Tourist-development taxes up in 2012

What’s the sound of a busy season?

For the Longboat Key, Lido Key, St. Armands Key Chamber of Commerce, it was the stream of phone calls from visitors asking if there were any available accommodations.

“In each of the last two seasons, (those) who had come to Longboat Key had already been to islands nearby,” said Chamber President Tom Aposporos. “They seemed to be looking for a different environment.”

The latest collection figures from the tourist development tax — aka, the “bed tax” — suggest that more visitors spent the first months of 2012 on Longboat Key than they did in the same period in 2011.

The Sarasota County portion of Longboat Key collected a total $635,040.69 in bed taxes, which are paid on rentals of less than six months, during the first three months of 2012, an increase of 33.82% from the $474,545.08 collected during the same period in 2011. (The Sarasota County Commission increased the bed-tax rate last May by 5%, accounting for a portion of the hike.)

In Manatee County, where tourist-development tax numbers are available through April, Longboat Key collected $573,385.98 during the first four months of the year, an increase of 13.02% from the $507,340.97 collected between January and April of 2011.

“We have early indications, based on the bed-tax collections, that it was a very good season,” Aposporos said. “Most of the independent vacation, hospitality and restaurant representatives on Longboat Key have indicated that it was an extremely good season.”

Overall collections are up in both counties for the beginning of 2012: Sarasota County collected $5,821,799.03 during the first three months of the year — a 29.96% increase from the same period of last year — while collections for Manatee County rose by 18.78% for the first four months of 2012 to $3,705,780.04.

Virginia Haley, president of Visit Sarasota, which until earlier this month was the Sarasota Convention & Visitors Bureau, attributed the season’s strength to two factors:

Last summer, Dr. Beach ranked Siesta Beach as the No. 1 beach in the country, which gave a boost to the entire area.

“It was a regional benefit,” Haley said. “Longboat, Venice, even Anna Maria were impacted.”

The area also benefited from the Sarasota County Commission’s decision to increase bed-tax rates for the second consecutive year last May, which allowed for increased marketing of the area, including a commercial that aired nationally.

The season would have been stronger if not for the loss of 8% of hotel rooms Sarasota County-wide two years earlier, many of which came from the Colony Beach & Tennis Resort, according to Haley.

“Although we’re celebrating how well we did, it does make me genuinely sad when I think of what we could have done had the Colony been open,” she said.

Click here to view Manatee County and Sarasota County tourist development tax collection numbers.