts on the 12th and 13th of December.
The Tourism Board budget is subject to approval by the Town Board which could vote on it at the December 2 meeting.
Posted Friday November 21, 2008 by Melinda Penkava
