With the addition of two new hotels in Whitefish and record-setting summer crowds converging on Glacier National Park, the city’s resort tax collections shot up 27.7 percent in August for an increase of $118,794, according to this week’s city manager’s report.
“August is our second largest Resort Tax collection month of the year, so a 27.7 percent increase is incredible,” Whitefish City Manager Chuck Stearns wrote in his report to city council.
The city reported a total resort tax collection of $547,516 this August, compared to $428,722 in August 2015.
Collections on lodging increased with the addition of two new hotels, the Firebrand Hotel and the Hampton Inn and Suites, as well as the addition of other vacation rentals, accounting for $78,068 of the total increase.
The new lodging accommodations prompted collections to increase from $104,061 in August of last year to $182,129 for August of this year, a leap of 57 percent.
Prior to that development, there were about 1,200 guest rooms in Whitefish, according to Whitefish Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director Dylan Boyle, not counting personal rentals such as Airbnb or VRBO.
Combined with the opening of the Firebrand Hotel, 161 rooms have been added to the local inventory this year, an increase of 13 percent in lodging accommodations, while the Whitefish City Council’s recent approval of a Marriott TownePlace Suites off U.S. Highway 93 South will add another 81 rooms.
All three categories of resort tax collections — lodging, bars and restaurants and retail — saw increases, indicating derivative spending from visitors staying in local lodging.
The 100-year anniversary of the National Park Service, and Glacier National Park’s record-setting visitation, also figured prominently into the increased collections, Stearns said.
“For the year-to-date after two months of collections, we are 17.66 percent or $157,021 ahead of last year’s collections,” Stearns said of this fiscal year’s collections for July and August.
In April 2015, Whitefish voters approved an increase from 2 percent to 3 percent in the resort tax, which applies to all three economic sectors.
The increases from the prior year are calculated at 2 percent vs. 2 percent. However, the dollar figures collected are actual collections at the 3 percent rate. The latest figures are calculated and reported at 3 percent vs. 3 percent.