Orange County’s January Collections Lower than December 2021

Friday, March 4, 2022

January 2022 was much better for the tourist development tax of Orange County compared to 2021, but lower compared to last December.

Phil Diamond, Orange County Comptroller, declared that the county tourist development tax receipts were $22,414,000. It was a rise of over 189% compared to January of 2021.

It was lower than the January 2020 collections by $3.6 million.

Diamond announced that collections in February from the tourism development tax in Orange County has broken December record with $28,244,100 collected that month.

The January collections were lower than the December 2021 collections by $5.8 million.

Visit Orlando made the drop in tourism tax dollars responsible on the impact of the omicron variant of COVID-19, as well as “seasonal travel patterns.”

The tourism development tax comes from hotel rooms and other lodgings. Visit Orlando explained that in January, hotel occupancy for the Metro Orlando area averaged about 59%.

By comparison, in 2021, hotel occupancy was 34.8% and 74.5% in Jan. 2019.

Visit Orlando believes that winter breaks and major conventions will make February tax collections higher. At the beginning of April, those numbers will be released. Also, the tourism agency says for March, advance hotel bookings are running at 82% of pre-pandemic levels right now.

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