THLA’s  Agenda & Priorities

Every other January, lawmakers from every corner of the State of Texas convene in Austin for the start of the regular legislative session. 

In Texas, regular legislative sessions occur between January and June of odd-numbered years, a compressed timeline in which members of the Texas House and Senate set the state budget and consider legislation on every topic imaginable. Every other January, THLA works to ensure Texas remains a friendly place for lodging businesses to operate and for meetings and events to occur.

With many new members of House and Senate set to join the Legislature, we are all expecting an active legislative session in 2027.  For THLA’s agenda, our priorities are as follows: 

Tourism Public Improvement District Clarification: THLA has been the author of every Texas state law regarding the creation and implementation of Tourism Public Improvement Districts (TPID) within the State of Texas. The first TPID bill in 2011 allowed the implementation of a TPID by the City of Dallas for hotels with 100 or more rooms. In 2015, this authority was expanded to allow the Cities of Fort Worth, San Antonio, Arlington, and Austin to also create Tourism Public Improvement District. Later in 2019, THLA worked to pass a bill that allowed all Texas cities to create a Tourism Public Improvement District and provided by statute that TPID funds could only be used for “marketing” and “sales activities” that directly promote the hotel industry in that community. There are currently 12 TPIDs. Since the passage of our various pieces of TPID legislation, certain cities have asked us to secure further legislative clarification on the authority and protocols related to TPIDs. This session, cities are seeking clarification on how new properties are added into existing districts and on assessment roll calculation. 

Clarifying the relationship between a hotel operator and their guests: Our members from across the state have noted the difficulty they have in removing non-paying or troublesome guests from their hotels. While existing caselaw has long established that hoteliers and guests patronizing their business do not establish a landlord-tenant relationship, existing statutes and codes are not explicit and hoteliers and law enforcement officers would benefit from clarification.

Improving hotel occupancy tax transparency and compliance: Periodically, THLA receives questions and comments from our members which highlight issues regarding state statutes on local hotel tax expenditure authority. Our clean-up bill for this upcoming session incorporates suggested improvements.

Improving local hotel occupancy tax collection from short-term rental properties: Short-term rentals operate all across Texas. THLA plans to work with short-term rental platform companies to develop a legislative solution to improve and streamline collection of local hotel occupancy taxes from short-term rentals.

Ensuring local hotel occupancy tax revenues remain dedicated to increasing hotel activity:

Full funding for state tourism promotion: Every legislative session, THLA advocates to secure full state funding for tourism promotion from the 1/12th dedicated portion of the state hotel occupancy tax.  This 1/12th portion now represents more than $60 million in state tourism funding annually and is allocated through the State appropriation bill (HB 1 / SB 1). 

In 2025, THLA again worked with our industry partners to ensure the state tourism promotion program was fully funded.  SB 1 in 2025 provided a full appropriation of $127.5 million for the biennium for the tourism promotion program managed by the Governor’s Office on Economic Development and Tourism. 

Supporting the Major Events Reimbursement Program (MERP) and Events Trust Fund (ETF) programs and ensuring they remain healthy: The Events Trust Fund (ETF) program and the Major Events Reimbursement Program (MERP) are a state economic development tool that helps communities attract large events to the State of Texas. The ETF/MERP programs assist Texas communities by reimbursing local costs for conducting an event.  This funding is generated by depositing projected gains in various local and state taxes generated from the event into a dedicated event-specific trust fund to reimburse the community for certain allowable event expenses.  The Governor’s Office of Economic Development and Tourism (EDT) is the state agency responsible for administering the ETF and MERP programs.

A municipality, county, or non-profit local organizing committee endorsed by a Texas municipality or county must be selected to host a qualified event.  For the event to be eligible for ETF or MERP funding, the event’s location in that Texas municipality or county must be selected through a highly competitive process by an independent site selection committee which considered other out-of-state locations.  For many major and medium sized cities in Texas, the ETF and MERP programs have been a huge driver of large-scale tourism events. 

Bills filed by other entities and supported by THLA: Every legislative session, THLA provides technical assistance and lobbying support for allied entities seeking legislation that will positively affect our industry.  Although it is still early in the planning process for the 2025 session, THLA is already aware of the following items, which we will be supporting:

1. Support Texas Travel Alliance’s efforts to create a uniform school start date.

2. Support Texas Media Production Alliance’s (TXMPA) efforts to ensure continued funding for the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program (TMIIIP).

3. Support business entities efforts on payment card swipe fee fairness.

5. Support property tax reductions for commercial property owners.

6. Support the expansion of the Major Events Reimbursement Program (MERP) and the Events Trust Fund (ETF) for new, well-qualified events.

7. Support the expansion of the Qualified Hotel Project (QHP) state entitlement program to provide economic incentives for certain hotel developments.

8. Support expansion of cities authorized to improve certain well-qualified sports facilities.

9. Pursue additional local hotel tax legislation, if supported locally and if the legislation contains necessary limits and protections on use.

10. Support partner business associations, such as Texas Restaurant Association (TRA), Texas Campground Owners Association (TACO), Texas Travel Alliance (TTA), Texas Association of Business (TAB), etc.

Opposing repeal of the 30-day hotel occupancy tax exemption: Every legislative session, THLA fights proposals to eliminate the exemption for “permanent residents” also known as the 30-day exemption.  Under current state law, this exemption makes guests who stay over 30 consecutive days completely exempt from state and local hotel tax.  Smaller cities, counties, and local chambers have in the past partnered to seek a repeal of this exemption to increase local hotel tax revenues.  They argue that the exemption was not intended to help big corporate entities such as oil companies, railroads, insurance companies, and airlines from paying the hotel tax for rooms that they keep long term for changing guests during that 30-day period.

THLA argues that the exemption after 30 days has been in existence as long as the hotel tax, and there is nothing in state law to suggest that corporate entities were not intended to use the exemption.  THLA also argues that repealing the exemption is tantamount to a tax increase, and we have joined with oil and gas field service operators, railroad, insurance, and airline lobbyists to make this argument at the legislature. 

Opposing legislation that includes unreasonable facility requirements for hotels and oppose bills that include unreasonable personnel requirements for hotels: Every session there are proposals that apply to commercial facilities that would be burdensome and costly to implement without sufficient counter benefits.  THLA weighs each of these proposals and opposes any measures that are unreasonable and would be a net negative for our industry. 

Every session there are also proposals that apply to the staffing of hotels and other businesses that would be burdensome and costly to implement without sufficient counter benefits.  THLA weighs each such proposal and opposes any measures that are unreasonable and would be a net negative for our industry. 

Oppose proposals to use local hotel tax for non-tourism purposes: Every legislative session, there are proposals by individual local governments to use local hotel tax for general government purposes that have little or nothing to do with tourism promotion and hotel activity. These bills have included provisions that would allow local hotel tax to be used for general infrastructure, transportation, broadband infrastructure, daycare, economic development, job training, education, etc.    

Stay tuned for more information to come as we get ready for the 2027 legislative session.