October Hotel Tax Collections Up 30% From Last Year

ORLANDO-Orange County’s hospitality industry is off to an encouraging start as tax collections from 113,000 hotel and motel rooms for October reached $8.63 million, up from $5.8 million in September and 11.3% over the county’s budgeted $7.76 million. October is the first month in the local government’s fiscal year.

Compared with October 2001–the first month after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks–October 2002 numbers are 30.1% up from the $6.64 million collected last year.

“While collections are up 30%, we must keep in mind that collections for last October were down 28%,” county comptroller Martha O. Haynie says in a prepared statement. “However, if we compare this month’s collections to those of October 2002 (our highest October collections of record), we are only down 5%, which indicates October 2002 was a fairly strong month.”