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ConVis suffers cuts--this time without acrimony; San Diego now ranks with Philadelphia and San Antonio in funding to draw visitors.

Article Excerpt
It was hardly a surprise that the San Diego City Council--grappling with a $50 million budget shortfall--would once again take an ax to the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau.

But its tone in voting to pare the agency's budget by 10 percent last week was almost apologetic--certainly a contrast to last year, when a much deeper cut was made in the city's supplement following an audit of the bureau's travel and entertainment expenses and executive salary packages.

City Councilwoman Toni Atkins went so far as to note that tourism is one of San Diego's top industries and complimented the bureau on its job of marketing the destination and generating hotel-room tax revenue.

But cuts to an array of the tax recipients, including ConVis, had to be made, she stressed, in accordance with City Manager Lamont Ewell's proposed $858 million operating budget for the fiscal year that begins in July.

City Councilman Jim Madaffer said: "I don't think we'd have a lot of this money if it were not for ConVis. This place doesn't market itself."

ConVis recently released a report showing that the bureau's operating budget of $12.5 million for fiscal 2005--78 percent of...

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