PETER CRANIS: January Tourist Development Tax Revenues are Best in History at $1.86 Million

73.4% increase over January 2020

BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – We now have our January Tourist Development Tax numbers and the final number was $1.86 million – a 73.4% increase over January 2020 and a 23.9% increase over January 2019, making it the best January in history – the 10th consecutive record month in a row now.

Year to date, we are at $6.25 million, compared to $3.6 million the previous year and $5.04 million in 2019/20. We are continuing to see strong demand and all areas of the tourism economy seem to be going strong.

Looking at TDT by type, hotels represented 57% of the total for the month and vacation rentals jumped up to 40% of TDT which typically has been around the 30% range – so something to keep an eye on as it had been pretty consistent since the beginning of the fiscal year.

In terms of hotel/motel revenue by city, Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral (28% which dropped a little – it has been averaging around 32%) were, as usual, slightly ahead of Melbourne and the Beaches (27% which is slightly below their previous 29% average) as a percentage of the total.

With vacation rentals jumping up a little, that did impact some of the city numbers, but because we don’t get vacation rental detail by city those are not included in those numbers.

However, we do know the breakdown of where vacation rentals are in the county and they are mostly in Cocoa Beach (29%), Melbourne and the Beaches (17%), Cape Canaveral (16%), Palm Bay (12%), and the remaining in other areas of the county (26%).

Looking ahead to February, we are expecting another record month there so fasten your seatbelts as we head into Spring Break numbers.

– Peter Cranis, Space Coast Office of Tourism Executive Director

Similar Stories