Bed Tax Collections Jump
March numbers up 19.4 percent over a year ago
By Felicia Kitzmiller, Panama City News Herald, May 3, 2012
PANAMA CITY BEACH — The wave of surging bed tax collections continued in Panama City Beach during March.
Local business owners reported a strong Spring Break crowd and their anecdotal reports translated into hard numbers Wednesday evening with the release of the latest bed tax collection numbers.
Local hotels collected nearly $1.8 million in bed taxes during March, an increase of 19.4 percent over March 2011. That brings the total collected this year to 15.7 percent more than this time last year.
Dan Rowe, executive director of the Tourist Development Council (TDC), said the increase was driven by two factors that complemented each other: more people on the beach and rising room rates.
“Our spring business has really grown,” he said. “We had a lot of college kids here (in March) as well as families traveling with children and snowbirds staying at the condos on the beach longer.”
The rebounding economy also has relieved a lot of the downward pressure on prices, so hotels have been able to charge more for rooms and bring in more revenue, Rowe said.
Bed taxes are used to fund all the activities of the TDC, Rowe said, including beach maintenance and renourishment, programs and the joint marketing agreement with Southwest Airlines.
The TDC begins building its budget in April and ratifies the document in the fall. TDC members will begin discussions on what to do with the increase in revenue at the next meeting at 9 a.m. Tuesday.
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