It's a multibillion dollar a year business.

Tourism in Kentucky has big economic impacts.

But what are the challenges facing Kentucky's tourism and hospitality industries?

Some answers came during a legislative committee hearing last week in Frankfurt.

MCKENZIE Spain tells us what changes tourism officials would like to see.

And tonight's legislative update.

Amit Patel owns a local hotel business in Kentucky.

He says small businesses in the state are experiencing a variety of challenges, starting with lack of access to child care.

One of the most pressing issues regarding the workforce is the lack of adequate, adequate childcare resources.

Far too often, talented employees are forced to leave the workforce or scale back their hours simply because they cannot find or afford safe, reliable childcare for for their for their children.

According to the U.S.

Federal Reserve, Kentucky's labor force participation rate was 58.20% in August of 2025, putting us in the bottom six worst states for number of residents on the job.

But having enough workers isn't the only worry for tourism officials.

Another major challenge we face is an increase in insurance costs, which is becoming a trend that we have recently seen.

Hotels, by their very nature, are large, complex properties with significant exposure.

In recent years, natural disasters and catastrophic weather events, floods, storms and other severe conditions have contributed to a surge in property claims across the country, driving premiums through the roof for everyone.

At the same time, liability risks are constant reality in our industry.

On top of all of this, inflation has significantly driven up the cost of doing business.

Although hotel business leaders shared that 2025 is seeing a slowdown for hotels overall, the report from the tourism industry was positive.

I can declare right out of the gate that the state of tourism in Kentucky is strong.

It's very strong.

Over $14 billion in economic impact from tourism.

The support of nearly 100,000 jobs by tourism and the contribution of $1,000,000,000 in local and state tax revenue.

The request from the tourism representatives regards Kentucky's transient room tax, a 1% tax on lodging like hotels and campgrounds that goes back into funding tourism marketing for the state.

When we're talking about how our offices are funded, we are funded through transit tax.

So we get that from our hoteliers, from our bed and breakfast and our short term rentals.

But one of those folks, Airbnb, they are not paying their rent or excuse me, their local transit tax and that is something that our industry is currently in a lawsuit with Airbnb and we are wanting those folks to follow the law, follow the laws that the Commonwealth has passed and ask them to pay their funds.

In a city like Richmond.

We have about 36 short term rentals.

At those 36, about 15 of those are paying their local transit tax.

So that's about a $20,000 loss to our tourism office.

We request that you, in the upcoming session, disregard any attempt by Airbnb to change the local transient room tax in the same way that they have disregarded their obligation to pay that tax and have disregarded it for two years and nine months.

But who's counting?

In July, the Kentucky Court of Appeals denied Airbnb's request to overturn a Franklin Circuit Court decision, which allows Kentucky League of Cities and Kentucky Travel Industry Association to pursue the lawsuit against Airbnb.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm McKenzie Spink.

Thank you, McKenzie.

The lawsuit asked that the Franklin Circuit Court issue a literary judgment that Airbnb is a, quote, person required to pay transient room taxes.