Area tourism tax collections up three straight months

With three consecutive months of year-over-year hospitality tax collection gains, tourism officials in Fort Smith and Van Buren are keeping their fingers crossed that the numbers indicate a long-awaited improvement in the regional tourism industry.

August hospitality tax collections in Van Buren totaled $32,433, up 2.1% over $31,753 collection in August 2009. For the first eight months of the year, the collections have totaled $298,833, down 1.35% compared to the same period in 2009. The year-to-date decline was 3.1% for the first six months.

Maryl Koeth, executive director of the Van Buren Advertising and Promotion Commission, said hotel property tax collections are up 0.27% for the year, but restaurant collections are down about 3%. Van Buren collects a 1% tax on lodging and a 1% tax on restaurants.

“They (hotel managers) are seeing a slight uptick in business and leisure travel. I think we are still seeing a very slow rebound. Again, I’m still cautiously optimistic,” Koeth said. “Until the foreclosure mess is controlled and the employment numbers at least stabilize, I think the small gains we are making could flatten out again.”

For all of 2009, the city collected $381,372 in hospitality taxes, down 7.1% compared to 2008. Hospitality tax collections for Van Buren in 2008 totaled $410,914, up 7.4% over 2007 and up more than 14.5% over 2006.

In Fort Smith, the hospitality tax collections were $53,089 in August, up 7.5% compared to August 2009. For the first eight months of 2010, collections total $463,074, down just 0.62% compared to the 2009 period.

The Optimists convention and Arkansas Cattlemen Conference helped boost the August numbers, said Claude Legris, executive director of the Fort Smith Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“In speaking with a couple of hotel managers, for them, this is due to solid transient (vacation) travel and the return of some corporate travel. One hotel saw solid corporate on late July which continued into August and they expect to see a very good fourth quarter,” Legris explained. “Another downtown hotel said they saw good group business and a return of corporate travel, but a big slower in that recovery.”

Legris said last year the thinking was that flat collections “were the new up.” It now seems up means up, he added.

“We seem to have achieved the stability in the market that we had longed for last year,” Legris said.
 
For 2009, Fort Smith hospitality tax collections totaled $671,912, down more than 16% from 2008. Fort Smith hospitality tax collections in 2008 totaled $803,591, 11% more than the $723,548 collected in 2007, and more than 19% above 2006 collections. Fort Smith hospitality taxes are collected from a 3% tax on hotel room rates.

Arkansas’ tourism tax collection, which help gauge the strength of visitors to the Natural State, are down 1.8% year-to-date compared to one year ago, but have posted four consecutive months of year-over-year gains. Through July 2010, tourism taxes stood at $5.65 million. One year ago, those tax collections were $5.754 million.