Q. What is the Albuquerque Tourism Marketing District?
A. The Albuquerque Tourism Marketing District (ATMD) is a group of approximately 140 lodging businesses in commercial areas of Albuquerque that have formed a coalition to increase demand for overnight visitation to our city. The ATMD provides additional funds to expand marketing of Albuquerque, enhance visitor services and develop destination assets. The ATMD’s goals are to:
- Promote Albuquerque as a destination for leisure travel, meetings and sports events.
- Help Albuquerque compete against destinations with larger marketing budgets.
- Attract overnight visitors to the city.
- Increase occupancy levels and room rates for the lodging establishments located within the District.
- Generate revenue for the city’s hospitality industry, retail sector, and arts and cultural sectors.
- Generate tax revenue for the city, county and state.
- Create jobs and diversify our economy.
Q. How and when was the ATMD originally established?
A. The ATMD was created under Article 63 of the New Mexico Business Improvement District Act. In accordance with this law, at least 51% of affected businesses must approve formation of a Business Improvement District (BID). Lodging businesses within the district boundaries petitioned the Albuquerque City Council in early 2022 to create the ATMD. In March 2022, the City Council unanimously adopted Ordinance O-22-14 to create the ATMD and appointed Visit Albuquerque as the management committee responsible for its operation. At its May 16 meeting, the City Council ratified creation of the ATMD with unanimous passage of Ordinance O-22-21 and approved collection of the 2% assessment beginning July 1, 2022, and continuing for an initial term of five years through June 30, 2027.
Q. Why does the ATMD need to be renewed, and what is the renewal process?
A. The initial District was established for a five-year term, which is set to expire on June 30, 2027. The process to renew the District will begin in mid-2026, and it requires 51% of lodging properties to approve continuation of the ATMD. Upon approval, the second term of the ATMD would begin on July 1, 2027, for a term length determined by the lodging businesses.
Q. How much is the ATMD assessment fee?
A. The ATMD assessment fee is 2% of gross room rental revenue, paid by the guest along with lodgers’ tax, the hospitality fee and gross receipts tax. The fee applies to all guest stays at lodging properties located within the ATMD boundary except the following:
- Stays of more than 30 consecutive days.
- Stays by any person to whom rent is charged at the rate of $2 per day or less.
- Stays at institutions of the federal government, the state or any political subdivision.
- Stays at religious, charitable, educational or philanthropic institutions, including summer camps operated by such institutions.
- Stays at clinics, hospitals or other medical facilities.
- Stays at privately operated convalescent homes or homes for the aged, infirm, indigent or chronically ill.
- Stays at short-term rentals.
Q. Why isn’t the ATMD assessment currently collected from guests who stay at short-term rentals?
A. A number of regulatory and logistical issues make it difficult to incorporate short-term rentals (STRs) into the Albuquerque Tourism Marketing District.
- The majority of short-term rentals are classified and zoned as residential properties, not commercial properties. New Mexico law specifically excludes residential properties from inclusion within a Business Improvement District. Incorporating STRs would require the New Mexico State Legislature to amend the BID Act in a manner that would not affect the other Business Improvement Districts that have been created throughout the state.
- Under New Mexico’s BID Act, 51% of affected business owners must approve formation of a Business Improvement District. Approximately 140 lodging properties (hotels and motels) are located within the boundaries of the Albuquerque Tourism Marketing District, but 1,200 to 1,700 short-term rentals are within the boundary. Many of these STRs are not currently registered with the City of Albuquerque, which would make it difficult to identify and contact them during the approval process.
- Although the number of STRs in Albuquerque is significantly larger than the number of hotels and motels, STRs currently account for only about 10% of citywide lodgers’ tax collections. If all STRs were included in the ATMD, the ATMD’s $6.6 million budget would increase by only about $660,000.
- Based on this information, the ATMD Governance Committee recommends that Albuquerque’s lodging business owners vote to renew the ATMD without the inclusion of STRs. Following renewal, the ATMD Governance Committee has directed Visit Albuquerque to investigate potential pathways to amend the state’s Business Improvement District Act through the legislative process.
Q. How is ATMD money used?
A. ATMD funds are spent on sales, marketing, communications, visitor services enhancements and destination development projects that directly benefit the assessed lodging businesses. Use of funds is overseen by the ATMD Governance Committee and must be spent in accordance with the District Plan. The District Plan allows for funding of the following types of programs and activities:
- Advertising campaigns
- Media relations campaigns to gain positive coverage
- Social media campaigns
- Digital marketing efforts
- Creation of visual assets (photo and video)
- Trade shows
- Site familiarization tours
- Destination development projects
- Visitor services
- Tourism grants
Q. What impact has the ATMD had so far?
A. The ATMD has provided additional funding to promote Albuquerque as a destination, enhance the visitor experience, and award grants to events and projects that are designed to attract overnight visitors.
- In FY23, the first year of the ATMD, Albuquerque’s average hotel occupancy rate was 64.9%, compared to a national average of 63.3%. In FY24, Albuquerque’s average occupancy rate was 64.4%, compared to a national average of 62.8%. In FY25, which was a difficult year for travel due to national economic conditions and negative media coverage of the city, Albuquerque’s average occupancy rate was 62.4%, compared to a national occupancy rate of 62.9%. We strongly believe the decline in visitation that Albuquerque experienced in FY25 would have been steeper without additional marketing and advertising efforts.
- A Marketing Effectiveness Study showed that Visit Albuquerque’s marketing had the following impact in nine core target markets during FY25:
- For every $1 spent on paid advertising, $22 was generated in visitor spending (a 22-to-1 return on investment).
- An estimated 307,791 trips were influenced.
- An estimated $116 million in direct spending by visitors was influenced.
- 39% of target travelers were aware of Visit Albuquerque’s marketing.
- Interest in visiting Albuquerque was 19 points higher among those who had seen Visit Albuquerque’s marketing and those who had not.
- ATMD funding allowed Visit Albuquerque to expand its advertising into new geographic markets, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Austin and Houston.
- ATMD funding allowed Visit Albuquerque to introduce new advertising channels, including advertisements in a dozen airports that offer nonstop flights to Albuquerque.
- With ATMD funding, Visit Albuquerque has been able to market the destination year-round, rather than seasonally.
- Additional dollars provided by the ATMD allowed Visit Albuquerque to significantly increase its budget for paid social media from $12,000 a year to $500,000 a year. The social media budget is used for ads as well as for influencer visits.
- With ATMD funding, Visit Albuquerque is conducting an ad campaign to intercept travelers along I-40 during the 2026 road trip season. Banner ads will be delivered to people’s mobile devices as they enter a 600-mile geofenced area along I-40 from Flagstaff to Amarillo, including the gas stations, rest stops and quick service restaurants along that stretch. The ads encourage people to stay overnight in Albuquerque, capturing walk-in guests for hotel stays, even if our city is not the final destination on their journey. The banner ads will be reinforced by seven billboards on I-40.
- More than 140 lodging businesses in Albuquerque are represented in the BookDirect booking platform on Visit Albuquerque’s website, which allows travelers to research properties, compare rates and either book immediately from VisitABQ.org or go to the property’s own website to book. For the six-month period from July 1 to Dec. 31, 2025, more than 28,000 travelers engaged with the BookDirect platform on our website. Each traveler viewed an average of 31 properties on our website, and 6,825 of them continued their search by clicking through to a property’s website. Inclusion on the BookDirect platform is a benefit Visit Albuquerque provides to lodging properties at no charge thanks to support from the ATMD.
- By increasing the amount Visit Albuquerque can spend to market the destination, the ATMD has made Albuquerque more competitive against other destinations that are marketing to attract the same audiences. Without the ATMD, Visit Albuquerque’s total budget would have been only $10.8 million in FY25 instead of $17.7 million. A budget of $10.8 million would have placed Albuquerque at a severe disadvantage. For comparison, the FY25 budgets of destination marketing organizations in competing cities were:
- Visit Tucson - $15.4 million
- Tourism Santa Fe - $15.4 million
- Visit Oklahoma City - $17 million
- Visit Salt Lake City - $20.3 million
- Visit Austin - $22.5 million
- Destination El Paso - $23.7 million
- Visit Denver - $45 million
- ATMD funding allowed Visit Albuquerque to award nearly $1.5 million in tourism grants to 78 projects designed to increase overnight visitation during the past three years. Grants helped fund arts festivals, cultural events and infrastructure improvements, as well as initiatives such as Adelante Industries’ Destination Accessibility program, which makes wheelchairs and other equipment available to travelers who need assistance.
Q. Do other cities have tourism marketing districts?
A. Tourism marketing districts are used by more than 210 destinations in 22 states, including dozens of cities Albuquerque directly competes against to attract visitors.
Q. How is the ATMD managed?
A. Visit Albuquerque manages the operations of the ATMD, including all marketing and sales efforts, in accordance with a District Plan. An ATMD Governance Committee composed of representatives from lodging properties within the District provides oversight.
Q. Who serves on the ATMD Governance Committee?
A. The committee includes representatives from full-service and limited-service lodging properties in neighborhoods throughout the city:
- Sharmin Dharas, Owner, Hotel Zazz (Small Property Representative)
- Sean Jariwala, Managing Partner, Ambica Hospitality (AAHOA Representative)
- Deepesh Kholwadwala, Owner & President/CEO, Sun Capital Hotels
- Dhawal Kholwadwala, President, 505 Hospitality (GAHLA Representative)
- Damen Kompanowski, General Manager, Sheraton Uptown Albuquerque
- Malini Perumal, Senior Vice President for Sales, Marketing & Revenue Management, Total Management Systems
- Molly Ryckman, Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Heritage Hotels & Resorts
Still have questions? Please contact us at
ATMD@VisitABQ.org
