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Fourth Quarter Bed Taxes Fall in 2008
by Melissa Neal, PhD

The economic downturn facing the nation has begun to affect the bed taxes collected locally. When compared with the rest of the year, the fall and winter seasons register the lowest bed tax collections.  This year, the months of October, November, and December were down a bit over the same time period in 2007.  Overall, area bed tax collections decreased slightly more than 8 percent over the fourth quarter 2007.  Bay County experienced the smallest decrease year over year, at -0.34%. Three counties – Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, and Walton – all experienced double digit drops from the same time period in 2007.

According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, nationwide tourism spending decreased at an annual rate of 22.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008. This number represents mostly decreased prices for travel and tourism. Prices dropped 16.0 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008. Real spending (adjusted for these price changes) declined only 7.2 percent in the fourth quarter. Overall for 2008, real travel and tourism spending decreased 0.4 percent nationwide. This represents the first yearly decline in spending since 2001.
               
The graph shown depicts actual, seasonally adjusted, and forecasted bed taxes for five Northwest Florida counties – Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton, and Bay.  The seasonally adjusted numbers show the steady increase in bed tax collections over the past several years.  Because each county collects bed taxes at different rates, we convert all data to a 2-percent level for analysis purposes.  These figures do not represent actual tax revenue collected; however, they are an indicator of the growth of the tourism industry over time.

The graph also includes an estimate of the bed tax figures for the Northwest Florida region through December 2009.  These figures were forecasted using a 95 percent confidence level.  The forecast lines depict the most probable scenarios for bed taxes within an upper and lower range.  In other words, the Haas Center is forecasting that actual bed tax collections could fall anywhere within the upper and lower lines on this graph. 

Each month, the Haas Center collects, analyzes, and disseminates tourism data which includes detailed statistics of various tourism indicators in Northwest Florida (Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton and Bay counties).  Information on the region as well as recent tourism research projects are posted posted on our tourism website at haas.uwf.edu/tourism.  If you would like more information on this or other tourism research projects, please contact Dr. Melissa Neal at (850) 833-9113, or by e-mail at mneal@uwf.edu.