An addendum to this week's story on the sure-to-be-slow summer tourism season: Last week, SFR asked city of Santa Fe finance director David Millican what the projected 10 percent drop in hotel occupancy would translate to in terms of gross receipts tax revenue for the city.Millican got back to us*, but too late to make the print edition. Here is his reply, in part:
We are predicting 9% drops in GRT generally and have not done a detailed study on tourism because tourist and non tourist information is lumped together in two major categories, Retail and Accomodations and Food...
In other words, it's hard to say what a slow tourism season means for the city budget. More from Millican after the cut:
The summer economy last year escaped most collateral damage from the economic collapse in the fall. We think the concerns that built up during last year will be reflected in summer travel this year. We hope, as does the industry, that emerging signs of stability and optimism will mitigate some of that. With the Railyard, The Convention Center and the Railrunner added to the mix there are bound to be good things happening.
Millican adds that local lodging tax numbers aren't as bad as a daily business-page story made them out to be yesterday:
I saw a blurb in the New Mexican today that cited a 42% decrease in Lodging Tax. That is not an accurate reflection of what is going on. The Lodging Tax report showing the big drop is based on cash receipts. Some cash gets in after the deadline but before penalties are assessed so the best number to look at is the year to date number which is down about 11%.
* Note: Newspapers always appreciate that.
