A total $8.9 million was collected in July, the last audited month, from guests paying a 5% tax at the area's 115,000 hotel and motel rooms and other short-term rental properties. That number was 12.1% over what Haynie's office had projected for the month and 15.6% higher than the $7.7 million chalked up in July 2003.
"July collects set yet another record for the resort tax as it was the highest amount ever collected for the month of July," Haynie says. Cumulative collections also exceeded last year's number by 17% ($13.9 million) and budget projections by 10% ($8.7 million.)
Even more encouraging to Haynie's office, which oversees all expenditures and revenue in the county, was the $93.9 million posted to date in tourist tax revenue. That figure compares with nearly $93.4 million collected in all of 2003. The county's best year was 2000 when it booked $108 million.
The monthly tourist tax revenue postings are watched closely by area real estate developers, lenders and appraisers as a key barometer of the local hospitality industry's health. The revenue helps pay off bonds that financed the one-million-sf expansion of the four-million-sf Orange County Convention Center and also pays for ongoing national and international tourism industry promotions.
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