Resort Tax Collections Up for Seventh Month

ORLANDO-The area’s tourist industry is back on track for the first time since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York’s Twin Towers, according to new statistics from the office of Orange County Comptroller Martha O. Haynie.Owners of metro’s 116,000 hotel and motel rooms are sleeping sounder these nights after learning Haynie’s office collected a total $10.2 million on the 5% room tax in February–the first time the number has topped the $10-million mark in February since collections began in 1979.Collections were 28% above February 2003. “The 28% increase also represents the second largest percentage increase of record since enactment of the fifth cent in 1995,” Haynie says. The county has taken in $43 million, or an average $8.6 million per month, since its 2004 fiscal year began Oct. 1, 2003. That would provide the county with about $103 million in total revenue for the year if the per-month average collections continued throughout the year. The $103 million would surpass the nearly $94 million collected in 2003 and the $91.6 million logged in 2002. The best collection year was 2000 with $108.2 million on the books.”With cumulative collections exceeding cumulative collections for last year and budget projections by 13% and 8% respectively, we are very pleased with the strong results of the resort tax so far this year,” Haynie says.The monthly resort tax collection numbers in Orange County, Central Florida’s largest county, are watched closely by real estate developers, lenders and appraisers as a key barometer of the local hospitality industry’s health.Haynie and her staff watch the collection numbers even more closely to make sure the county’s annual bond payments of $78 million are met. The bonds were issued to pay for the $750 million expansion last year of the two million sf of exhibition space at the 35-year-old Orange County Convention Center.