Bed tax fell 57%, but tourism reviving
Despite pandemic, Central Ohio’s travel economy is rising
A steep decline in travel and conventions in 2020 cost the region’s tourism industry tens of thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in lost tax revenue, according to economists and an annual report from Experience Columbus.
But the region’s travel economy is recovering, albeit slowly, from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic that sapped the sector last year.
Columbus collected $10.1 million from the hotel bed tax in 2020, a decline of more than 57% from the year before, and hotel occupancy fell nearly 40% last year compared with 2019, Experience Columbus said in its annual report.
Around 300 events were canceled, costing the local economy more than $310 million.
Columbus’ hotel tax revenue funds groups such as Experience Columbus, the arts and social service agencies. Some of the money, for example, goes into an affordable housing trust, which lost more than $1 million in funding in 2020, accounting for a little more than half of its 2019 hotel tax revenue.
“Some people don’t have an understanding of the importance of what the bed tax funds,” said Brian Ross, CEO for Experience Columbus.
Even with hotel bookings on the rise, the region’s hospitality sector likely won’t fully recover until 2023, Ross said.
However, hotel bookings are up and surveys show Americans are ready to travel again. The Longwoods Interna
and the government sector added 1,900 jobs apiece last month.
Though its unemployment rate is higher than Cincinnati and Cleveland, Columbus is bringing back jobs faster than its counterparts.
Columbus has 24,700 fewer jobs than it did a year ago while Cincinnati is in a hole of 50,800 jobs and Cleveland needs 60,800 jobs to get back to even.
The metro and county unemployment data are not adjusted for seasonal differences, so rates typically fall in the spring as the weather improves.
In March, unemployment rates fell in 86 of Ohio's 88 counties and increased in two.
Union County, which posted the lowest unemployment rate in central Ohio in March, was one of nine counties in Ohio with an unemployment rate of 3.5% or less.
Union's rate was 3.4% in March, followed by 3.8% in Delaware and Licking counties and 3.9% in Madison County.
Morrow County's unemployment rate was 4.1% March. Next was a 4.2% rate for Pickaway County and 4.6% rates for Fairfield and Hocking County.
Perry and Franklin counties tied for the highest rate in the region among the counties at 5.5%. The rate for Columbus was 5.7%.
The unemployment rate for Franklin County and Columbus typically mirror the rate for the metro area. But since the pandemic, unemployment rates for cities have been running higher.
Holmes County in northeast Ohio had the lowest unemployment rate in the state in March at 2.4%.
Monroe and Mahoning counties tied for the highest unemployment rate at 6.6%. mawilliams@dispatch.com @Bizmarkwilliams