Visit Greater St. Cloud Preparing For 2025 Legislative Session

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- The next Minnesota legislative session is still several months away but Visit Greater St. Cloud is already gearing up for it. Executive Director Rachel Thompson says they are working on what St. Cloud and the state need for tourism.

She says one of their priorities is bringing movie-making to Minnesota:

"Explore Minnesota is also taking on Minnesota Film and so how do we put film in the forefront for Minnesota when people are looking for those film scenes and that's something that's going to be a large target for us."

Explore Minnesota took over as the state's film office from Minnesota Film and TV on July 1st.  She says some of their other top priorities include employer mandates, tourism investments, and taxes, and they are always watching what other states spend on tourism

"We see massive tourism dollars in the surrounding states from us and so we need to make sure that we stay competitive. It does have legs that go into workforce attraction and business attraction as well and so how we stay competitive in that landscape."

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Thompson says they work on concerns from the state-wide level like regulating third-party Online Travel Agency (OTA) bookings, the statewide social district allocation, and items on the national and international scale too, like VISA wait times, in her role as Board Chair with the Minnesota Association of Conventions and Visitors Bureaus (MACVB)   Minnesota's next legislative session starts on January 14th next year.

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