AUGUSTA – The head of a private state tourism agency says Maine’s $7.5 million tourism budget should be doubled or even tripled, but the money should not come from an increase in the state’s 7 percent lodging and restaurant tax.

Vaughn Stinson, chief executive officer of the member-based Maine Tourism Association, said raising the tax on meals and hotel rooms could hurt Maine’s largest industry, which he said generates $2.3 billion in lodging and restaurant sales and supports 177,000 Maine jobs.

Stinson’s view contrasts with a recommendation in a Brookings Institution report released last month which calls for a 3 percentage-point increase in the state’s lodging tax to 10 percent. The money would help to revitalize Maine towns, preserve open land and farms.

Speaking to the Kennebec Valley Chamber of Commerce in Augusta on Wednesday, Stinson said Maine needs to ease a tax burden that’s among the nation’s highest. He said Maine’s investment in tourism, funded partially by a share of the lodging and restaurant tax, is the largest among the New England states.

The Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation says Maine has had the highest state and local tax burden in the nation since 1997 and ranks seventh in total tax burden.

While Maine tourism spending ranks tops in the region, it still lags far behind the nation’s leader, Hawaii, at $69 million, No. 2 Illinois at $48 million and No. 3 Pennsylvania at $33 million, according to figures posted on the American Hotel and Lodging Association’s Web site.

“The competition is tough; everybody’s after tourism dollars,” said Stinson.

The recommendations for Maine’s meals and lodging tax surface as the newly elected Legislature prepares for its 2007 session. Taxes and spending were a major issue leading up to this month’s election in which a referendum proposal to limit government spending was rejected.

Still, Gov. John Baldacci and fellow Democrats have identified tax reform as a top priority. Republicans say taxes need to be controlled by restricting spending.