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July marks record month for bed tax
YOUNGSTOWN
July was a record month for collection of Mahoning County’s 3 percent hotel and motel bed tax, with just under $100,000 collected, Phil Moore, convention and visitors’ bureau director, told the county commissioners.
The normal collection is about $60,000 a month, Moore said Thursday.
Moore attributed the record to the Summer Festival of the Arts at Youngstown State University and other smaller festivals, a dog show at the Canfield Fairgrounds and youth sports tournaments.
Two-thirds of the bed tax money collected goes to the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport and one third to CVB.
The Midwest Shrine Convention that will be based at the Holiday Inn in Boardman on Sept. 14-18 and will draw 1,500 to 1,800 attendees also is likely to significantly boost local hotel use, Moore said.
The event will feature a clown competition at the Holiday Inn, a parade in North Lima and an equestrian competition at the Canfield Fairgrounds.
Commissioner Anthony T. Traficanti said he expects local hotels and motels to do well as they house natural-gas drilling and drilling-equipment maintenance workers coming here for the Marcellus Shale drilling boom.
Those lodging establishments already have been housing out-of-town mapping specialists as well as land-title searchers researching land-ownership records at the county courthouse as drilling companies seek drilling arrangements with landowners, he said.
The commissioners also approved travel, lodging, registration and exhibit-booth rental expenses totaling $5,100 for CVB staff to promote tourism in Mahoning County at annual leisure and bus-tour trade shows. The money will come from the bed tax.
The conventions, each lasting several days, will be in October in Sandusky, January in Columbus and February in Knoxville, Tenn.