Crain’s New York Business: Applicants roll in to $100M tourism employee grant program
By CARA EISENPRESS
April 7, 2022 4:31 PM
A week after opening for applications, several hundred businesses have applied for grants from a $100 million state program meant to offset the cost of rehiring tourism-sector employees as the industry recovers.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the New York State Tourism Return-to-Work Grant Program in November 2021 as part of a $450 million tourism recovery package. The idea was to encourage companies to start bringing workers back, perhaps in advance of when it was absolutely necessary to staff up.
Tourism-related firms have been hard hit by the city’s long recovery and by federal policies that have kept visitor levels low. As of February, for example, the hotel industry in the cityy was employing 31,600 workers, compared with 52,3000 in February 2020.
“These programs are targeted to help businesses rehire workers and bring new, world-class conventions and events to our communities—sparking the statewide economic engine that is tourism,” Hochul said last week as applications opened.
Companies that increase their average employment between January and June of this year, compared to their baseline employment level between October and December 2021, can receive $5,000 for full-time workers and $2,500 for part-time employees.
To apply, companies must bring on at least two full-time equivalent jobs during the first half of this year. They also have to show a year-to-year decrease of at least 15% of gross profits between 2019 and 2020, demonstrating the economic harm experienced from the pandemic’s closures.
Companies must be in one of 21 tourism-related fields to apply for the funding, including performing arts, hotels, bowling alleys, museums and tour operators. But they cannot have applied for certain other state relief programs, including the NYC Musical and Theatrical Production Tax Credit program or the Empire State Musical and Theatrical Production Tax Credit Program.
So far, applicants were coming from a wide range of the accepted industries and had only a few technical questions regarding the application, said Matt Gorton, executive vice president of public affairs and communications at Empire State Development, which is managing the program.
Several hoteliers contacted by Crain’s said they did not know of the program or were not sprinting to apply.
“The program is quite detailed but somewhat thin on opportunities for hotels to benefit,” said Vijay Dandapani, president and CEO of the Hotel Association of New York City.