“Natrona County lodging tax receipts jump in November”

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Natrona County lodging tax receipts jump in November Posted: 18 Dec 2010 05:06 PM PST Lodging tax revenues in Natrona County in November exceeded projected revenues and dwarfed receipts from a year ago, according to a report from the Casper Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. People staying in local hotels paid $122,876 in lodging taxes in November, $14,000 more than anticipated and $43,641 more than the $79,235 collected the same time period in 2009, according to the report released Thursday at the monthly meeting of the Natrona County Travel and Tourism Council. The November receipts were the third highest for the Convention and Visitors Bureau in the past 20 years, its CEO, Aaron McCreight, said. Lodging tax receipts depend on when hotels report collections to the state and when the state distributes the revenues to the counties, McCreight said. Previous months' receipts had been low, so November became a month to catch up, he said. "Everything will even out." Even so, recent occupancy rates are between 4 percent and 8 percent higher than a year ago, McCreight said. The council, which oversees the collection of the 3 percent lodging tax, is a joint powers board composed of representatives from the city of Casper, Natrona County, Bar Nunn, Edgerton, Evansville and Midwest. Its marketing arm, the Convention and Visitors Bureau, administers the revenues to promote central Wyoming. County voters overwhelmingly approved renewing the tax for another four years in the Nov. 2 general election. In other business, the Convention and Visitors Bureau, with the help of Shawn Houck of Adbay.com, has revamped its mobile website so visitors can easily find daily local events, restaurants, hotels, and directions and maps to find their locations. "The visitors who are coming in, especially the younger ones, are a little more [technologically] savvy," Houck said. The council also approved forwarding $3,000 in grant money to pay for up-front travel expenses for out-of-town coaches and players from the Colorado Rockies organization for the Casper Baseball Camp Jan. 7-9. Reach Tom Morton at (307) 266-0592, or at tom.morton@trib.com. For more information: Log on to the Convention and Visitors Bureau website at www.casperwyoming.info. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php Five Filters featured site: So, Why is Wikileaks a Good Thing Again?.

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