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A companion to Part 4 of the Seattle Archipelago series, Set It Up So It Can't Be Swept.
Are you an owner or senior operator of a tourism business in Washington — a hotel, a tour company, an attraction or performing-arts venue, a recreation business, or a beverage producer, at any size; or a full-service restaurant or retailer above $5 million? A board being seated right now will help design what every assessed business in your sector pays into the new statewide tourism fund, and until July 31 you can apply to sit on it.
The fund is Washington's new statewide tourism assessment — a charge on tourism businesses' gross revenue (the posting's working figure: 0.4 percent), enacted this spring as Chapter 229 of the 2026 laws, aimed by its industry designers at $25 million or more a year for statewide tourism promotion, and structured so the Legislature cannot sweep it into another budget. How it got built is its own story, told in Part 4 of this series. What matters here is what happens next: before anyone collects a dollar, an initial Ratepayer Oversight Board — the ROB — designs the program — the rates, how much of a business's revenue counts as tourism, whether nonprofits are billed, and the first budget — and then each sector votes, on ballots weighted by projected payment, on whether to ratify what it designed.
The seat itself: the board seats at least two members from each of the seven sectors. The initial board serves six months or until the first ratification vote, whichever comes first. The eligibility gate, in the words of State of Washington Tourism's posting: you must be an employee or officer of a business that would be assessed — one that "derives a meaningful share of its business from non-local visitors" — with "senior-level decision-making responsibilities," willing to "prioritize industry interests over personal interests" — and able to make the time commitment.
Whoever sits drafts the package everyone else in the sector votes on — and lives with, once it passes. And the seats run by sector, not geography: no city or region is guaranteed a chair. If the assessment will reach your books, the room where it gets designed is open this month.
Apply via the posting at industry.stateofwatourism.com — the application is a PDF form, submitted by email. The window closes July 31; the Washington Tourism Marketing Authority, the public authority that runs the program, votes on the initial roster August 12. And if you are not eligible but know someone who is — an operator, a general manager, a winery owner east of the mountains — send them this page.
Sources: Engrossed Second Substitute House Bill 2325, Chapter 229, 2026 Laws (bill text, Sections 3, 7, and 8, leg.wa.gov); State of Washington Tourism's Ratepayer Oversight Board posting at industry.stateofwatourism.com (retrieved July 21 and 24, 2026), the source for the application window, the six-month initial term, the August 12 approval vote, the 0.4 percent working figure, and the quoted eligibility language; and the Tourism Self-Supported Assessment Advisory Group's report to the Legislature, October 31, 2025, for the $25 million target. Every document is a public record or public posting; every claim in this piece can be checked against them.
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