Q&A on the News

Q: I have recently stayed in the Holiday Inn Express in Augusta and Madison. On my bill, I am required to pay a $5 fee entitled the Georgia hotel-motel fee. What is this $5 and what is it used for?

—Joe Patterson, Canton

A: The fee was enacted by the General Assembly to increase funding for transportation improvements, Natalie Dale, spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Transportation, told Q&A on the News.

The fee, included in the Transportation Funding Act of 2015, went into effect July 1, 2015.

Hotels must collect a $5 fee per room, per night, unless the room is rented as an “extended stay” unit for 31 or more consecutive days.

Revenue collected from the fee is designated for transportation purposes, including roads, bridges, public transportation, rails, airports, seaports and buses, as well as the infrastructure needed to run and maintain these services.

Dale said the hotel-motel fee is used alongside other fees, such as the heavy vehicle fees and the excise tax user fees, to raise revenue for transportation projects.

“The utilization of hotel fees captures many out-ofstate visitors who use Georgia’s transportation system,” Dale wrote via email.

According to the Georgia Department of Economic Development, the state’s tourism industry saw $61.1 billion in total output in 2016. This was a 3.5 percent increase from 2015.