Tourism director: restrict bed tax use

Clay County’s tourism director said she and other tourism leaders throughout Florida want to prevent the expanded use of tourism tax money collected in the state.

Kimberly Morgan outlined the industry’s legislative priorities during the Clay County Tourism Council’s Jan. 11 meeting.

Under Florida law, the state collects between 1% and 7% in each county for hotel and other transient accommodations, in addition to sales tax.

Now, those tourist development tax dollars, also known as bed taxes, are remitted back to the counties they were collected in and may be used by counties for various tourism-related activities like advertising.

Morgan said that last year, two bills would have diluted the impact of the taxes by allowing counties to use the money for non-tourism expenditures.

“We’ve heard rumblings of two or three more trying to do the same thing this session,” she said. “None have been filed to my knowledge, but it still remains a threat.”

The tourism director added that funding for Visit Florida is another top priority for tourism officials. Visit Florida is the state’s official tourism marketing corporation. Morgan said tourism officials are proposing a $100 million appropriation to the corporation.

“That will be tremendous for the state,” she said, “and for emerging destinations like us, it’s important because they do co-op programs where we can be doing additional marketing that just stretches our dollar. So, the more money they have, the more hopefully they can share with us.”

Morgan added that the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association will seek legislation to reduce or eliminate the amount of transaction fees businesses pay on credit card transactions for the sales tax portion of bills.

 “This is something that we kind of take for granted,” she said. “The amount is staggering. When you pay a bill at a hotel, restaurant, or store, the credit card fee that the business pays is on the total, including the tax. The more they buy, the greater the tax.”

Morgan said that Florida businesses paid over $208 million in transaction fees in 2021. She added that paying credit card fees on the sales tax portion of a restaurant or hotel bill puts an undue burden on small businesses.