An advertising campaign credited with luring tourists to Hilton Head Island might suffer because of the latest round of state budget cuts, local officials warn.

Last year, about 14 percent of the $2.1 million marketing budget of the Hilton Head-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce came from matching-fund program run by the state Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism. All of the matching funds received from the state grant -- $290,000 in total -- were used for advertising.

But the state program that awarded those matching funds for advertising faces budget cuts and an uncertain future, leaving local marketing officials without a source of revenue they depended on to help in their promotional campaigns.

"Those funds are really a lifeblood for those of us at the local level," said Susan Thomas, vice president of the chamber's Visitor and Convention Bureau. "If we don't have that support for our marketing efforts, it will greatly reduce our capacity to market this place as a destination."

Last year, the $2.1 million marketing budget paid for the services of public relations and marketing firms, as well as purchased advertising space in magazines and specialty publications.

Chamber officials credit the advertising campaign with helping to lure an estimated 2.2 million visitors to the island.

Thomas said she couldn't pinpoint how many tourists the grant money brought in because the money works in concert with other advertising funds. Still, she said, the money was vitally important to the marketing efforts of the chamber.

"Those dollars worked very hard," she said.

But the state tourism department is facing a budget crunch again this year. Last year, a similar crunch forced the department to lay off a quarter of its central workforce.

Marion Edmonds, a spokesman for the parks and tourism department, said the department will do everything in its power to avoid cuts to the matching-fund program, which provides about $2 million each year statewide for local tourism promotion efforts.

But it's a Catch-22, Edmonds said -- if you cut the tourism funding, you reach less tourists, which in turn results in less taxable tourism dollars.

"This has been a big program for us for more than 20 years," he said. "Supporting the state's tourism is one of our top priorities. But to do that, we need to do all we can to protect that money."

The tourism department spends about $10 million annually promoting the state, including about $4 million in advertising and another $2 million for the matching-fund program.

South Carolina visitors generated $950 million in state and local tax revenues last year, and the total economic impact of tourism was more than $14 billion statewide, Edmonds said.

This year, the state legislature is looking at 9 percent budget cuts across the board, like last year. And if belt tightening gets too severe, the tourism department might have no choice but to cut back its tourism promotion program, he said.

The tourism department laid off 34 of 140 employees in its central office and 89 state park employees last year, he said.

The department likely will cover budget cuts with more layoffs and by delaying needed maintenance to state parks. The department will try not to reduce the matching funds, he said.

"We've got tough cuts to make, though, and you can only streamline an agency so much," he said. "We ultimately won't know where we're at until we know how much money we'll have to work with."

The chamber also faces the possibility that cuts could come suddenly and unexpectedly, as they did this year. In December, about halfway through this fiscal year, Edmonds' department announced that all of the grants had been reduced by 5 percent.

Three grants to the chamber, initially totaling $290,000 -- money that had been earmarked for ads in magazines and specialty publications -- were reduced to $276,8000, Thomas said. Ads that ran in March and April either had to be cut completely or reduced in size and changed to black-and-white.

"But because it all happened during the winter, we really won't know the full impact until later this year," she said.

The chamber has requested $266,135 in matching funds for next year's budget, chamber President Bill Miles said. As in other years, if the grants are less than requested, the chamber will reduce its advertising budget accordingly, Miles said.