Bed-tax figures suggest Key is getting sleepier

Longboat Key is getting sleepier, according to the latest bed-tax collection figures. The island’s share of collections of tourist development taxes — which are paid on rentals of less than six months — is down compared to other communities in both Sarasota and Manatee counties for the most recent nine months for which figures are available.

A tourist-development tax report from Sarasota County Tax Collector Barbara Ford-Coates’ office showed that Longboat Key collected 11.25% of the county’s resort taxes from October 2010 through June, meaning that the island’s share of tourist tax is on track to drop for at least the fourth consecutive year. According to the report, Longboat Key accounted for 14.9% of tourist-tax collections in the fiscal year of 2007-08.

The Manatee County portion of the island appeared to be headed in a similar direction. Figures provided by Manatee County Tax Collector Ken Burton Jr.’s office show that the island collected 16.16% of the county’s tourist-development tax dollars. Between November 2007 and October 2008, the island accounted for 21.3% of the county’s tourist tax dollars.

Virginia Haley, president of the Sarasota Convention & Visitors Bureau, attributed much of the decline to the collapse of the Colony Beach & Tennis Resort.

“You can’t take a major beach report off the line and not have a major impact on Longboat,” she said.

Each community’s percentage is obviously driven by what other communities generate, Haley said, and over the past decade, many changes have occurred in mainland hotel offerings, including the arrival of the Ritz-Carlton and Hotel Indigo in Sarasota and upgrades to the Lido Beach Resort.

“Other communities grew some rooms, but Longboat lost some rooms,” Haley said.

The same figures show that the share of tourist-development taxes for other barrier islands has increased. Anna Maria Island — which consists of three cities, each of which is reported separately in tax collector reports — collected a total 44.56% of tourist tax dollars between November 2010 through July, up from 2007-08, when its collections made up 37.61% of the county’s tourist-tax dollars.

Meanwhile, in Sarasota County, Siesta Key — which got a boost earlier this year when Dr. Beach ranked it as the top beach in the country — collected 31.25% of tourist-tax revenue during the first 10 months of the fiscal year, up for the fourth year in a row from its 2007-08 share of 28.5%.