tourism

Boonville tourists may soon spend more money on their visits.

That's because the city wants to increase its lodging tax from 4 % to 5 %.  That  move will add an additional $40,000 to the tourism fund for next year.

A lodging tax is applied only to those who spend the night in a hotel, motel, bed and breakfast, or campground in Boonville city limits.

Representative Lisa McClary of the Boonville Tourism Commission said she knows how the money will be spent.

As a 5-piece band wound its way through an acoustic set of music, guests slowly shuffled into the “Inside the Walls” festival at the Missouri State Penitentiary. To the southwest, the main entrance to the prison towered over the festival.

Charles Vaughan used to live in a house across the street. He remembers the 1954 riots, which were the worst in the history of the penitentiary. Vaughan remembers his dad and brother were on top of a nearby building with guns.

“There was a big fire going on," he said. "My mom was keeping me in the house which upset me because I wanted to get on the roof and my mom was piling furniture right in front of the front door.”

But now the penitentiary looks much lonelier. Its paint peels. Some of its buildings have been torn down. In fact — of those that remain, some parts are even off limits to tours – this is due to a process Steve Picker calls “demolition by neglect.” He’s the former executive director of the Jefferson City Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.

A scandal that erupted in April over lavish spending by the General Services Administration, the government's logistics provider, is leaving hotels in St. Louis scrambling to fill rooms.

Out-of-town visitors may soon have to pay more to stay in a Columbia hotel.  The Missouri House of Representatives approved a measure by a voice vote this week allowing the city to charge an additional three percent tax on hotel stays.