BEDFORD — Hotel operators and business owners voiced their opinions regarding a proposed room tax rate increase from 2% to 5% during the public comment section of the Bedford County Commissioners meeting on

Tuesday morning.

If the increase passes, about $900,000 in additional funds would be generated, according to a letter sent to the commissioners by the Bedford County Visitors Bureau.

The bureau’s plan for the funding includes enhancing the county’s websites; planning and building signs for tourism assets; conducting an ongoing presence on social media and digital advertising; and helping to develop tourism assets with a program grant fund, the letter states.

Kenny Fetterman, owner of county rental properties, opposed the increase, saying he took “major issue” with the tax money advertising Bedford as “Small Town America.”

“If marketing and branding is all about telling people what we are in the most generic and broadest sense, then we have succeeded immensely,” Fetterman said. “Seventy-five percent of America is small town America,” Fetterman said. “This does not make us special.”

Ankit Patel with Hampton Inn said whether they believed in small town America or not, they had to think about what it meant.

“It means the great outdoors and the affordability that you can’t find within cities,” Patel said. “Increasing taxes goes against the very DNA of small town America.”

Digital advertising needed

Carol Finelli-Brown, innkeeper and owner of The Chancellors House Bed & Breakfast, spoke in favor of the increase, saying she is a “small operator” with “all of the costs.”

“We have limited marketing resources, thus are greatly dependent upon efforts of the Bedford County Visitors Bureau to attract tourists to this county and help level that digital playing field,” Finelli-Brown said. Finelli-Brown said the visitors bureau could be more effective with a larger budget. She also pointed out the multiplier effect, which is when spending increases, it creates more income for others.

Amanda Borroughs, general manager at the Bedford Springs and a visitors bureau board member, agreed and said when comparing costs to cities like Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, “Bedford becomes a more attractive option.”

“With us being the largest contributor to the hotel occupancy tax, the better we succeed, the more revenue and the better our entire county is going to succeed,” Borroughs said.

She then asked the commissioners that if they approved the increase, they would stick to the plan that “includes an increase of digital advertising,” which she said was “desperately needed.”

“For those of you that don’t follow the visitors bureau right now, they posted four organic posts in the entire year of 2024,” Borroughs said.

Borroughs said the Springs receives about 100,000 website visits a year and received 12 referral visits from Bedford County’s website.

Rate increase not taken lightly

Commissioner Chair Mike Stiles said no matter what happened, there were pros and cons for raising the tax.

“I think a lot of the big controversy is the comments about, well ‘how are you going to put heads in our beds?'” Stiles said. “And technically, I would think the visitors bureau is to get the people here, and then the hotel managers need to put the heads in the beds.”

Commissioner Vice Chair JR Winck said he grew up in the motel industry, so “this isn’t something I take very lightly.”

“My dad had a small motel in Breezewood, so I know what it takes firsthand to make that run and how much it took for him to make money with that,” Winck said. “I wonder what he could have done if he had a marketing grant — how much more the business would have increased.”

The proposed increase would create a program grant fund, which would “help fund capital project improvements” to the county’s tourism assets. According to the proposed budget, $250,000 or 20% would go toward the grant program and those who apply would need to have a 25% match.

Stiles said the grant could be used by organizations like the Bedford County Agricultural Society for the fairgrounds or “the trails could apply for grants for trail maintenance.”

Commissioners will vote on the increase in March and, if passed, it will go into effect in January 2026, Stiles said.

Mirror Staff Writer Rachel Foor is at 814-946-7458.