Tennessee Senate Bill SB1306

Tennessee 2025-2026 Regular Session

• Introduced: 2/6/25
• Chaptered: 5/27/25
• Passed: 5/27/25

Caption

AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 4, Chapter 3, Part 22, relative to tourism.

Summary

SB1306 reorganizes parts of Tennessee’s Department of Tourist Development by formally creating and defining two internal divisions: a marketing division and a welcome centers division. The bill gives the commissioner of tourist development authority to appoint division heads and directs those divisions to carry out specified duties related to promoting tourism, supporting tourism businesses, distributing informational materials, and overseeing welcome centers. For the marketing division, the bill updates the statutory language so that the division head, rather than a director, is responsible for the division’s work. The division’s duties include promoting new investment in tourism, providing services to existing tourism enterprises, promoting Tennessee attractions in other states, and distributing informational publications. For welcome centers, the bill assigns the Department of Tourist Development primary responsibility for administration and maintenance, while allowing the Department of Transportation to assist with facility maintenance as agreed by the two departments.

Impact

The bill amends Tennessee Code Annotated Title 4, Chapter 3, Part 22, changing the structure and terminology of the state tourism agency’s marketing and welcome center operations. It centralizes oversight in the commissioner of tourist development, clarifies staffing and management roles, and specifies that highway user taxes allocated to the highway fund will be used to support the annual appropriation for welcome centers. The measure affects the Department of Tourist Development, the Department of Transportation, welcome center operations, and the state’s tourism promotion functions.

Sentiment

The bill appears to have been received positively and without controversy. It advanced unanimously through the Senate Energy, Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, the Senate Finance, Ways and Means Committee, and the floor, with no recorded dissenting votes. The available record suggests broad support for the administrative reorganization and tourism-promotion provisions.

Contention

No notable opposition or substantive controversy is reflected in the available committee or floor records. The bill’s changes are largely administrative, focusing on agency structure, terminology, and operational responsibilities rather than policy disputes. Any potential point of interest is the use of highway user tax revenue to support welcome centers, but the voting history does not show that this drew objection.