Latest Orange County tourist-tax collections end five-month slide with modest gain

For the first time since March, the monthly tourist-tax collection exceeded the total from the same period in the previous year, though just barely.

September collections, announced this morning by Comptroller Phil Diamond, rose less than 1% over September 2022 to $24.6 million for the month, but the modest gain capped a record fiscal year total of $359.3 million.

The previous best for a fiscal year, $336.3 million, was set a year ago.

Receipts for April, May, June, July and August were each lower than for the same month in 2022.

The Tourist Development Tax, also known as TDT for short or called the hotel, bed or tourist tax, is a 6% levy added to the cost of a hotel room, a home-sharing rental like Airbnb or other short-term lodging, including use of an RV pad.

TDT revenues have been used to build and expand the Orange County Convention Center, promote tourism, support local arts groups and helped pay for Amway Center, the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts and other venues.

Some Orange County leaders want to expand TDT uses, which are restricted by state law.

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September figures were boosted by three large gatherings at the convention center, including the AnitaB.org/Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, a tech conference that estimated attendance at 30,000.

The event is named for the late Grace Hopper, a pioneering computer scientist and mathematician who enlisted in the U.S. Navy Reserve during World War II and worked on a team that converted mathematic code into language.

The convention center also hosted Surf Expo, with 13,000 attendees, and about 15,000 Ace Hardware Store owners.

 AnitaB.org, which marketed the Grace Hopper Celebration in Orlando as “the world’s largest gathering of women and non-binary technologists,” brought the most attendees to the convention center in September, despite announcing in June the event would be its last in the state, citing actions taken by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature.

The group announced it would not return until Florida “becomes more welcoming to all.”

The California-based group cited Florida’s political climate and objected to “laws that banned most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, cracked down on illegal immigration and lifted permit requirements for carrying a concealed gun in public, along with measures that organizers said were intended to erase the identities and dignities of people from historically marginalized and excluded groups, including Black, Brown, LGBTQIA+, and Indigenous people.”

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For calendar year 2023, the convention center is on pace to set a new attendance record with a year-over-year growth of about 52% through the first nine months, said Casandra Matej, CEO and president of Visit Orlando.

She said the average daily room rate for Orlando hotels was up to $171 in September.

But metro Orlando’s hotel demand is expected to be flat for the rest of 2023 compared to last year.

Matej said holiday travel is trending favorably with advance leisure hotel bookings for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend outperforming 2022 levels by 10% and the Christmas period from Dec. 25 to Jan. 1 is up by 5%.

She also said 2024 appears headed for a positive start, citing a forecast from STR, which tracks lodging.

“Both leisure and group business travel are pacing in healthy, double-digit territory with booked room nights for the first three months of 2024 being significantly higher (+16%) than the same time from a year ago,” Matej said.

shudak@orlandosentinel.com