Summer sees gains for area tourism sector

June and July are the first consecutive months for hospitality tax gains in Fort Smith and Van Buren, with at least one area tourism official hopeful that the sector has “bottomed out” and is on the way up.

Two major conventions helped boost the June and July numbers, according to Claude Legris, executive director of the Fort Smith Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“Due to event timing, we had one of the Christian Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses conferences take place during the month of July as opposed to all being staged in June of last year,” Legris explained. “They worked with us at the time of their booking because we already had the Arkansas Pharmacists Convention the last week of June. As a result this helped collections in both months.”

July generated $35,664 in hospitality tax collections in Van Buren, up 3% compared to July 2009. For the first seven months of 2010, Van Buren collections total $229,868, down 2.2% compared to the 2009 period. The year-to-date decline was 3.1% for the first six months and down 3.82% for the first five months. Van Buren collects a 1% tax on lodging and a 1% tax on restaurants.

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, July hospitality tax collections totaled $62,466, up 9.5% compared to July 2009. Fort Smith hospitality tax collections for the first seven months of 2010 are $409,985, down 1.5% compared to the same period of 2009. Fort Smith hospitality taxes are collected from a 3% tax on hotel room rates. Like Van Buren, the Fort Smith year-to-date decline is moving in the right direction. It was 5.6% for the first four months and 3.5% for the first six months.

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.

Legris also said area hotels saw “stronger transient traffic,” which he said indicates a stronger overall economy.

“Preliminary August figures show that this trend will continue for the balance of the summer activity in our area,” Legris said. “While we hear positive things on the national level and have now seen three months of growth locally, we tend to feel that we may have bottomed out of the economic crisis, but still remain cautious.”

The top five most active hotels in Fort Smith, based on July tax collections are:

• Hampton Inn;

• Holiday Inn City Center;

• Courtyard by Marriott;

• Homewood Suites by Hilton; and,

• Residence Inn by Marriott

STATEWIDE

Tourism tax collections, 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. The year-to-date rate of decline for the first four months of the year was 2.9%.

July statewide collections totaled $1.316 million, up 4.29% over July 2009.

However, employment in the state’s leisure and hospitality sector continues to decline, with an estimated 96,400 jobs in August compared to 100,100 in August 2009. The sector reached an all-time employment high of 101,800 in August 2008, but has seen its numbers steadily fall since.