The Walton County Tourist Development Council will ask county commissioners Tuesday to raise the bed tax by a half cent to 4.5 cents on the dollar to help fund marketing efforts it hopes will bring in more tourism revenue.
If approved, the TDC plans to use the more than $1 million in anticipated revenue to help market the Emerald Coast to a low-cost airline that would use the Panama City-Bay County International Airport, scheduled to open in May 2010.
Bay County, which raised its bed tax on short-term rentals to 5 percent in February, and the Bay county Airport Authority also will help pay marketing costs.
Mares anticipates "quite a bit of discussion" at Tuesday's commission meeting, but said he thinks a decision likely will be made that night.
"We have tried to provide as many answers to questions as we can anticipate (before the meeting)," he added.
The proposal already is meeting opposition by the Walton County Taxpayers Association, a local government watchdog group.
On its Web site, the association says the Beaches of South Walton has "placed a proposal on the agenda ... to increase taxes on rentals by 12.5 percent beginning June 1," and that the association's board has voted unanimously to oppose the hike.
However, Mares said the 12.5 percent figure is "somewhat deceptive."
"The tax is a half-cent increase; the percent of change from 4 cents to 4.5 cents is 12.5 percent. These are totally different ways to represent the proposed increase, and obviously will be confusing to most," he said in an e-mail.
Bob Hudson, president of the taxpayers group, said some companies have already signed contacts with renters with the 4 percent bed-tax included. If that goes up a 0.5 percent as proposed, some smaller lodging places that already are struggling will be left with the bill.
He said some association members will attend Tuesday's Commission meeting but did not know whether they will speak.
The last time Walton County's bed tax was raised was in 2004, when it went up from 3 cents to 4 cents on the dollar. The fourth cent was used for marketing to potential visitors and for beach maintenance, Mares said.
Southwest Airlines was mentioned several times at Wednesday's TDC meeting during a presentation about the results of a marketing study.
The presentation, given to show the possible new markets that the new airline would serve, focused on the cities Southwest already flies out of. The top five markets are Nashville, Houston, Orlando, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
Mares said that with the right marketing, the local tourism industry could reach more than 3 million households that fit the demographic profile of visitors to South Walton.
The study determined the top markets by categorizing visitors by age, income and net worth. Also included was information such as their preferred lodging and dining preferences, magazines they read and the television and radio programs they listen to.
Good point, I was only looking at TDT since that was the discussion raised by the thread title and the discussion at hand. Sorry for the confusion and thanks for the clarification SN.
....Math, according to the TDC:
