On Thursday, August 20, 2026 the Twentynine Palms Tourism Business Improvement District (TBID) Board met to discuss two major agenda items: Updated events funding requirements and the budget of $675,000 for the 2026-2027 fiscal year.
All four active board members were present: Chair Rakesh Mehta, Vice Chair Ashton Ramsey, and board members Liz Shickler and Ben Uyeda, as well as marketing director Breanne Dusastre. An open seat remains on the five-member TBID board after Maria Madrid’s departure in the spring. You can find the agenda packet on the City of Twentynine Palms website and our agenda preview here. The TBID is funded by a 1.5% pass-through tax paid by guests at overnight accommodations.
There was only one public comment during the meeting, by Anna Stump, Director of Mojaveland, who announced they have passed all their engineering and building and safety requirements and will be breaking ground in September. The facility will include 18 holes of artist-designed miniature golf, 9 of which are ADA accessible, an art-making area for families and children, and a sculpture garden.
Director of Marketing update focuses on publicity efforts around the Perseid meteor shower
Dusastre opened the meeting with her customary marketing update, which focused on publicity efforts around the Perseid meteor shower. The blog post on planning your Perseid getaway, which highlighted the Area 29 Galactic Gathering and activities at Sky’s the Limit Observatory, on the Visit29 website got over 6,000 views, and star gazing pages in general saw about 2,000 unique views. She also ran paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram, a time lapse video of the night sky in Twentynine Palms at the Palm Spring Airport, and paid advertising on local radio z107.7.
Dusastre noted that she saw “significant interest” in people coming into the Twentynine Palms visitor center the week of the Perseids’ peak, on August 12, including, “A lot of families, multi-generation grandparents, parents, kids, couples coming in, groups of friends … a lot of first time visitors to the city and the park.”
Dusastre also covered upcoming marketing and event activities:
Palm Springs Life will include a two-page sponsored spread highlighting the city’s fall event calendar.
Vacation Races Half Marathon on November 7, which is being held in Twentynine Palms, though advertised as being in Joshua Tree, has hit 2,500 registered runners.
The Levitt Amp Twentynine Palms Music Series, which presents five weekends of free concerts this fall, kicks off September 26.
Dusatre also reviewed the timeline for events funding review, including selection of the events funding review committee, a workshop for applicants in early September, and an October 1 application deadline for events that will be held in the first half of 2027.
New event funding guidelines are approved
Events sponsorships and grants have been an ongoing focus of the TBID board meetings this year. At their June 18 meeting Uyeda and Shickler, the events subcommittee, presented a revised events proposal for discussion. The resulting revised events funding guidelines were approved by a vote of 4-0 at this meeting. As stated in the guidelines, the goals for the grants program are as follows:
Increase overnight visitation and lodging demand within the City of Twentynine Palms.
Support events and programming that activate Twentynine Palms for visitors and enhance the overall visitor experience.
Foster the long-term growth and sustainability of events and ongoing programming that contribute to the local tourism economy and advance Visit 29 Palms’ destination marketing objectives.
Events funding is available to non-profit organizations, businesses, and individual events producers, who must have prior events experience to apply. Shickler and Uyeda emphasized that their objective was to streamline, simplify, and clarify the guidelines and remove repetitive questions from the application and reporting process. Shickler noted that having “one pot of money,” as opposed to different funds for grants and sponsorships, means the TBID can be more flexible in funding, whether it is fewer, larger events, or multiple smaller events. Uyeda explained, “We can keep things really simple and spending targeted on things that are going to move the needle in our small town, and I think we’ll have better success.”
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The differences between the current and new funding requirements were highlighted in our agenda preview, but the critical details of the new funding program include:
Merging of the sponsorship and grants program into one events funding program with funding available up to $30,000 per event.
TBID funds can cover up to 75% of the event budget.
Matching funds required for at least 25% of the total budget, 13% of which can be in-kind goods.
Events are scored on economic efficiency (how effectively they use TBID funds), the event’s feasibility and producer’s track record, marketing plan, and alignment with TBID mission. They must achieve a score of at least 80% to be recommended for funding.
A significant portion of the event must take place within the city of Twentynine Palms.
Events can be any time of year, but there is particular interest in events and programming held during non-peak months (November–February and May-September) as well as midweek (Monday–Thursday), as well as series and ongoing programs that drive consistent visitation and enhance the visitor experience year-round.
Events must be held in a venue that complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accessibility standards.
75% of awarded funds are available before the event and the additional 25% are delivered after the event on the delivery of post-event reporting, which must be completed within four weeks after the event.
Event organizers must use the reporting forms provided by TBID for consistency.
While the TBID requires a post-event report that includes documenting lodging results from participating TBID properties associated with the event, it does not provide a standard booking code, lodging survey, or event survey that organizers can use. This puts the onus on event organizers to come up with their own collection methods for data that is notoriously difficult to capture, which could also lead to skewed and inconsistent reporting between events. If TBID wants consistent lodging data, they can also consider creating a standardized method by which event organizers can capture and track these data points.
Applications for events held in the first half of 2027, January through June, are due October 1. The TBID will hold pre-application workshops for interested applicants in early September to discuss requirements and review what makes a successful proposal. Uyeda said that the marketing plan was especially important and would be a focus of the workshop.
Event funding discussion focuses on criteria and scoring
The event grants review subcommittee consists of two TBID board members and three community members. During the discussion Vice Chair Ramsey expressed some concern about the 80% score, saying that smaller events may not hit every point, but should still be nurtured and encouraged. He also was concerned that one reviewer having a “bad day” could sink an otherwise quality application. In the past, reviewers have given scores with no explanation and scores from the grants review subcommittee have varied widely, which caused some concern among TBID members.
Chair Mehta also emphasized it was important to educate the reviewers who are scoring the applications and that they must leave comments on their score sheets, to help generate discussion and clearer funding recommendations. About ensuring reviewers follow consistent standards remarked,
When we have the subcommittee members along with you guys [referring to the TBID events subcommittee] on the review, we need to also give [the reviewers] the benchmark that this is what [they’re] going to be accountable for, and then hold them to it.
Uyeda explained that with the new requirements he hopes TBID can offer community members who are both applying and reviewing is, “A little more clarity, less homework, less time investment into this thing beforehand.” He also said event feasibility and economic efficiency criteria should scale up or down with the budget of an event, saying “It’s proportional to the impact and size of the event.” He would not like to see funding exceed $75 per room night, though that is not an official TBID figure. That would mean that if an event received $1,500, it should generate at least 20 room nights, which may be a high bar for smaller event organizers to clear.
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Proposed marketing plan replicates current plan, leans into events strategy
Dusatre presented a marketing plan and analysis along with the budget for the fiscal year 2026-2027. The plan is very similar to the plan presented for the current 2025-2026 fiscal year. The plan’s mix of marketing strategies includes digital marketing through the Visit29 website and social media, paid advertising including digital, print, broadcast, and out-of-home advertising such as billboards, a media and public relations strategy, and support for events and the visitor center in Twentynine Palms. Dusastre introduced the plan saying,
The proposed tourism marketing plan is very much a continuation of the work we’ve been doing and building towards as we look to the new fiscal year… But of course, we also want to give visitors more reason to come here, to stay longer, and part of that ties back into our events program.
The destination pillars for Twentynine Palms, outdoor recreation, arts and entertainment, health and wellness, food and beverage, and stargazing and astronomy, remain unchanged. The goals of this year’s marketing plan are also similar to last:
Enhance brand awareness of Twentynine Palms as a “must visit” high-desert destination.
Increase visitor engagement through compelling content, experiences, and events.
Boost overnight stays through implementing strategies that increase room demand, length-of-stay, and year-round visitation.
Strengthen and leverage partnerships with local businesses, City Council, TBID lodging stakeholders, and local and regional tourism councils.
Pursue district conversion to advance the transition from the 1989 law to the 1994 Property and Business Improvement District Law to enable a five-year term renewal and longer term stability and strategic planning.
The strategy lays out key performance indicators for measuring the impact of its marketing activities, which are focused on overnight stays and thus TBID revenue. These include:
Achieve year-over-year growth in TBID assessment revenue.
Overnight visitation and room nights generated by TBID-supported events.
Strengthen leads and referrals through digital advertising and website to lodging partners.
Grow engagement and reach through Visit29’s owned digital channels.
Assessment of progress toward goals will be reported quarterly so marketing strategies can be adjusted as needed. Because room nights generated from events are such a critical part of the marketing strategy and progress toward goals, the lack of a standardized strategy and mechanism to capture and assess lodging generated by events stands out.
The success of TBID’s marketing goals are very much dependent on the state of the economy overall. This sentiment is also captured in the marketing plan’s assessment of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT). While the dramatic drop in tourism that had been predicted last year has not come to pass, and TBID saw a 19% increase in revenue collection in the second quarter of this fiscal year (January to March 2026, third quarter numbers are not yet available), economic uncertainty remains.
Although Joshua Tree National Park and surrounding areas will always have a draw for visitors, would-be vacationers are faced with tough choices about where to go and how much to spend as prices of gas and food have fluctuated wildly with disruptions in the global supply chain of oil and other goods. Unemployment and underemployment are at about 7.9%, raising the question of how much TBID revenue can keep growing if the economy doesn’t rebound and consumer prices don’t stabilize or drop.
Fiscal Year 2026-2027 budget approved and reserved fund use clarified
The board discussed and voted 4-0 to pass the proposed budget for the 2026-2027 fiscal year. The budget and marketing plan will now head to the City Council for approval. Highlights in the proposed budget include:
Planned expenditures: $656,872, up from $547,843 adopted in FY 2025–26, which is about a 20% increase.
Projected revenue: $661,000, which includes $375,000 collected from Transit Occupancy Tax revenue, and $275,000 in reserves.
The budget for events increases to $200,000 from $150,000, which is funded entirely through the TBID reserve funds. The increased funding for events was added in the hopes of attracting larger scale events to the City.
The board’s discussion of the budget focused on the sources of revenue and clarifying how reserve funding is used. Short-term rentals available in Twentynine Palms have dropped to 309 this year, down from 365 last year, but revenue has stayed consistent and even increased in some cases, most likely due to new hotel options such as Hotel Wren and Reset. Uyeda noted, “Vacation rental licensing is trickling down, but it is underperforming vacation rentals that are falling off.”
Dusastre clarified how drawing on reserve funding works and that despite the $200,000 budget from reserves in the current fiscal year, the TBID has not drawn from any of that money. The exact amount of reserve funding the TBID will use, if any, is determined at the end of the fiscal year, once the TBID receives the fourth quarter revenue assessment from the city finance department. She noted that the TBID still has about $540,000 in reserve funding and that the events funding program has been contingent on the planned use of reserve funding from the beginning. However, the proposed budget does not include an updated reserve fund balance so we were unable check this figure at press time.
In the budget released in August 2024, for fiscal year 2024 - 2025, the reserve balance was listed at the top of the budget. This line has been removed. Given the controversy over the accumulation of TBID reserve funds in the past, is withholding reserve balances from public scrutiny the best practice?
Vice Chair Mehta clarified further that the board has been frugal and underspent on many line items, “The reason why we might not use the reserves this year is if you can see each line item, there’s a lot of areas that we have underspent… For example, a big ticket item like broadcast media was $70,000. We only spent $28,000.”
The board did not discuss how reserves would be replenished or what balance the TBID should keep in reserves to remain fiscally solvent. If the TBID’s plan for growth is contingent upon not spending their entire budget, that could raise questions about the continued sustainability of the events funding program as it currently stands.
Future agenda items
Vice Chair Ramsey proposed and the board agreed to add a discussion of “out of the box ideas” that TBID could fund to attract people to Twentynine Palms. These could include a public park or event venue, which could be created through a public/private partnership and serve to enhance the TBID’s goals in the long term.
A workshop for potential grant applicants will be held in early September. The next TBID meeting has not been scheduled, but is usually the third Thursday of the month.
Thank you to Heidi Heard for attending, recording, and photographing the TBID meeting.
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