Fort Collins lodging sales, tax receipts double; bed tax near pre-pandemic levels

FORT COLLINS — Third-quarter lodging net taxable sales, lodging sales taxes and lodging taxes from the city’s “bed tax” more than doubled compared with the same period last year.

The bed tax, based on actual rooms rented, have nearly reached pre-pandemic levels.

City reports covering July through September showed net taxable sales for lodging of $25.1 million this year versus $10.2 million year-over-year. Sales taxes on lodging rose to $916,000 from about $388,000.

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The bed tax is a 3% levy; 70% of it goes to Visit Fort Collins, which promotes the city for business travel and leisure tourism, with the rest to fund arts and culture grants by the city.

Those lodging-tax receipts rose to $635,000 for the quarter, up from about $280,000 year-over-year. Bed-tax receipts were about $680,000 in the third quarter of 2019.

“We’re seeing lodging come back,” said Visit Fort Collins president and CEO Cynthia Eichler. She said the rebound has been particularly strong for downtown hotels and for Colorado State University football.

“Leisure is still strongest by far,” Eichler said. Business travel is hindered by less need to travel with the increase in remote work. “We look for more business travel in 2022.”

She said fourth-quarter results will continue the recovery “but not at the same pace.”

Also starting in the fourth quarter is collection of a new 3% levy to fund a tourism improvement district that Fort Collins approved in August.

An intergovernmental agreement needs to go into effect for the TID tax to formally begin, but hotels are “collecting in November for the month of October,” said Clay Frickey, redevelopment program manager.

The new fee is expected to raise about $800,000 a year to market the city as a travel destination.