January 2012 Bed Tax Collections

[Dawn]

The Walton County Tourist Development Council collected $331,880 in January, an increase of 12.6 percent from last year.


“We were very pleased with January coming in with an increase of 12.6 percent,” said Dawn Moliterno, executive director of the South Walton TDC. “January is in shoulder season, so to have that kind of increase still shows the great momentum that we carried from last season and fall.


“We’re very optimistic about this season,” she added. “In fact, we have had bed tax collectors tell us that many of them are sold out in some of the major weeks that tradi-tionally didn’t sell out as early, so their bookings are strong.”








Okaloosa County collected $297,124 in bed taxes in January, a 15.71 percent increase from January 2011 and the third most ever collected in a January. Only January 2006 and 2007 posted larger collections. Santa Rosa County collected $38,107 in January, a 20 percent increase from January 2011.




Bed tax collection data was released recently for Okaloosa, Santa Rosa and Walton counties. All three posted double-digit gains compared to last year.


“All the reports from everybody I’ve talked to, they said the reservations are great,” said Kate Wilkes, executive director of the Santa Rosa County Tourist Development Council. “They’re way ahead of where they usually are.


“All of that advertising (with BP money) wasn’t just for last year,” Wilkes added. “It put us on the map. We also went into markets that we never had money to do before — Tennessee, Texas. We did a lot of television, things we couldn’t do before and it really helped.”

[Allifunn]

Excellent news